Hey, this is my first post and i'd just like to preface this by saying i am a pretty amateur artists. I one day hope to be an illustrator, but my environment, composition, well pretty much all my skills are lacking. I've had an account on crimson daggers for a while now but i've only just got an intuos pro last Wednesday.
However in this piece I'm trying to create an interesting dynamic composition, but i can't seem to get it right. They're supposed to be like stone/classical angels coming out of the ground. As i said i know next to nothing about composition apart from a couple of threads and one of the resources I've seen on the site about rule of thirds and many other types of composition methods, but i can't seem to put it into practice.
Is this your first composition sketch for this piece? You should do a lot of very small thumb nails first. It may help to do a bunch of small composition studies of artists you want to emulate. The character standing in the foreground is suppose to be the hero of the story I assume and the angels are bad? Perhaps show it from a different angle with the hero facing us. Try out a lot of different angles. You could have the view looking down at the hero and the angels surrounding them from above and below. As is there isnt a sense that the hero is in much danger. Also having a characters face hidden is very impersonal and doesnt allow the audience to relate to them. Something like this might work more in a scene from a movie where the character can be established before or after this shot. But as a single stand alone image its confusing who we're suppose to be rooting for.
Sorry it took me so long to reply, i had an assignment due yesterday, i came up with four compositions. You'll see the same set of four twice, one s just the pencil sketch, and on the other I've drawn out some lines just to show how i was trying to guide the eye through the scene.
I personally like number 2 the most oh, and as you can see i did take your advice into account and show the scene from a high angle view and i think it worked pretty well.. I think. anyways the poses are definitely not final, i was more concerned about positioning, and directing the eye.
Which one do you think is best? Do you recommend i try something else?
ThankYou.
Sorry about how large the images are =/ I didn't realize.
Thats a good start but try to do like 10 thumbs. The more ideas you come up with the better. The purpose of spending a lot of time in the early stages is so that when you go to execute the final version almost all the hard decisions have already been made. Its easy when you start out to want to skip all the planning stages and get right to the finish but then you'll typically run into a wall half way through that could have been avoided.
10 of them... ha... okay, I'll give it a go Haze, but to tell you the truth i was already struggling for ideas by no 3. Thanks for you're input Psychotime in the next set of thumbs i do I'll try to refine the fourth composition a bit more, Also to tell you the truth I'm not entirely sure what the most important part of the image is meant to be. I was trying to convey the idea of the hero standing strong when outnumbered/surrounded, and i think what I've done in all of them is make one of the angels more dominant, sorta like the leader of the pack. I think i was trying to do was emphasize the opposition, and the danger they pose to the hero, more than the hero herself.
Try out a worms eye view. Or how about one where shes smashing one of them in the face while more of them are circling around her. Theres virtually limitless things you could do. You just have to get the creative juices flowing. And afterwards you might come up with multiple thumbs you'll want to develop further.
If the monsters are the most important, then I think that stuff like number 3 are more appropriate. In all of your other ones the hero becomes the focal point due to all of the other characters looking directly at her.
With three, the hero takes up less space than the monsters, and being over the shoulder we pay attention to what she's seeing, which are the monsters. Particularly the one that's highest in the frame.
I tried.
I've never really done thumbnails before, and i found it to be so mentally exhausting. I tried to go for ten, but fell short at six. After the first two, i felt as if i was grasping at straws... i was generating ideas, but the composition seems to be lacking especially from the third one onwards. They are all pretty bad but with all of your input I'll be able to refine one of these ideas and fix up the composition with more thumbnails.
Great job! Composition skills develop slowly with time like other art skills so dont expect instant results and have fun with it. And if you count the first comps you made thats 11 thumbs you've made for this. Thats good you're experimenting with different aspect ratios too. I like 1,5 and 6 the best.
One, five and six? okay, well we both seem to like one and five. So i think I'll explore those two a bit further, maybe combine them somehow? i don't know yet. Once again thanks Haze, I'll be sure to update you all when I'm done with the final set of thumbs.
