Intro and General Description

Hello everybody and welcome to the final episode of the Beginner’s Guide to Art
Fundamentals series. For everyone who has followed along each episode thank you so
much for your support, I hope these videos have helped you discover new ideas or
insights and establish a thought process to this whole art thing. I would love to create
more videos after this series, but they will be less fundamentally based and more based
on my own personal opinions and personal workflow and thought process. But that’s
later, for now, let’s get to it!
The reason I wanted to end the series on Composition is because out of all of the
fundamentals, in my opinion, composition is one of the most theoretical and can be
contorted and adapted to your preferences depending on what type of a mood or
narrative you’re trying to capture. In fact, composition has almost nothing to do with the
other fundamentals. You can have an incredibly abstract image that showcases
practically none of the technical fundamentals like drawing, anatomy, or perspective,
and you could still create a solid composition. You can even bend the traditional rules of
fundamentals like value, light, and color to your will and although your images may not
come off as “realistic” it will probably turn out for the better. Compositions can be simple
or complex, subtle or obvious, they can also be practically non-existent and a good
image can still come out of it. I guess I should explain what a composition is though for
those that are out of the loop.
I described composition in the introduction video as “the idea of constructing your
image to best attract the viewers eye to the focal point, or move them through the image
in a steady flow that is pleasing to the viewer. It’s also used as a narrative device to help
tell the story in your image.” The big question is HOW do you construct an image in a
way that creates a focal point or creates an enjoyable ride through the image? There
are many ways to go about this and we will discuss them later in the video. Before we
get there though I want to bring up the point I made previously by saying composition is
one of the most theoretical fundamentals. Because if you haven’t noticed yet, a focal
point and a guide through an image are two different concepts. One causes the eye to
smoothly travel and the other causes the eyes to have spontaneous, possibly sporadic
movements placed in specific sections of the painting. You can even practice a mixture
of the two. Having a guide move you through the image, but along that guide is the
major focal point, then finish the guide out of the image. I don’t think any of those
methods are necessarily incorrect, some may work better or worse than others
depending on the situation. It’s important to know though that whichever method you go
with is only a tool to HELP create a good composition. Whether or not it’s successful
isn’t always up to you. You can do all the planning and execution in the world, but
sometimes compositions will impact people differently than others.
In James Gurney’s book “Imaginative Realism” he discussed a test that was
performed with the folks at Eyetools Inc. A company that has the technology available to
track the central eye movements of subjects. The test revealed a lot of interesting
information that can help inform our decision making when creating compositions. It
discovered that people’s eyes generally move in very jagged, unpredictable movements
throughout the image. That tells us that neither a solid focal point, nor a line leading
from one end of the image to the next is the way people actually perceive our images. In
the tests that were done, which I recommend you take a look at the articles James
Gurney wrote about the tests, you can find them on his blog
gurneyjourney.blogspot.com or by googling James Gurney Eye Tracking, you can see
that test subjects didn’t even enter the image at the desired focal point. They entered
into an area of the image that was near the top center and bounced around from section
to section until they felt they saw enough. However, the eye hovers, and the area that
the eye hovers in are generally around the people/characters in the painting. Whether or
not there was anything implied in the composition to guide people to those characters or
not, subjects generally hovered around the people or creatures because of the natural
draw that humans and animals have to look at something familiar, especially something
with a recognizable facial structure.
 But this information doesn’t suddenly dismiss the concept of focal points or guiding
the eye. I’ve viewed many images that without needing anymore than a second knew
that there was a nice graceful loop/guide through the image and it just felt right, it wasn’t
distracting, but I probably didn’t follow it too closely either. It was used to help inform my
brain on what the hell I should be looking at. And that’s all composition is really, things
that we can do to our images to make people’s brains go “ooh, look.” So with all of that
being said let’s get into HOW we can make people’s brains say, “ooh, look!”

Focal Points

So although we now know people tend to not just immediately be drawn into an image
at whatever your desired focal point might be, there is still that concept of hovering over
something that the brain sees as important or interesting. That’s why focal points are
crucial.
Before we go too deep into this let me quickly explain what a focal point is. Focal
points are designated areas of interest created by the artist as a way of attracting
attention from the viewer. Pretty simple and straightforward. If your image is of a
character, focus on the character. If your image is of a character DOING something,
focus on the thing they’re doing. Those are some pretty straightforward guidelines (that
can be broken of course), but it gets a little more ambiguous when your image is maybe
of a vista or of a group of characters. Most artists will tell you that you want to really
maintain one major focal point for the viewer to hone in on. So if it’s a vista, maybe
there is a section of some mountain range that’s catching the sun JUST right, or if it’s a
group of characters, there is one stepping forward, out of the crowd, possibly the leader.
Let’s dive into the different ways of attracting people to a particular area though before I
get too ahead of myself.

Value
Using values is probably the easiest and most commonly seen way of trying to influence
the viewer’s eye. Areas of high contrast naturally are attention grabbing, especially
when in relation to areas of low contrast. Here are a few examples of this method being
used well.
The idea of contrast is something that you will probably be hearing often in this video.
Not just contrast of values, but contrast of anything. Small vs. big, light vs. dark, busy
vs. simple. The idea of contrast is what attracts people to particular areas. By using
contrast to your advantage you can create a solid focal point in every image you make,
you just have to know where to use that contrast. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself
again, I just wanted to preface all of this since you will be hearing this concept use a lot
in this video.
Back to values. So, just because high contrast means people will look in that direction,
that does not mean your main focal point should only be tons of really dark areas
combined with tons of really bright areas. It means, in relation to the image, it would
probably be better suited to use a higher amount of contrast in that image. Forgive me if
you haven’t watched my values video yet ($5 now on gumroad oh my gosh that’s a
steal, what is he? A mad man?) but in that video I discuss how I use a scale of 0-10 for
my values, each number being a percentage of the value used. 0 being white, 10 being
black. And I’m going to use that same type of method when discussing things here as
well, so hopefully you can follow along. Let’s say you have an image that is a mixture of
50%-60% grays, it’s a very value controlled image where you are extra conscious of
your decision making. That doesn’t mean you would then make your focal point
something that is made of of pure white and an 80% gray for example. You very well
might be able to do that and pull it off, but I’m just letting you know that’s not what you
are restricted to. There are so many ways you could go about it. You can have your
focus just be a value controlled light figure, using pure white to 30% grays, or the
opposite and have a very dark focal point made up of 80% gray to pure black. Or you
could do a different combination of those, change the background values to be 80%
gray but then have the focal point be a 50-60% gray. When it comes to contrast, it’s not
always insanely bright or insanely dark values that will get you your way, in fact it may
even do the opposite and make your image look unpleasant. One of the biggest
mistakes I see young artists do is try to add a lot of contrast where they want people to
look, but it ends up looking off putting or amateurish, and even someone who doesn’t
know anything about artwork would be able to tell something just doesn’t feel quite right
to them about it.

The last thing to consider when discussing this particular process of creating a focal
point is that most of what we have discussed here has been talking in simple terms of
silhouette. It’s not completely necessary to block in the entirety of a figure with a single
value or grouping of similar values just because you want that figure to be the main
focus. Values is very closely tied into lighting, and lighting can drastically change how
we perceive someone or something. Lighting is generally what you will probably have to
consider the most when establishing an image and thinking about where the contrast in
values is going to come from, however, in very evenly lit scenarios like overcast lighting
for instance, you may need to use contrast in the local values of the subject or scene in
order to attract that eye to that area.

So, when I say contrast is pretty dependant on the lighting, what I mean is that if you
clearly have your figure set in a foggy, hazy scene, you may need some bright light on
them to help them pop out or they would need to hit a patch of thinner fog, otherwise we
probably wouldn’t be able to see them very well and they wouldn’t stand out too much.
All of this is assuming you are going for realism with the atmosphere and lighting.
Now, let’s assume you aren’t going for realistic lighting. Let’s say if there were a
pyramid of fundamentals, that lighting was actually lower than composition. That would
mean regardless of if it would look more realistic or not, you could bend the rules of
values in whatever way you would like. You could have the figure entirely hidden by fog,
but have the silhouette of them trickle through, making them look ominous or
threatening. Or even forget the fog scenario, just any given image you could use heavy
value control that might not look the most realistic, but would be more visually striking.
Two artists who do this very well with their work are Anthony Jones and Brom. You can
see in the examples by these two how they control the values and commonly organize
them in their own categories of light and dark. The middle range of values are mostly
dedicated towards shading the light side so that it will still maintain its own graphic value
shape and not bleed into the darker values so easily (although there are benefits to
values that bleed into one another, but we will discuss that in a later portion of the
video).

Anyway, this is all just lengthy discussion of me trying to reinforce that idea of contrast
in your values and how you can use that to draw the eye. How you use values is entirely
up to you. It could be with the local values of a particular subject, or it could be using
some form of lighting to help your focal point pop out. Either way, it is definitely
something to explore and consider when working on your images.

Silhouette/Shape

The next category for helping establish a focal point is a bit of a broad one. I realized
when researching this portion that it can be used in a number of ways. Silhouette is
essentially… well… a silhouette? It’s the outer contour shape of a subject. Another way
of thinking of this is just the general shape of the subject. Whatever that may be, could
be a character, animal, landscape, etc. Silhouette is a great way of making the viewers
perceive something instantaneously. Especially if the silhouette is an easy to identify
one. That’s why silhouette is so important when designing creatures or characters, but
that’s for a future video. So, it’s pretty easy to imagine that if you had an image with a
single character, making sure that the silhouette is strong and easy to read is pretty
important to maintaining that focal point.
However, it can be used in other ways. Like I said, the concept of contrast will come
up a lot in this video, and silhouette and shape have an amazing opportunity for creating
contrast. Imagine an image that is filled with circles on a grid, but in a small section of
the image, there is a triangle. Where do you think your eyes will naturally gravitate
towards? The area that’s different. You can use this concept of contrast in so many
images. You’ve probably seen it used tons of times in games or movies as well. A
scene full of people that all look very similar, but the protagonist/antagonist stands out
amongst the crowd because their silhouette is so different from the rest. You can see
this concept being used in this sketch I’ve done here where I take only rounded, organic
looking shapes, and contrast it with a rigid, inorganic shape as the focal point.
The other way that silhouette can be used with contrast is with grouping. Let’s go back
to the circles example. Imagine an image with a mass of circles all huddled around each
other, then in a section away from that group resides one lone circle. This grouping is a
great way of using contrast of silhouette to your advantage, and if you combine that with
the actual subject matters silhouette it can be even more powerful. So instead of a lone
circle, you could have a lone triangle. That would make the fact that the triangle isn’t a
part of the group even more apparent and naturally draw the eye in that direction.
The first example that I gave when discussing silhouette was just having a strong
single silhouette. I do think it’s important to emphasize that sometimes contrast isn’t
always an option with every category depending on what it is that you’re painting. You
may not have a hundred other subjects in your painting to then help pop your one, crazy
character out of the crowd. However, you do have to make sure that the silhouette you
create is a clear one when thinking about your focal point. Nothing is worse than seeing
someone attempt to establish a specific character as the main subject matter, but you
can’t even tell what they’re doing because the silhouette is so strange and confined. I’m
not trying to say that you need every character to have this crazy over the top
silhouette, or even that they need to have any of their limbs popping out to make sure
you know what they’re doing. That’s not what I mean by strong silhouette. What I mean
is based on the subject matter, the mood that you are trying to represent, what would be
a clear way of depicting this character? If the character is pointing their finger and
yelling at someone, than yes, probably have them break out of their silhouette a little bit.
But if they are shy and contained, or even wanting to go for an unsettling look like this
scene from “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” then find a silhouette or shape that
would best represent that. Also that movie was pretty dope and creepy I liked it. We will
discuss the theory of mood in shape language later in the video, but I thought it best to
bring up the point that contrast is not always going to be an option, but that doesn’t
mean there aren’t still ways to get the best out of a single subject. Alright, let’s move on
to color.

Color
Just like the values and silhouettes in a painting, color can be used as a resource to
attract the eye. We can bring that same idea of contrast into this category as well. If you
haven’t watched my color tutorial yet (which you should, it got like a 9/10 on imdb’s user
reviews that shit is ridiculous) I talked about some of the major subcategories of color.
The ones that I think are relevant to focal points would be hue, saturation, and color
schemes. A quick rundown of each of these for you so you understand what I’m talking
about. Hue is what color something is (i.e. red, orange, purple, etc.). Saturation is the
purity of a color or lack thereof, the least pure being gray. And finally, color schemes are
common patterns of color based on whatever your particular color wheel is that feels
naturally pleasing to the eye. Common color schemes are red and teal, green and
purple, orange and blue, etc.

So if we took those three portions of color and used them in a way to attract the eye
with contrast it could be used in a variety of ways. You could create a fully desaturated
image, but make the focal point saturated. Or you could use a contrasting color scheme
like a complimentary color scheme. A complimentary scheme are any two colors directly
across one another on the color wheel. So if you had a very blue image and then had
an orange focal point, the contrast between those two colors would attract the eye
towards the orange. And of course you could reverse this and have a very orange
image with a blue focal point, either one would work well. You don’t always need to rely
on color schemes or contrasting colors though. Creating contrast isn’t always just using
complete opposites. It’s creating tension by having one thing that is just different from
whatever is near or around it. So if you had, let’s say, an analogous color scheme
(which is a color scheme using a variety of colors near each other on the color wheel)
You could organize the colors in a way to create contrast where there would normally
be very little. Let’s use blue, teal, and green as an example. Let’s say you have an
image that is primarily made of blue, with some indigo here and there, but where you’d
like the focal point to be could be a splash of green surrounded by blue. That way it
consists of the two colors furthest from one another AND by not using green anywhere
else in the image you’ve isolated it and made it feel different or special.
There are just so many ways that you could mix and match colors to reinforce your
focal point. Combine that with values and silhouette and you have the potential for a
very solid, readable image.

Edges

There is one more thing I would like to touch on before we move away from basic ways
of establishing focal points and that’s edges or edge control. Edge control is something
a lot of artists have troubles with, me included. The concept of edges is generally used
as a way to give focus to particular areas of an image while leaving other portions softer
and out of focus. You see this all the time in film, a camera will be within focus of a
subject, making them crystal clear, but the areas around the focal point will be blurred
and softened or out of focus. This method can be very useful for giving focus to a
particular subject, however it can also be easily unbalanced or chaotic.

As always, I feel like I need to mention that everything I’m about to say is a suggestion.
There are no “good” or ”bad” ways of using edges. In fact, edge control isn’t even
necessary for creating a good image or even establishing a focal point. As long as you
have excellent value control, your edges won’t need any controlling because the values
will be leading the eye. Personally, I feel that edges are more of a cherry on top for
establishing focal points. It can look very nice in a final image and will only emphasize
what you’ve already established with your values, color, and silhouette. That’s why
images like graphic posters work so well, everything maintains a crisp edge, but the
other major ways of establishing focus carry the weight, leaving edge control
unnecessary. With all that being said though, edges can still be used to your advantage
and should be understood at least at a basic level.

There are generally three types of edges. Hard, soft, and lost edges. Hard edges would
be your crisp, defined edges. That’s generally where you would like the eye to focus on.
These edges can be on the edge of the silhouette, or just crisp edges being created by
the lighting scenario or forms of the object in the image. So whether it’s the edge of a
teapot, or the crisp highlight within the teapot, either way, the edge is crisp and eye
catching. This doesn’t mean that you should be lasso tooling every single section that is
in focus. Just like everything else in this video, there is room for contrast here as well.
An edge can appear more hard when it is surrounded by edges that are softer than it.
So no, you don’t need to spending hours making sure that these edges are perfectly
crisp, just make sure they are crisper than the surrounding edges. Soft edges are where
the eye can gradually skate across, it’s not completely devoid of information, but it’s
clearly information that is less important than what the hard edges are giving us. These
edges, or variations between hard and soft, would probably be what makes up the
majority of your image depending on how much you want to abuse edge control and
use it to your advantage. Finally, lost edges are edges that are so soft they are almost
indistinguishable between one form and another. These types of edges are great for
giving the eye a complete rest from the information being provided by the balance of
your hard and soft edges. Lost edges are areas of the image that are so useless to the
overall subject matter being presented that it can blend seamlessly into another form
and your eye wouldn’t even notice it. Lost edges are probably one of the tougher things
for new artists to grasp and implement into their work. A huge habit of people first
learning about edge control is to create a lost edge of a light value that fades into a dark
value. And while yes, obviously you can do this, more power to you. It’s a very
unrealistic perception of edges. Lost edges are usually perceived when two similar
value levels encounter one another in the image. This is because when two values of a
similar level are together, the amount of contrast is very low and we can easily gloss
over it (this is why values trump edges any day). However, what edge control allows you
to do is take those two similar values, ideally they aren’t the focal point or any area
crucial to the storytelling of your image, and blend them together so seamlessly you
don’t even see the separation between the two.

I mentioned earlier that edges can become chaotic, and usually that happens from a
poor understanding of where specific edges should be placed. If you have a lost edge
near the highest point of contrast, yes it may be fun to play with that stylistically, and I
would never say “no don’t do that, you’re wrong!”, but from a traditional point of view
that wouldn’t be a great place for a lost edge. A very easy way of thinking about all of
this, although I hope you experiment further on this idea, is that edges sort of radiate
outwards from the focal point. The focal point will have the crispest edges, therefore the
portions of the image furthest from the focal point will have the softest. This is a very
basic way of thinking of it and I don’t think is the greatest way to practice edge control,
but it’s something to at least get your brain thinking more about the crispness of your
edges.

But just as a reminder before we move on, these are SIMPLE ways of establishing a
focal point. These aren’t the only ways, these are just ones that you could easily start
applying to your images right now and get some decent results. I just wanted to preface
this by encouraging you all to go out and research or experiment yourself and find new
and fun ways that you could attract people’s eyes to a focal point or ways of creating an
overall mood through the shape/patterns in your images. Alright, moving on!
Thumbnailing and Guiding the Eye

I hated thumbnailing. Like seriously for so long I really despised thumbnailing. And I
would watch a lot of artists on livestreams be able to whip up these crazy cool images in
just an hour or less with a super solid composition and I would be so upset with myself
that I couldn’t do the same thing. I would try and churn out images with no thumbnail
process and they would usually start ok, but then I’d notice something was off, so I’d
change it. And then another thing, and then another, and you can see my point I
changed a lot of shit. Finally, probably after a couple years of refusing to believe it, I
realized thumbnailing was actually a good process. It’s not “necessary”, but whenever I
finished an image that began with a thumbnailing stage it would always be noticeably
better than one that didn’t have a thumbnailing stage. It was because all of those “oh
shit” moments where I would have to redo something or move something to fix the
image were done when the image was a little bit larger than your average post stamp.
So not only did I get my paintings done faster, but I also made stronger images as a
whole because I made myself a plan for them. Everybody needs a rough draft at some
point. Sure eventually you could be good enough to not need to do thumbnails and you
can just be a beast with a stylus pen or a paintbrush and knock out a beautiful painting
like it’s nothing. But that takes a lot of practice first. It takes a lot of practice evaluating
and applying compositional knowledge to your images, and you will get more practice
from that if you start making yourself do a number of smaller sketches before jumping
into the final.

Generally, I’ll do my thumbnail process traditionally in my sketchbook with pencil,

MAYBE use some greyscale markers to get an idea of the lighting or values, but mainly
just pencil. Then when I have a few I like I’ll upload those on to my computer and open
em up in photoshop for some refinement. I still keep them fairly rough so I don’t commit
too much energy to any one idea and get attached to it. Nothing is worse than feeling
like you SHOULD go with an idea just because you spent more time on it, not because
it’s a better idea. Once those are established I generally have narrowed it down to either
one or two final sketches. It’s rare there are two I REALLY think are evenly matched at
this stage, but it happens. From here I will do a rough color pass on them. And boy do I
mean rough. I figure out nothing but the color scheme in this stage, and maybe do a
little value work on top of that. The saturation can vary so much in my final that I don’t
bother worrying about that, just primarily what the local color of certain things will be and
how much the lighting will affect those colors. And by this point I’ve probably found the
image I want to move forward with. Yes it took me 4-5 hours just to decide where I want
the image to go, BUT, now there is almost NO guesswork. I know where the color pops
will be, where the focal point will be, how I’m attracting the eye towards that focal point,
etc. etc. I do want to mention, this is my process in a perfect scenario. A lot of the times,
because of deadlines, I’ll have to skip some of these stages in order to save time and
y’know what? The images usually turn out for the worse because of it. But not always,
we all have our moments where things just click or they naturally flow into this really
nice piece you pulled out of nothing. It totally happens, and some people it may
naturally happen more so than others. I’m not a thumbnail preacher, everyone will find
their own process over time and it will be completely unique to them, but if you are
starting out or early on, I really do encourage you to try and experiment with
thumbnailing and test the planned images versus the non-planned ones. You will more
than likely notice a positive difference, at least in the composition.

Now, I discussed a lot of ways to establish a focal point, but that’s only one portion of
the image. An important one, but just one thing. We still need to talk about what goes
into constructing the rest of the image. And that’s why I wanted to briefly talk about
thumbnails, because it’s a great segway into guiding the eye. This is a great time to
remind everyone how theoretical composition is. Nothing is set in stone and there are
so many ways to construct any one image. When I talk about guiding the eye of the
viewer, I believe there are two major ways that it can be done. Either you can draw
attention to your focal point with lines, objects, silhouettes, etc. through a method called
“Spokewheeling,” or you can guide the viewer THROUGH the focal point in what
Andrew Loomis referred to as an “Eye Pathway.” The Eye Pathway method is one that
takes the concept of silhouette or line and molds it in a way that would cause the eye to
pass right over the focal point or circle around the focal point, before being then lead off
of the image. Either one of these methods are technically viable and can even be used
in combination with one another with the right planning. The Spokewheeling method is
possibly a little more blunt and straightforward though where as the Eye Pathway
should be handled a little more delicately and can’t really be tacked on at the end of an
image. Ain’t nothing worse than seeing someone paint up a cool character in a cool
pose and then remember there needs to be a composition so they add some sharp
rocks in the foreground that point up at them. It’s fine to try and make some kind of a
composition like that, but it’s usually best to plan things out a little better. You could
even think theoretically about each idea, Spokewheeling versus the Eye Pathway. You
could think of it in terms of rollercoasters. Spokewheeling is like that huge ride that all it
does is shoot you 75 feet in the air and then send you right back down. Simple,
effective, energetic even. But the pathway method could be seen as slower paced,
giving the image a buildup before you reach that main attraction. It’s not just the ride, it’s
the experience of it… Or it’s just all garbage, probably all garbage, who knows!

Now, the idea of creating a line through an image is also essential when establishing a
composition based on a specific shape. Some of the most popular compositions are
based on simple shapes like triangles, circles, or diamonds to name a couple.
Compositions can be thought of in a graphic sense, using basic silhouettes or shapes to
help the viewer identify what they are seeing, or it can be with line like we’ve just
discussed. Either way, whether you are viewing something as an overall graphic shape
or as a series of lines meant to guide the eye, the feeling or mood is expressed based
on how those lines or planes of the shape’s silhouette interact with one another. Which
is why the next segment of the video I wanted to discuss the concept of mood through
shapes.
Mood through Shapes

Just like with lighting or color or with dynamic drawings, mood can be expressed with
composition as well. It’s not all just about finding a focal point and making sure that it’s
established well with values, color, etc.

I’m sure most of you have seen somewhere online the use of “The Rule of Thirds” and
I’m sure some of you may have heard other artists praise the use of this method as a
way of assuring a good composition. Well, I’m sorry to say that that is not the case. For
those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the rule of thirds is essentially a grid you can
place on top of your image that divides it within nine squares or alternatively you can
think of it as four crossing lines that create tension points at four corners near the
halfway point between the edge of the image and the center. The reason so many
people use this method and recommend it to beginner artists is because it gets your
brain thinking about two things. 1) Creating a focal point and placing it not directly in the
center, but not too close to the edge (Not that it’s bad to place the focal point in the
center, it just is a common habit of a lot of beginning artists), and 2) Getting used to the
idea of developing your image in a specific pattern. Because the rule of thirds isn’t just
there so you can place the focal point along one of the lines or intersection of lines, it
can be utilized further by following the patterns of the lines to guide the eye towards the
focal point using spokewheeling or the Eye Pathway method that we discussed. At least
that’s what I personally consider to be the benefits of pushing the use of it into your
workflow. I think it’s definitely something you can utilize early on, and hell I will still use
the concept of the rule of thirds in my images to this day. But I think it’s important to
understand that it’s not a set rule, despite what the name says. It’s lying to you, it’s a
dirty dirty liar.
What’s really important is the establishment of some type of a shape in your image,
some pattern to follow. Because whether you realize it or not, your brain has a natural
reaction to seeing basic shapes. Or as Mr. Plinkett from Redlettermedia would say “You
might not have noticed it, but your brain did.” Whether it’s because of how they’ve been
established with modern signs or because of things that we have seen for thousands
and thousands of years. I think the best example of this is the use of triangles. Triangle
compositions are incredibly common, they are often seen as powerful or imposing. A lot
of the time you can see it combined with a strong character or even heavily religious
imagery. I personally believe that the reason for this is because there are many things in
nature that represent this shape in our subconscious. Mountains, trees, the Great
Pyramids, all things that are much larger than us, something that is immovable in our
minds. Of course this is still all theoretical, but the subconscious is a pretty strong thing.
From the small amount of convention experience I’ve personally had and all the
convention artists I’ve talked to, a very common thing you’ll hear from people (or just
know based on their reactions) is that they “love a specific image, but they don’t know
why.” Yeah, maybe it’s the colors, maybe it’s the values, or maybe it’s the shapes that
they’re brain is seeing and screaming in their ear saying “LOOK AT THIS SHIT! IT’S A
TRIANGLE! WE LIKE TRIANGLES! BUY THIS SHIT!”

Now if we look at some other basic shapes you can pretty easily workshop some ideas
as to what kind of feelings that they would evoke. We’ve got squares, which can
represent sturdiness, strength, possibly some kind of orderliness or staleness. Most
objects we see in real life that are square shaped are generally man-made, therefore it
gives off a feeling of in-organicness, especially when in contrast to a more organic
shape like a circle. Circles can make you feel calm, serene, think of things like the
moon, the sun, orbs, materials that curve like water or waves. Then you start to get into
more ambiguous shapes like spirals, diamonds, trapezoids, or even octagons. Some of
these will give similar feelings to the three major shapes of circle, triangle, and square,
but can appear a little more dynamic or give a slightly different impression depending on
how it’s represented. Speaking of spirals, I think this might be a good time to mention
the Golden Spiral.

For those that don’t know the Golden Ratio or the Fibonacci Spiral, Golden Spiral, etc.
etc. It seriously has so many names it’s ridiculous. It’s basically a mathematical
equation that is more complicated than I’d like it to be, but that’s alright because we’re
artists and don’t need to know math. We want to draw or paint pretty things, so we will
stick to that. But all you need to know is that many people believe that because the
Golden Ratio is this “perfect” combination of numbers placed or divided in such a way
that it’s this ultimate compositional tool. And while yes, you can use the golden ratio as
a basis for your composition and it will probably make a pretty good image, that doesn’t
mean it’s because it’s this amazing sequence of equations. Most people won’t notice
how perfect of a spiral it is, but they will notice it’s a spiral. And spirals naturally make
our brains get sucked into something. If we were to use that concept of familiarity
bringing our subconscious forward, spirals are often seen in nature as tornadoes,
hurricanes, whirlpools, or even just the use of them with hypnosis is something that is
very common (at least in cartoons and junk, not sure about actual hypnosis). All things
that cause this gravitational pull inwards, and I think spirals can have that same effect
when used in an image, whether it is a spiral like the golden ratio spiral, or a different
set of shapes or lines forming a spiral, I personally think it will give off a similar
impression to the viewer. Combine that theory with the idea that when using the rule of
thirds, your focal point will naturally lean to one side of the canvas and not be directly in
the center, and bam! You got a spiral with an off center focal point a.k.a. The Golden
Spiral. For all I know (which is not a lot), I’m totally wrong and the golden ratio is
ACTUALLY this amazing end all of compositions, but if I were to guess with my big
dumb dumb brain I’d say golden spirals ain’t nothin but hoes and tricks.

So what am I getting at with all of this? Well, I’m saying besides the obvious touches
you can do to the focal point of an image or even the application of some type of a
spokewheeling effect or Eye Pathway, there are even more things to consider when
developing an image and that’s just HOW do you want someone to feel when they look
at this. What shapes make us feel happy, sad, energized, etc. and how can we
implement them in a way that almost tells the story without needing to tell the story. It
can be through large, overarching shape language or it can be more subtle and be with
shapes scattered throughout an image that all combine into that one cohesive narrative.
Shape language can go even further than what I’ve touched on here today, but I think
for starting out just some of those basic concepts should be enough to get you started
and thinking more about the use of shapes in your work.

Tangents

I’m sure after watching this video, if you are new to the majority of these ideas, you will
feel overwhelmed. It’s only natural. I hope you take all of this slowly though, trying one
new technique after the next, over time you will be able to combine them and implement
multiple ideas into one image seamlessly. However, if you aren’t careful, introducing too
many concepts at once can cause your image to become cluttered with varying shapes,
edges, silhouettes, chaotic values/colors, etc. And when your image becomes cluttered,
the chances of you developing tangents will increase. Tangents are points of tension in
an image that distract the eye. This tension is usually caused by two lines/objects
bumping up to one another or lining up with each other. Tangents are usually hard to
spot at first, but once you see it you’ll never unsee it. However, some things that are
traditionally considered to be tangents can theoretically be used as a compositional tool
for guiding the eye. This is entirely up to the viewer’s opinion though. But first, let’s look
into the different forms of tangents. There are some wonderful examples of the different
types of tangents created by a comic artist named Chris Schweizer. You can find these
examples on his blog, curiousoldlibrary.blogspot.com or by googling “Chris Schweizer
Tangents”. Chris illustrated and described the main tangents as The Long Line, Parallel,
The Corner, The Bump-Up, and The Directional. There are other forms of tangents he
described that are more suited towards comic artists so if you’re interested you should
go check out his blog.

Most of these Tangents are pretty self-explanatory given the names that Chris was nice
enough to associate them with. But I figure we can go through them anyway. I will just
summarize them though, if you’re interested in Chris’ thoughts I highly encourage you
pay his blog a visit and read through his thoughts.

Long Line

The Long Line tangent is when one object runs directly in line with another one. It
comes across as an extension of the object instead of two separate shapes and is
confusing to the eye.

The Parallel

The Parallel tangent is when two lines or objects run parallel to one another, pretty self
explanatory. This flattens the image and removes that sense of 3-dimensional space
you may have if you properly foreshorten one thing in front of another.

The Corner

The Corner tangent happens when one line or object intersects within two other lines
that are colliding. This usually will make some type of awkward arrow shape.

The Bump-Up

The Bump-Up tangent is when two lines or silhouettes line up or “bump-up” against
each other. It can be touching or very close to touching to give this strange pinching
effect that creates tension in the eye. Again, this is a habit artist’s get into when they are
afraid to create proper foreshortening and have objects confidently intersect with one
another.

Directional

Finally,a directional tangent occurs when two lines or objects have some form of space
between them, but end up flowing in the same direction regardless. This one is tricky,
because it can be seen as a way of guiding the eye like we discussed earlier. But it’s
easy to avoid if you shift the silhouettes of things just ever so slightly to where they don’t
create a perfect line, but instead imply that same flow throughout the image.

That last tangent is actually a great example of how tangents, in a strange way, can be
used positively. I mean, they imply awkwardness, containment, they’re just
uncomfortable and distracting a lot of the time. But if your image is SUPPOSED to be
uncomfortable or awkward, it can be used as a weapon in your artistic arsenal to help
emphasize the emotion in your image.

Not only can it be used to bump up the specific emotion in your image, but it can
arguably be used to purposefully draw attention to a portion of the image. Tangents are
commonly spread about as bad practice, and while I think that’s primarily true in most
cases, there are some cases that I think it can be used in a way to actually grab the
attention of the viewer and emphasize the focal point, instead of distract from it. I think
one of the more recent, widely spread use of this, was in the Force Awakens movie
poster. There is a section in the poster where Kylo Ren’s lightsaber and Rey’s staff line
up perfectly. Something that would cause most people with a traditional art background
to very quickly facepalm when they see it. However, you can’t deny that that is one of
the first things you look at in the image. Whether it be the tangent or the lens flare
smack dab in the center is entirely up to you, but I remember this use of a tangent being
a hot topic amongst some online art communities because it’s so strange to see
something like that used purposefully.

I do have to emphasize here, this doesn’t mean that you should do this. But it does
mean you should be open to trying new things, experimenting with things commonly
seen as bad practices. Think to yourself, “well why is this bad practice?” And see if you
can somehow use it to your advantage in a way and make an image work within that
bad practice. Art has no rules god damnit! Anarchy!

Studying Techniques

Let’s wrap this all up by talking about some great ways to study and learn composition.
As always I’m a huge advocate for good ole fashion studying. That involves some level
of a master copy, learning from someone who you want to emulate (maybe not entirely,
but at least a specific portion of how they do their art), then evaluating what it is you just
copied by either jotting some notes down or going back over your final study and
making some immediate mental notes, and finally, applying it all onto something from
your imagination.

I want to reiterate my thoughts on this method one more just because I recently saw
another large post on Twitter that got retweeted some thousands of times that basically
preached the word of “reference.” Stating that you should absolutely take a shit ton of
reference and use it, because it will for sure make your images look “better and more
realistic.” I’m not here to shame anyone that does so, I absolutely use reference when I
believe it’s necessary to do so and I would never judge or shame anyone who does use
it or even relies on it, everyone has their own methods. However, I do believe that this is
a discussion that can’t just be handled in 140 characters. Yes, reference is something
that will inform your decision making on an image and make it generally more accurate,
this can go for stylized work or realistic. However, if you don’t understand the basic
fundamentals that make up that reference, then it really won’t help you in the long run,
and more often than not will only emphasize the flaws in your work due to the
referenced portion of your image being an informed decision, and other portions being
less informed or not informed at all. I’ve seen many professional level artists whose
work varies widely depending on the subject matter, because some of it is referenced
and some of it isn’t. However, if you already have a basic understanding of anatomy, or
color, or light, but you’re having trouble with a particular section of your image, that
reference that you take won’t need to be a one-to-one copy like you see many
beginners do. People who already have a grasp on the fundamentals will be able to
warp reference in a way that suits the image best and won’t appear off in comparison to
what they’ve not used reference for. I know this has little to do with composition since
composition is the underlying structure and flow of the image and the reference part
comes later, but it’s the method of practice that I use that I feel like a lot of people
misinterpret. So please, use reference if you need to, but try to be aware of what you do
and don’t understand about a specific fundamental, and take some time away from work
to brush up on those fundamentals and train your brain son.

Now, things that we can learn from studying others… well, less learn and more like
“steeeeeaaaaaaaling?” Yeah sure why not. I’ve for sure stolen compositions before,
here’s one I stole, hell I even took the same idea of the flow of this image and pitched it
to a friend as a paintover on his image, he loved it and now that painting is one of his
top selling prints at conventions. This is a pretty blurred line of course. I’ve seen people
that have done practically straight rip offs of other compositions and called it their own,
and I don’t particularly support that. But there are tons of ways you can get inspired
from other people’s compositions. For that previous scene I mentioned, it was because
I’d never seen a flow like this in an image. The awesome sweeping curve upwards was
so powerful to me I had to try it out in my own image. Of course, the way I did it was so
much different based on my colors, values, and overall content. It wasn’t a massive
crowd of people, just a single character. So this type of researching for inspiration of a
type of flow an image has is a little simpler, this just comes from really finding images
you love. Like REALLY love, and finding what it is you love about it. Is it the anatomy,
colors, values, or is it the composition? And how can you take that inspiration and apply
it into your own work?

Now the more practical way of studying composition is really just taking the basic
principles or theories I mentioned in this video and applying it to your own work. Start
implementing basic things like the rule of thirds or the idea of contrast to emphasize
your focal points. It doesn’t take much to start trying these techniques out, and they can
even be done in a quick daily speedpaint if that’s something you’re interested in trying
out. Now, obviously studying from some master copies of artists you look up to can
help. I think especially if you go in to a study with the mindset of learning something
specific. If you just start copying some old master painting you can potentially get
overwhelmed or lose sight of why you are even studying it. You don’t want to get caught
in a loop where you think just because you are copying a lot of images and painting
them that you are somehow learning anything from it. Try to be aware of where your
head is at when studying this stuff. If there is a painting that has dramatic lighting and
contrast to help guide the viewer’s eye, then please, study it, copy it, absolutely. But that
doesn’t mean the drawing needs to be completely accurate, or the rendering, or even
colored. It sould (and I encourage a big “should” here) be studied with basic, flat values
in order to stay on task and learn only the most essential information. That doesn’t
mean there isn’t more to learn from this image, but it means you are 100% focused on
learning that very specific thing you set out to learn or practice.

But otherwise, composition is pretty easy to practice. It’s not easy to master by any
means, but starting to practice it is as easy as just thumbnailing your next image before
jumping straight to a large rough sketch. It’s as easy as laying out the rule of thirds over
your next image and considering the placement of your focal point. No matter how you
end up applying this knowledge to your work though, it all still has to be done. You still
gotta put in them hours and rack your brain on each image trying to problem solve for a
better looking composition. You’re going to go through a lot of shitty images to get there,
but don’t worry, we all have to go through that. Just stay vigilant and remember to have
fun with it, not every image should be a masterpiece.

Thank you all for joining me on this series! It’s finally over! My god this was more work
than I would’ve ever anticipated it being, and it’s all been about a year in the making. I
hope those of you who have watched these have gotten some decent information out of
them or at the very least I’ve encouraged you to look further into the fundamentals and
learn from people who are more than likely more knowledgeable than I am. I would love
to continue doing these tutorials in the future, but they are a lot of work to put together
so please, if you want to see more of these I appreciate any recommendations to other
artists, especially people who are just starting out and don’t have a clue where to start
with all of this. So thank you all again and hopefully I’ll see you later… or I’ll die after
this, whatever.