We talk alot in here about hair, morphs, figures, props, meshes and other technical subjects but we rarely seem to discuss the "art" aspect of our images. I'd love to read ya'lls tips and tricks for creating good compositions. Not the "increase the bust size to 5.000" or "use displacement mapped hair" variety, but things related to camera angle, arranging figures within the frame, or using using lines to focus viewer's attention on a specific point in the image. Maybe something related to using color palettes to set moods. I'd also love to see some examples of things that you find compositionally well done (even if the lighting isn't quite right or there's broken mesh showing, or the characters are not voluptuous. Please enlighten me... challenge me... stretch my brain. I dare ya!

Attached Link: Composition and Design Elements, Principles and Visual Effects

That's an excellent link. I don't have formal training either. I have, however, been influenced by two books. The first, by Robin Williams (not the comedian) is called, "The Non-designers Design Book." I was wowed with her easy to understand explanation of basic design principls. The second is by Stan Lee (the comic book guy) and called "Draw The Marvel Way." He includes sections on composition and how to make it very dynamic. That was an eye opener for me. I'm not always so good at implementing the things they talk about, but now I have a kind of "bar" to work toward. That's a good thing.

I Love that Stan Lee book! It was the first "How to draw..." book I ever bought. I got interested in comic book art when I found out that Frank Frazetta got his start drawing comics. I was always in awe of Frazetta's ability to create so much movement and feeling in his work.

Those guys (Stan Lee and his artists) are able to convey so much in their art without worrying about shadow maps, bucket sizes, sub-surface scattering etc. They are amazing!

You can also try the loomis set of books on illustration/drawing etc. You should be able to find free pdf vesions on the net by searching a bit. They are very well written books on how to make images that are not only well composed, but also attractive to look at.

And hang out at the Art theory forum of CGTalk, which is dedicated to this sort of thing :

Clicky...

Thanks!

One of the best things you can do is to look at art. When it comes to visual images, it's pretty much all been done before. Anything you find interesting can be an inspiration. Looking at the old masters is never a bad choice, of course, but they're not the only source of inspiration. Take a movie or old TV show you really like and have on video, play it back with no sound and one finger on the PAUSE button. Keep your eyes peeled for scenes that are compositionally interesting or that particualrly grab your attention, then freeze them and look at how they were put together. A movie is nothing more than thousands of still images, and in a well-made movie nearly every one will be compositionally interesting. If you want to get "deep" there's always "The Zen of Seeing" by Frederick Franck. Seeing, after all is the foundation of all visual art. Then there's always the good old golden ratio - the mathematical realtionship that supposedly underlies much of the most aesthetically pleasing art and design. However some people feel it's not all it's cracked up to be. - Jimdoria ~@>@