Struggling with dynamic compositions

ChloeGreenbergArt

Hi! I’m working on some quick thumbnails for a book page, and I’ve been struggling to create dynamic compositions. Most illustrations that I have made for this project are pretty straight-on. I can’t get super crazy with it due to the style and mood of the page, but I’ve been messing around with the location of the vanishing point hoping that would be better. But it still feels pretty static???

How do you all go about thumbnailing dynamic compositions? What does your process look like?

Tom Harshberger

@ChloeGreenbergArt A lot of comic books, pinterest surfing, art books and movies.

https://film-grab.com/ might be helpful.

Also check out the 'art of' series by Character Design References: https://characterdesignreferences.com/art-of-animation

100% of my composition ideas I pick up from reference along the way.

gregchambers

You could try rotating the image or using a more extreme 3pt perspective angle.

Geoffrey Mégardon

One sort of dynamism comes from creating lines and curves that converge or drive the eyes in the 2D space (the page). That can be done by playing with the elements on the page, but also their position in 3D, the camera position and lens, and, importantly the light. The gesture of the character will also give important curves to compose with.

For instance, the more you have vanishing points and the more there are lines converging to these vanishing points, the more it will look "dynamic".

One other sort of dynamism comes from playing with contrast, either in size, or in color, or anything else. For instance, you could have the face of someone on the foreground and the full body of someone else in the background. The contrast in size gives dynamism. Another example commonly used is to contrast a warm color with a cold color.

I think your second thumbnail is quite dynamic. It has a good contrast light/shadow, and the camera is at a slighly low angle and it is moved to the right to break the "boring" centered in the middle 1 vanishing point perspective.

Maybe you could try to add a vanishing point for the vertical lines (they don't need to converge a lot, just slightly), and to define the sun direction in your shadow.

ChloeGreenbergArt

@Geoffrey-Mégardon This is great advice, thank you!