Sitemap
Anna Slepneva

Anna Slepneva

I’m a student on MA Illustration and Visual Media at UAL LCC, did my BA at BHSAD, Moscow.

9. Tutorial with Bill 11.03.

5 min readMar 11, 2020

Few days ago I got the final text from Uncle M.. It’s good, but still the only thing that I can show to the tutor is that translated piece of the first chapter.

Here’s synopsis by Uncle M.:

История как мне видится.

Молодой человек довольно сложной душевной организации, что выражается в тяге к прекрасному, постоянно испытывает тревогу и меланхолию от несовершенства окружающего мира. Непрестижная работа, лень, друзья-наркоманы — жизнь обычного человека тяготит его. Одна радость — девушка в которую он влюблён, но никак не может признаться, потому что они часто вместе в компании и у них есть общие друзья. Герой много пьёт и на этом фоне от проявившейся смелости его постоянно настигает фантазия о том, что он может все это бросить и уехать. Но реальный мир снова поглощает его. Девушка встречает другого, герой страдает. Потом у него снова появляется шанс, но он уже не использует его. Финал открытый. Герой просто едет домой по шоссе, например. Подразумевается, что из этого водоворота не выбраться, не изменившись внутри себя, не поменяв своё отношение к происходящему.

A young man of a quite complex mental organization, which is expressed in a craving for beauty, constantly experiences anxiety and melancholy from the imperfections of the surrounding world. Low-prestige work, laziness, friends-addicts — the life of an ordinary person weighs on him. One joy is the girl with whom he is in love, but he can not confess it, because they are often together in the company and they have common friends. The character drinks a lot and from the courage that appeared, he is constantly overtaken by the fantasy that he can throw it all away and leave. But the real world absorbs him again. The girl meets another, the character suffers. Then he gets a chance again, but he doesn’t use it anymore. The final is open. The character just goes home on the highway, for example. The implication is that you can’t get out of this whirlpool without changing your inner self, without changing your attitude to what is happening.

The text is the combination of different pieces from Unkle M. diaries and writings from that time period. It is why the style of writing changes from one chapter to another. So, I really enjoy reading the first chapter, but the Saturday, which consist of dialogue, I see more like a comics. It is quite important moment, I think. The dialogue itself is surrealistic nonsense, but characters are on drugs, they see the world in different way.

My personal visual association — benzine colours.

Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
illustrations by lucjan

Reference by Bill: Patrice Killoffer (repetitions)

Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
by Patrice Killoffer

The details of the interior is not significant. Here attention is on the inner state of the character. But in another chapters, like the first one, details could be really important.

Press enter or click to view image in full size
by Jenny Wildfang

It could be really sketchy. I think it corresponds the voice of the dairy.

Get Anna Slepneva’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

One of the ways how it could be done: I could start with more text, less visuals, and than end with completely visual thing. Still text needs some editing. There are almost six thousands words on Russian.

One of the part I’m thinking to cut down is tales, which character is writing on the job instead of working. This is could be important to understand him better, but I’m not sure, that the text of the tales should be there. It could be turned into images completely.

Also, after my tutorial with Ksenia Iwas thinking how to combine it with my story.

Option one.

There could be some sort of prologue and epilogue from my point of view.

Option two

There could be two parallel stories, two characters: an adult and a child. Two different StP. The problem is that I don’t really know how to switch from one to another.

For example, there could be a girl going to StP for holidays by train. Her uncle meets her and some other relatives on the station, because he has car. Then they go their separate ways. There could be some places when they meet each other, but I still don’t know what is the best way to show two different stories altogether. It could be cool if there would be repetitions of some places from different perceptions. But I made a list of locations from the text, and there are no places which could be used like that. And in the end there could be child 15 years after, reading his uncles dairies or talking to him in the bar.

Press enter or click to view image in full size
Press enter or click to view image in full size
The first one was suggested by my peers, but I personally don’t like it. And the last one is by Bill about character leaving the story.

It is obvious from today notes, I am really far from mythological illustrations, which I introduced in my proposal. It is seems unnecessary for me now. I don’t really understand how and for what I could use it here.

--

--

Anna Slepneva
Anna Slepneva

Written by Anna Slepneva

I’m a student on MA Illustration and Visual Media at UAL LCC, did my BA at BHSAD, Moscow.