Nightdreamer

This was a personal zine project I created for the Toronto Comics Art Festival. The story presents a protagonist whom falls asleep and awakes to a wild dream.

Using only traditional mediums of gouache and crayons, I delicately illustrated characters and plots inspired by little things I experience in everyday life; bringing in my feline friend as a supporting character.  I turn these mundane moments into a fun, vivid adventure.

This project allowed me to strengthen my abilities in creating narrative structures with ideated plot-lines, and to integrate text and image for an outcome of a consistent story. At the end, I learnt to construct compelling sequential panels to demonstrate my understanding of illustrating books.

My intent was to create a cohesive storyline, and transform it into an adventure of the protagonist within three sections.

Section one features the introduction of the protagonist and her supporting cat. While Section two follows into her colourful, surreal awakening and exploration of situation. The third and final section of the story ends with protagonist’s return back in to monotonous reality.

The goal was to produce the zine into divisions of colour and black/white tones based on their page organization to minimize print costs. The shift in colours play a role in the character’s experiential transition from dreams to nightmare; in addition to the expression of mood within the story’s atmosphere.