Illustration Class Room
hosted by Tang Ho (with the assistance of lovable Diana)

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 four: Emphasis

This time our assistant will be required to perform a physical act, therefore with the short little arms and legs of hers, Lisa will not be modeling this time. Instead, Diana will take her place as our model.

In the previous lessons, we concentrated on a single character. We had no need to explain who was the main character. However, characters must interact with other characters or objects in order to tell stories!

When you have more than one character in an illustration, you have to define who is important on that drawing, and put emphasis on that character or object. In lesson two I mentioned that what you want to illustrate can be divided into primary, secondary and background characters or objects.

Here are some general rules:

1. Characters on high ground dominate characters below.

 

2. Characters at the center take control.


3. Characters in front take command.


4. Larger characters overshadow smaller character.


5. Uniqueness draws attention.
You have to make the main characters as unique as possible. For example, a sitting character will stand out in a group of standing characters. Another method is the appearance of the main character . We will discuss some useful designing methods in later chapters

Rules one to three are about character position. They are similar to the methods of "position" in lesson two. Lesson two was about the physical point on paper, while this lesson talks about about the logical points in the mind. If you look at rule two's example, the man is not at the physical center, but the composition makes you think he is. Drawing is the art of make-believe. You should think in 3D instead of 2D. Here is an example:

In this sketch, the physical high point is the man on the ground, but your mind tells you that Diana is the one truly on top. Therefore she is at the logical high position.

 

Once you understand and follow these rules, readers will have no difficulty in figuring out who is the main character in your drawing.


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