What Happens Now?
“What Happens Now?” is a graphic novel featuring a series of conversations with younger versions of me, exploring the evolutions in my relationship with both art and myself. The story serves to reflect on the past, look to the future, and reconcile the differences between what my 6-year-old self hoped I would become and who I actually am. My art has shaped me just as much as I have shaped it, and this growth is explored using a combination of traditional and digital elements – including personal artifacts from childhood. This juxtaposition combines the past and present visually while navigating the shifts in style and medium that have shaped me into the artist – and person – that I am today.
While this story is incredibly personal, growing up is universal, and I hope it connects with everyone who has found themselves somewhere unexpected or anticipated. Dreams are a part of life – as is not always achieving them, and engaging in these theoretical conversations can provide a sense of closure, helping us recognize that we may have made our past self proud in ways we were previously unaware of.
Access “What Happens Now?”
Watch The Compilation
The second component of this thesis is a video compilation consisting of digitized childhood home videos, bridging the gap between reality and artistic interpretation. While the graphic novel takes place in what is more akin to a mindscape, the home videos provide an unfiltered but lively look into my childhood, striking a balance between the real and the symbolic world.
The longer version of the compilation that was on display at the Winthrop Senior Show is available here
Behind The Scenes
From creating new illustrations to sourcing old artworks to creating custom fonts out of childhood handwriting, each element of “What Happens Now?” was included due to a dedication to the smallest details and an abundance of love for where I came from and where I’m heading. This is a love letter to what it means to create, to my childhood self, and to all that has shaped me along the way.
This is one of the final collages from start to finish. I hadn't used my printer's scanner before this project, so it was a lot of trial and error. I also had to test my skills in photoshop to help bring out the finer details - glitter had an especially hard time showing up on the scans. Paper texture overlays were added to most pages once transferred into Procreate to add back some of that handmade feel that was lost during scanning.
One page from section 2 from sketches to completion! The first two sections have digital line art to give more of a coloring book impression. As we move forward in the timeline, the younger versions begin to take more creative freedom, so the tools used for line art adjust based on my art from the time. These pages were moved back and forth between Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Procreate a LOT, so many, many folders were made to store all of the different versions of these pages.
I quickly realized that tracing my digital sketches with traditional tools would require a light table, and it was honestly a lot of fun to work with. I did, however, decide to make copies of all of my traditional line art after completing the work shown here, just to avoid any smudging or damage to the originals.
This was one of my first explorations of how I would incorporate traditional media into the story. I ended up adjusting the characters to fit more of a grid layout, and the colors had shifted some as well, opting for a more limited color scheme prioritizing pinks and purples while switching my present-day sweater to blue, as that would become the identifying color for this stage.
These are the earliest versions of the designs for each age. The majority of these elements did make it into the final piece, but age 20 shifted as I decided to focus on my time in Italy, and the present day design changed alongside me. It was hard to find a cut off point for the present day design, as I knew I would continue to change as I worked on the project. Overall, these designs were largely inspired by home videos, old pictures, and memories of outfits I felt particularly like myself in. It's a really interesting experience to concentrate an entire era of your life into one simple character design.
This project initially had a much more somber tone, inspired more by one of my previous works (titled "What if Things Don't Get Better?") where I explored the darker side of mental health and the importance of living for the little things. As I continued to work on this project and dig through old art, notes, and photos, I started to feel more at home with myself and appreciative of how far I've come, even if I haven't met every goal I've set for myself. The story quickly began to change alongside that.
This is a direct comparison on how art from the past influenced each section. While old artworks are included in the collages and on some pages, I wanted the coloring style and media used to reflect where I was artistically. To the left there are images taken from my personal sketchbook from freshman year of college, and the same media and style was then merged with my current drawing style for that section. To the right, there are a few examples of some of the art used to build the border for section 2. Each illustrated page has a border created from actual art from that time period, providing a smoother transition from the collage pages and connecting the section as a whole.
This is the process of designing the fonts used for the dialogue of each younger version of me. It was important to me that I incorporate as much authentic material from the past as possible. Creating these involved going through a LOT of old journal entries and essays, and while the process of finding examples of every letter and symbol needed to complete the template was tedious, it was amazing to be able to type in handwriting I haven't had for over 15 years.