Today I gave my students a quick presentation on some of the basic considerations for composition, which I am now sharing with you! I’ve given them separate talks about color and tonal value/contrast, which are also super important compositional concerns. (I’ll be sharing those presentations too once I properly format them)
I personally love learning about different compositional techniques. It’s fun to think about the ways that the brain views & sorts images, and how we can trick it into feeling a certain way or looking at certain aspects of an image first! It’s easy to fall into compositional ruts (which I am also guilty of) because a lot of art gets by with mediocre, though serviceable, compositions. If you can generally understand what’s happening in an image then it’s generally fine. However, it’s the truly great compositions, where everything in the whole image has been considered and ‘clicks’ together, that bump up an illustration to a visual slam dunk. NC Wyeth is one of my favorite artists for this reason: his compositions are rock solid, varied based on the image’s intent, and always enhance the mood or action he is depicting.
For extra reading, some online compositional resources that I’ve found helpful or interesting include:
Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis (download it for FREE. Such a great book all-around.)
Gurney Journey (check out the “Composition” tag, but really everything he posts is great)
The Schweitzer guide to spotting tangents
Cinemosaic (a blog by Lou Romano with some truly WONDERFUL compositions captured from various films)
Where to Put the Cow by Anita GriffinHappy composition-ing!
(via jesscookie)
Reblog if you love Star Wars
Whether you know everything about the interior workings of the Millennium Falcon, Han and Leia’s Children, and the Black Sun OR you maybe watched part of one movie with your cousin chad or something like that and kinda liked it. I want to know how big our fandom is here. Just curious.
(via goforcechokeyourself)
THINGS COOLER THAN GARRUS VAKARIAN A LIST BY GARRUS VAKARIAN
HAHA WHERE DID THEY EVEN COME FROM?!
#bones and spock both have alarms in their heads that go off when jim does a thing #BEEP BEEP WARNING JIM IS DOING A THING HE MUST BE STOPPED
(via messerehawke)
Someone requested a post of all of the current Strong Female Characters, so here you go.
(via electricalice)
“A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career must be in harmony with all its previous development.”
(via electricalice)
You gonna give us what’s due us, and every damn thing else on that boat. And I think maybe you gonna give me a little one-on-one time with the missus.
(via messerehawke)
