FOR COLORED GIRLS - 2019
GRAPHIC NOVEL | OCT 2019 - DEC 2020
For Colored Girls Who Weather Storms is a graphic novel project that draws inspiration from Ntozake Shange's renowned 1975 play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow is Enuf. The graphic novel aims to highlight the stories of women from diverse backgrounds who have successfully overcome traumatic experiences. These personal narratives revolve around the themes of resilience and healing, demonstrating how acknowledging and confronting past traumas can lead to growth and progress.
As the sole illustrator for the graphic novel, I am dedicated to bringing these stories to life through art. Though the project is still in progress, a finished story is available for viewing, along with a detailed account of the process involved in creating the visuals for the piece. The goal of the project is to provide a platform for women to share their experiences, inspire others to find strength in their own struggles, and celebrate the power of resilience.
FINAL PRODUCT
Here are two spreads from Feelings, written by Poet Laureate Ashanti Files. I’ve also included a few pages from other stories in the novel.
COLOR
Color is a huge part of this story, and since this was inspired by Ntozake Shange’s piece, we knew we wanted a special way for color to take part in this novel. As shown in the images below, we first thought to assign each poem its own season, and to have color palettes that would go with each season. We decided to scrap this idea and instead, each writer would have their own individual color. The writers chose the color that they thought best represented them.
When writing these stories, the writers were told to jot down the colors they were thinking of and those colors soon became their own personal color in the novel. Below are examples of how I wanted to use Ashanti’s color (indigo) to interact with her skin tone and clothes. The first version shows her with her natural skin tone but wearing clothes with her color. The second has a slight tint of indigo on her skin and clothes, and the third is a much bolder approach to the idea. I ended up choosing the second version since I wanted both her natural skin tone to show up, but I also wanted just a light tint of indigo to further emphasize the idea of having every writer have their own personalized color.
STORYBOARD & LAYOUT DESIGN
These are a few of the thumbnail layouts and storyboard that I created. I compiled the panels that I thought fit best with each story and then I tried to visualize how everything would sit on a page, while also making sure the layout was dynamic and engaging.
PENCIL SKETCH & LINE - ART/INKING
For the pencil/sketch phase, I started with loose sketches so I could get a clearer idea of how everything would look. Then, during the line-art process I made sure to refine the lines from before and, as you’ll see in the images I provided below, there are changes that I made to the line-art to make the images fit the story better.
