TUTORIAL // creating a strong composition (Patreon)

At long last, here it is: a tutorial about composition! This is something I avoided for a long time because I felt like it was such an overwhelmingly broad topic. It’s one of those things that also touches on light, shape, color, pose, and so on. But now that I’ve already managed to make 25 (!!) previous tutorials, I felt like it was time to make this one since it’s supported by enough other resources!

This video covers:

Composition in my own art - my main influences and how I apply that to my own work

My priorities when building a composition

Specific principles and techniques that I fall back on (like the rule of thirds)

Common mistakes that artists make

A demo of my process for building a composition

The brushes I used were:

The MaCaLabs HB pencil brush to sketch and create linework

The hard round brush from my own set to paint some details

Some other tutorials that might be useful to check out after this one are:

Using your creative spark to generate ideas: this one talks about how you can channel your ideas into quick thumbnail sketches that you can revisit later to finalize. 

Creating interesting and flowy shapes: this one talks about the role of shapes in leading the eye around the image. 

By the way, the subtitled version is coming up in a minute! And if you have any trouble watching this video, please check out this post, which has a list of external links to all of the tutorials which you can view on vimeo.