Tutorials and Notes Composition I'm just drawing a character on a blank page right? What do I need composition for? This is where I would have to smack you. Even if you're drawing on a "silly little trading card" or a regular piece, composition comes into play. Each side of your canvas (whatever it may be) is a part of the composition, therefore, play with it. Composition is important, no matter WHAT you're working on. Over the years, I've found that it doesn't matter comic, fine art, animation, good composition comes from everywhere. Film, comics, you name it. I'm focusing primarily on film because, wow, did they have it right. Not saying that other artists don't do beautiful compositions, but... I discovered something. Inbreeding begets MORE inbreeding. For example: Look at comic artists today. Look at who I named in my anatomy lesson. Comic artists today, are, for the most part, getting their anatomical education from people who learned it from a good comic artist who learned it from one of the great anatomy teachers. In other words, it's been watered down. Liefield will probably look at you funny if you mentioned either Loomis or Vilppu to him. Either that, or comic artists went RIGHT to Burne Hogarth to learn about muscles, which doesn't help because Hogarth exaggerates way too much. But I'm getting off topic. All artists should look outside their bubble for good compositions. Thus, my notes will be on film, both live action and animation. I promise, I will give you the most influential books on comic composition in the book listing below, because really, to do a composition entry without the mention of the book Panel Discussions, without Scott McCloud, and without the late, great, fantastic, ever awesome Will Eisner would be a travesty. 1. THUMBNAILS - live them, love them, learn them. So many artists out there go from giant sketch to finished giant sketch that they don't even pause to think about composition. Thumbnails are the most wonderful devices in the world for plotting out who goes where and when. Creating small, 2x1 inch rectangles or WHATEVER shape you may be working in and sketching within these, with pen, pencil, or marker, will be an eye opener. I promise you. Here's the dirty little secret that the industry doesn't tell you. Thumbnail it first. When the shapes work (see above notes on character shape shape shape) then they take that thumbnail to a copier or a scanner, and BLOW the sucker up. Since everything is working, why bother re-drawing it? You WONT be able to redraw those shapes the way you did in the thumbnail. Trust me on this, don't argue, I'm wiser than you about this because I have TRIED to simply recreate my thumbnails and it doesn't work. I'll repeat... attempting to redraw your thumbnails large scale without using a copier doesn't work. 2. Foreground, middleground, background - There are THREE sections to space. Note the examples below.
Mmm, space. The breakup of this piece is so easy to distinguish that if you don't "get it" I'd be at a loss for words. Anything, everything, in the prominent foreground is black or as close to black as you can get. Middleground? Lighter, by about 20%. The background? Lighter still. This is something that will be brought up in color theory, but works here too. Things in the FOREGROUND will be more saturated, will be darker, more prominent. Things going into space, into the background, will become greyer, lighter, cooler for the most part. 3. Contrast (Lights and Darks) - I got hit severely by a friend for not using lights and darks but things inbetween them. Keeping your lights and darks consistent has its place, but don't be afraid to go dark where you want dark, and light where you want light. Darks and lights help establish shape and how things are constructed. As for black and white contrast, this image is HUGE so I'll link to one damn good use of contrast from Citizen Kane: What exactly are you supposed to be looking at? Oh yeah, HIM. And how's this for a great contrasting shot? Crap, didn't we mention this in Foreground, middleground, background? Yes, even in writing, I'll reiterate myself:
4. Get to the POINT, will ya Jim? - One of the best and easiest ways to draw a viewers eye to your target is to have everything point to it. Yes, really. Back to Bambi, the original Bambi, because I can...
Oh so subtle. But the branches, the bark, and leaves are making a triangle pointing to Bambi's face. And that's the brilliance about it, if you don't notice it outright, if it's not screaming at you, they've done their job. These sort of things hit us on a psychological level, we're forced to look at Bambi because everything around it is telling us so. And sometimes, you don't have to point, sometimes you can just force us...
What is that background and foreground saying. It's boxing Bambi and Thumper in. It is telling us, "What is INSIDE this box is important and you should look at it." 5. Emotional Impact - Emotion plays just as big of a role in composition as how the characters look. If your character is supposed to feel isolated and desperate, you wouldn't crowd the character with things, you'd keep it simple. Or, make him/her tiny next to very large objects. Straight objects. Rectangles. Remember me talking about shape? It comes to play here. Triangles are agressive, circles are passive/soft, and rectangles are indifferent. Changing their angles changes their inherent moods. Practice Exercises From Life - Oh god, I'm mentioning THAT again. But yes, drawing from life is by far, one of the best ways to learn about composition. Enroll yourself in a painting class at a local community college or break out a few markers, sit at a cafe, and draw the people and their surroundings. Oh god oh god, going into the real world to draw??? Yes, going into the real world to draw will help you. Go to a Zoo. Go to a museum. Speaking of... Museum Drawing - Go sit down at a local museum and do small thumbnails of paintings and drawings you see there. Film Practice - Save color films for last. Pick up a good old black and white film, or a new black and white film for that matter... ie: Schindler's List or Goodnight and Goodluck. I will make note here that there's an absolutely wonderful documentary out there called Visions of Light that anyone interested in composition should check out. It talks about the glory days of black and white cinematography and how they pulled it off back then. Back to the point. Let's take out Citizen Kane. There's a very good reason that it's on the top 100 films of all time list. Now, find a scene you enjoy, pause the film. Paused? Good. Here's what you'll need... For the hoidy-toidy, you can use a computer and tablet or tablet PC... ;) For the rest of us? - Blank Paper laid out with nine rectangles, you'll want space inbetween each rectangle to give each composition breathing room - Markers (Black, fifty percent grey, twenty-five percent grey or something close to these three) NO pre-drawing. NO PENCILS. Simply look at the composition and block out the values in simple shapes. If I see details on these, I'll make you take ten laps around my apartment complex if I find you. Each of these should be done within one to three minutes. Timing yourself like this allows you to really think about the major shapes and get them down, instead of dawdling on things that don't really matter. If you can't get your hands on Citizen Kane, here's some! Youtube links for practice:
Resources
The following notes are provided in PDF format. To view, simply click. To download, right click and SAVE AS... Brad Bird's Notes on Composition Part 1 Brad Bird's Notes on Composition Part 2 Storyboarding the Simpson's Way by Chris Roman I highly recommend downloading Walt Stanchfield's notes as well, unfortunately, they were taken down as his wife is currently putting them together in book format. Ah well. Books The Five C's of Cinematography Setting Up Your Shot The Illusion of Life Story by Robert McKee Panel Discussion
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