by Matthew Russell - Posted 3 years ago
Welcome, my CryptoComic Compatriots! Welcome back to part 6 of the Fundamentals of Comic Book Art blog series. Yep this is a 9 part series and I am tired. For those that don't know, I started this series after talking with the legendary Dan Cote and we were discussing the fundamentals of art and I was audacious enough to try to write a series explaining what they are in an attempt to get people tp go back to the basics.
If you haven't had a chance to read them yet, I am very proud of them. Take a moment to check them out and see if something catches your eye and teaches you something new. "Fundamentals of Comic Book Art Part 1: What are they?" gives you a general overview of the fundamentals and how they interact with each other.
"Fundamentals of Comic Book Art Part 2: Construction" teaches you to see the world in the most basic shapes. This will help you with today's lesson; composition. Get everything down to the basics and you can't go wrong.
"Fundamentals of Comic Book Art Part 3: Perspective" teaches you how the reader sees the world that you have created and adds depth. Don't ever forget this step or else something vital will be missing and it will be too late.
"Fundamentals of Comic Book Art Part 5: Color Theory and Light" teaches you how light behaves and how color plays into that. Truthfully, I could write an entire book on this alone. This gives you a great starting point to be able to explore your own techniques and to see how light plays off different material and textures.
As it turns out there is so much more to making art than simply art making. We have to consider composition as well. This is essentially the structure of the art work that we create. No I am not referring to the “Construction” or basic shapes that we discussed in Fundamentals of Comic Book Art Part 2.
This is not just found in the fine arts. Look at Musicians. Every song has structure. A composer will plan out that structure from the beginning. Each musician has a specific part to play. Together, if the composer has done their job, then when the musicians play together (assuming they have mastered their instrument), everything will sound according to plan.
As artists we need to act like both composer and musicians. We compose the art in a way that has structure and meaning.
This is not the same focal point that we discussed in Part 3 (Perspectives). Well, it could be the same but not necessarily. Confused yet?
The focal point is the piece of the art that you want the viewer to focus on. This must demand the viewer’s attention. We can have multiple focal points but generally, we need to limit the focal points to 2 or a single point.
1 Focal point is generally easy to pull off but multiple is far more difficult. Photographers tend to use a gaussian blur on everything except the main subject (see the image below). This is a nice easy trick. Harder to do with pen and ink.
We create the focal points by utilizing 5 separate techniques. They are as follows;
- Contrast
- Isolation
- Placement
- Convergence
- The Unusual
Think about the difference with things. What are the opposites? Black - white, hot - cold, high - low. It doesn’t have to be as extreme as this. Contrast in art can be as simple as textural difference, color or value difference.
Any major type of contrast will demand the attention of the viewer. Let's take a look at the balloons below.
The red balloon is the focal point. The red contrast with the white balloons. I have stated before that white contrasts black but in this case color contrast the lack of color of the other balloons.
Most people remember isolation as a bad thing. I was given “time out” as a kid and I hated being isolated from everyone else. In the prison system, isolation is used as both a tool or as a form of torture in the past.
So, why then is isolation in art good? When I was isolated in my younger days in class (having to stand in the corner), that act alone demanded a lot of attention. Let's look at that balloon image again.
As you can see, the white balloons are all uniformly on the same level but the red one is isolated from the group by simply existing on another level. This is isolating the red balloon by itself, demanding and reinforcing the contrast of the red.
Let’s apply this to the comics. Below is the cover to Amazing Spider-Man #700 drawn by Ramos. He happens to be one of my personal favorite Spider-Man artists.
There are so many people washed out in the background. Those characters are all in various geometric shapes made out to look like the moon or buildings.
Spider-Man himself is the only organic being not confined to a shape. He is also not washed out (contradiction) and he is isolated in the foreground. He is the focal point. He doesn’t necessarily have to be in the center of the cover to be the focal point.
Look at the back cover for this Spider-Man Friend or Foe (PS2). As you can see, the same dynamic of being isolated on the far left with the villains in the background on the same level. This entire scene takes up the top ? of the back game cover.
We touched on this a little in the isolation but it is worth repeating. Naturally, our eyes are drawn to the center of a specific shape. Look at the cover to the Justice League Throne of Atlantis movie.
As you can guess, Aquaman is the center. He is the focal point of that image and the focus of that movie. (Great movie by the way.) This is a trick used by the masters. Everyone from Van Gogh, and Picasso, to Da Vinci simply put their subjects in the middle in order to help draw your eye to the focal point.
Remember Jurassic Park? I’m paraphrasing Dr. Malcolm here when I say “Just because we can, doesn’t mean that we should.” We don’t always have to use the center. In fact, it looks better if we don’t.
By putting everything in the center, we end up with a static composition. Very your focal point up a little and we end up with more of a dynamic composition.
Slightly off center is good but remembering the rule of thirds is far better. Some of you might remember when I wrote about that a long time ago. Going back, it looks like over a year ago. For those that want to read it and catch up the link is below.
My personal favorite image from that is the landscape shown below.
Moving on from a blog post of the past.
Lines and shapes. Gotta love ‘em. Convergence deals heavily with them as well as “implied” lines and shapes. These help direct the viewer's eye to a specific location.
If you look at the famous cover of Superman Issue #75 (The Death of Superman). The focal point is the, of course, the cape draped over the stick made up to look like the flag.
The buildings in shadow frame and contradict the cape. The red also contradicts the yellow. This helps the image but what we are focusing on is the converging lines.
The rocks on the bottom of the page form a triangle pointing directly to the cape. Everything about this just screams “Look at the cape/flag and mourn!”
As far as using shapes, look no further than Todd McFarlin’s cover of Batman #423. Tan used this image as a base (homage) with Grim Knight Issue 1. Both images below.
Can you see that Batman is off to the right holding a girl. The moon (the shape we are looking at) frames them with a contradicting color. If you want to go further into this, Batman’s cape envelops the females in both covers forcing you to take notice of them.
In the Chris Daughtry’s (yes, that Chris Daughtry from American Idol fame) Batman #50 cover, we can get a good look at the Convergence lines. Batman is on the bottom 1/3 line (yep the rule of thirds plays into this again). Batman is darker than the prevailing Superman who is looking down on him.
So why isn’t Superman the main focal point of the comic? Well, let's look at the rubble. It all forms lines basically pointing to the Dark Knight. Although the rubble is colored the same color as Batman, there is fire between the rubble and Bruce. This highlights the Batman in just a way to drag your attention kicking and screaming away from Superman to Batman.
On the subjects of convergence lines, Superman’s cape and leg perfectly form a nice frame around batman. When we look at works of art, do we stare at the frame or what the frame holds?
Superman’s right leg (left from our perspective) also creates an arrow pointing directly at batman. The title card (Batman logo at the top) also points directly at Batman, not Superman.
One of the best ways to get something to stand out is a “shock and awe” type approach. We add something unusual. Anything out of place will throw off the natural “flow” of things and force you to look at it.
As you can see from the image below, this monster comes out at you from the center. One of the reasons that this image jumps out at you is the unusual red eyes. Eyes, by design, don’t glow. Eyes are meant to catch light, not project it.
It doesn't hurt that the eyes are such a different color. Everything is dark and gloomy, and the eyes “pop” out at you with vibrant light.
Now let's check out more unusual pieces. Sometimes it is a known subject that can appear unusual. We all know Archie to be the fun-loving All-American, light hearted teen from Riverdale High. Punisher is, well we’ve seen the movies and Netflix series, a brutal bloodbath of a killer.
By combining them on the same cover, this will draw your eye faster than the flash. The strange combination forces you to look at the Punisher and think about it for a minute or two.
Superboy covers were known for adding a strange twist on their covers. There was the issue that Pa Kent became the principal of Smallville High and on the cover, was spanking Superboy. Don’t believe me, look it up. Superboy 55 from March 1957. Try not to laugh.
The Superboy cover that I really wanted to talk to you about was Superboy #194. As you can see, we are used to Superboy flying through the air helping others. Now we see Superboy in need of help and he is only half man crawling on the beach.
If you see the news and you find someone out of place walking in the background, for instance, wearing a horse mask, it could throw off your concentration for a minute.
Even if the subject is doing the exact same things as everyone else, they stand out. It could be just a simple expression that is unusual. This is what organizations such as FBI or TSA are trained to look for when scanning a crowd. What is unusual? What stands out?
When I first went hunting as a kid, I was told “If you look for animals, you will never see them. Instead scan for something out of place. When you spot that, take a better look.”
Now that we have covered everything that makes up good composition, try it out yourself. Use what you learned here and create a dynamic cover to your comic. Keep each step in mind when composing your piece and let the music happen.
I will see you next time when we talk about gestures.
