Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Mark Badgers Frolic

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I'm trying to integrate my process drawings into the finished work, and figure out how to structure a story visually
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3 comments:

  1. Jonny GrayFebruary 11, 2010 at 12:44 PM

    Am I right in reading these as four pairs of pages meant to be viewed side by side (i.e. 4 "double page spreads")? Or am I reading too much into what I see as an oscillation of worked "margins" with more or less clear margins as I scroll up and down the stack of files? Sometimes the worked margins (and in one case, bottom and top margins) seem to line up; sometimes they don't.

    Either way, I am fascinated by the shift in value in the progression. The center elements in each jpeg/file are usually darker than the surrounding elements and tend to be either a black or warm gray (with some departures). The surrounding compositional elements are typically more transparent and play with a limited (mostly but not exclusively green) palette. The over all effect is a kind of focusing of my eye on the central panels. It feels a bit like foregrounding and backgrounding without losing a sense of surface -- an intriguing sense of depth without perspective (i.e. value shift and color transparency taking the place of blurred/sharp focus in playing with depth of field).

    And yes, there is this eerie sense of an actual figure in there and an actual story, but it hovers at the edge of awareness. Is that an eye? Is that a crouched figure? Why do I think so? Etc. I like the indeterminacy of where that narrative resides -- in the construction or in the reader. In other words, the story my mind wants to make feels a little more guided than just reader-response interpretation...but the guiding presence is hard to pin down.

    Not sure I can offer more in relation to your concern about how to structure the story visually. Is that a question about ordering or about reworking pages? Anyway, I've mostly just commented about what I see as I look. I hope that kind of feedback is useful.

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  2. Mark BFebruary 11, 2010 at 1:59 PM

    I do pages in sets of four, 2 spreads stacked. A holdover from thumbnailing on typing paper. It's also an effective block of a story to get done in a week. But since I work in Flash god knows what the final presentation is, prints? publication jpgs? a swf? More then anything it's just letting process happen with drawing and not being restricted to drawing a set of icons, but wanting to hold on to some of that feel of iconography. Abstract comics get to be my sketchbook for where I'm gonna go in some ways.

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  3. UnknownFebruary 14, 2010 at 4:04 PM

    This is some fantastic stuff Mark! Very fluid in both line and layout. I can definitely see this being published in book form given the spreads. The side-by-side panels give me room for the eye to bounce around and piece together its own narrative. Keep us updated on where this goes!!

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