‘Saving My Boyfriend’, A Novel – With a Twist

BCM112 - Blog Update #2

To begin my second blog update for #BCM112 , I suppose I should introduce you to our group’s cool project: Saving My Boyfriend (From An Evil Villainess) Website & Our Linktree !

As we’ve said a fair few times, this is a web novel, but it’s a little different. We like to call it “one of the first of its kind” because it is! The novel’s artwork and written content is produced from Artificial Intelligence! Whilst we created the basic story outline, characters and settings, pretty much everything else you see and read in this unique Digital Artefact is done by AI!

We have achieved several milestones, including publishing five chapters and establishing a consistent posting schedule on our social media platforms. Additionally, we have prepared merchandise designs for printing. Our team made the decision to pivot from Pop-Vinyl figurines to clothing and accessories, which I will explain further below. Moving forward, our goal is to offer tote bags and sustainable clothing featuring our designs, as well as completing our AI-generated book.

Our team members have all been super productive but as this is a personal blog, I’ll now outline the parts of the project I’ve been tasked with! Firstly I designed and created the website. This was super enjoyable and I liked getting to play with my creativity to form an aesthetic design that matched our group vision.

Our Current Logo, Designed by Me

We split our team into three different groups, I am a part of the Tangible Media team, which means I’ve been working on the merch designs for ‘Saving My Boyfriend’ specifically we have focused on tote bags so far! I’ve spent several hours across the last few weeks in the Maker studio using the sublimation printer and transferring our designs onto blank tote bags which we have purchased from Spotlight.

Since my last blog, you’ll notice the switch in ideas for tangible media. At the beginning of the semester, I was planning to create a fantasy web-novel using Chat GPT and also came up with the idea of creating collectible figurines of the characters my team and I would create. Because in my first assignment I used apps like Blender and learnt how to 3D print a small figurine in our maker studio.

However, to see why we changed our media ideas, you can have a look at our presentation here: Group Presentation

Through this process of reflection, I learned that it’s acceptable to change direction when a goal cannot be realistically achieved within a desired timeframe. Consequently, my team and I have discovered a medium that we are truly passionate about.

Problem Solving

We are pretty fortunate to have had a nice run with the sublimation printer in the maker studio – at least once we got the hang of using it after a pretty extensive learning tutorial. Our first print had a bit of fading and staining, but I realised why this had occurred and fixed this error moving forward.

After conducting some experimentation with the tote bag printing process, I’ve discovered that for optimal results, the bag needs to be positioned on the printer at a slight angle. This helps to ensure that the straps of the bag are flattened out and don’t cause any interference with the printing process. I’ve also learned that it’s important to protect the bag from burning during the printing process. To achieve this, I’ve found that it’s necessary to cover the entire printing section with a layer or two of scrap paper. Not only does this prevent any accidental damage to the bag, but it also helps to ensure that the ink adheres properly and produces a high-quality finished product. By implementing these techniques, we can ensure that our tote bags are printed with precision and care, resulting in a product that meets a high quality standard.

Tangible Media Prototyping

Where to Next?

Prior to my next progress blog, my team aims to boost our interaction by vending our remixed merchandise on campus, producing tangible media such as posters, completing our web novel, and enhancing the traffic to our social media platforms and websites through testing different forms of promotion.