“Nightfall” is the final outcome of the Narrative Anthology Mini-Brief that we were asked to do for this module. It was quite different from anything else I had made for the course, or ever, really. I’m no stranger when it comes to covering personal topics within my art but this was on a new level of personal. It’s something I had only ever felt comfortable talking about with people I knew I could trust but decided it would be good for me to try and explain those feelings in an artistic way as that has always worked out for the better when I did it in previous projects. It was a struggle wording it in a way that would not trigger me or anyone else who has experienced sexual harassment (be it online or offline) but would capture the essence of the dread that comes with it and the feelings that stick around.
The colour palette I used – blue and white – is the default colour palette of most messaging apps, which is where most of the harassment came from. The panels in which the objects fly outside of the panel are meant to represent the harassment at points taking place outside of my phone screen too.
I only really had a very limited amount of time to complete my comic as I was going through a bit of a mental tumble in the first couple of weeks of the module, which really hindered me from getting anything done. Had to bust this comic out in about 2 days before the deadline, but for what it’s worth, I think I was able to do it justice. I had a tutorial on Wednesday (a day before the deadline) and was told that some of the visual language that I used could have used perking/updating, I definitely agree and will take that advice with me moving forward (especially since I’ve had that criticism come up once before, meaning it’s a bit of an irk of mine) but was simply not able to do anything about it this time. I did give it an honest shot after I had come back from work in the evening but my approach was not satisfying me, I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me so I left it as is.
I think had I been in a better mindset from the get-go, I could’ve definitely done a better job with my contribution to the group publication, but I think I did the best I could. I might come back to this concept later in the future as I think it has potential to be more fleshed out than what I’ve been able to make for now. The comic feels a bit like a condensed version of a longer story made to fit a 4 page insert in a showcase of art of sorts, which is probably what the point of the anthology part of the brief was!
Robertas Tijusas 