Some Last Minute Tips!

Hey everyone! I know you're all working hard, and I wanted to share some tips on different things with you.

PERSPEEECTIVE and other things
Rad Sechrist, http://radhowto.blogspot.com, is a great resource for some simple tricks of the trade, he is a storyboard artist at Dreamworks Animation which means he has to know his stuff. He just posted some good tips on doing Perspective correctly, especially when you're working on the computer. Take a look through the rest of the blog for some other posts about composition, character creation, etc.

COMPOSITION
I'm going to repeat some of the stuff I said in individual responses...After your concept/idea for a piece, Composition is the SECOND MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR PIECE. EVERYTHING else comes third, which is why it's so important to really practice with your thumbnails for composition.
When you're composing things, figure out a focus for your compositions--what do you want us to look at, what's the most important part? It's easy to put your focus in the middle--but more interesting to crop it off-center somewhere, and use composition to lead your eye to it. Central compositions often feel more static, but can also be very powerful...Lots of book covers use central compositions, just take a look on your shelves! Diagonal lines create movement, lots of horizontal and vertical make things feel static and less interesting. Triangles are a strong compositional shape. Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" is a commonly used example of a great triangular composition.


Look at some of your favorite artists and study what they do in their compositions! Then keep practicing!

Jon Foster http://www.jonfoster.com is not only an awesome artist in general, but great at using composition. Many of his compositions are more centrally-based (he does a lot of book covers), but he manages to make them super exciting. Here's some examples:

copyright Jon Foster
Excellent use of diagonals!


copyright Jon Foster
Central compositon, but notice the triangle going on with the armor/globe/draped cloth on the right. That triangle keeps your eye moving around the piece (and he stays away from using horizontal/vertical lines)


copyright Jon Foster
Okay, imagine this piece without that strong diagonal foreground leg. Not as good, right? AMAZING with that strong foreground added.

Keep practicing! Explore and experiment! I'd rather you all try crazy things now and learn from them (even if they turn out badly), than not try at all!