Illustration Class Room

hosted by Tang Ho (Co-hosted by the prince,with the assistance of lovable little Lisa)

 

This class room is mainly for people who already have basic skills of drawing. I will not teach any technique. I believe every one have their own style. I will concentrate on composition, balance,emphasis and grammar of a drawing, In short, how well the pictures are telling a story.

 

Lesson Two: Points of interest

 

I am the prince of the "Prince and the Eagle" and I am Tang's personal best friend, his first creation and his alter ego. For people who wanted to improve their compositional skill in drawing, you have come to the right place. I shall enlighten you with the art of composing.

In the previous page Lisa had told you the fist rule: Catch the viewer's attention and direct them though your illustration. Here, I will show you how to create that focal point to draw viewers' vision.

The term "focal point" is a photographic term. It is an area that a camera is focusing on. When you draw a picture, Your eyes have to act as the view finder of a camera. The focal point is the object you are shooting at. It is also called the point of interest, and is usually a character or object.

The characters or objects you want to illustrate can be divided into main characters or main objects, sub-characters or sub-objects and

background characters or background objects. To make your illustrations interesting, you want your main subjects to be the points of interest. Here are several way to achieve this goal

 

1. Position: There is a general rule in illustrating: The main characters have to be drawn completely within the frame. If part of the main character

is out of the frame, the overall impression of this character will not be as strong. Therefore, the placement of the characters is one way to create points of interest.

   

 

2.Camera angles Using eyes level view and frontal view all the time is boring. Try different camera angles to determine which one is better suit for the purpose. Example

 

3. Cameras' movement The motion line in manga is a technique to create feeling of motion. It directs your vision in the most effective way-Directly! Example(picture from AKIRA by Otomo Katushiro)

4. Dark and light contrast. Darker images stand out on light back ground and lighter images stand out on dark back ground
   

Example

 

5.Characters' movement(action) Action is the most important element in an illustration. Without it, your drawing is a"dead"picture. You want the viewer feel your drawing is alive. Example

 

These methods can be easily applied to manga. Although it seems there are many rules in illustrations, no rule is absolute in art.

For example, in manga, talking scenes are unavoidable. You need not draw two peoples' full bodies if showing their upper bodies is enough.

Sometime you have to put emphasis on facial expressions. In this case, the facial parts should be treated as main and sub-object. You want to focus on the eyes or other part which are important to express the feeling.
Example (Picture borrowed from Fire Dog Manga Gallery)


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