How To Actually Practice Composition As A Beginner

You will get some simple advice on how to get more detail and polish in your work. How to think about composition. And my thoughts on how to prepare for professional work.

The principals of composition and picture making are time honoured and well understood. But figuring out how to apply them to your work right now is a challenge! Often we need to focus on the types of images we want to create and understand how things like compositional principals will help us specifically!

Happy Drawing!

Tim Mcburnie

[hobbsmakescomics]

The thing that really made composition click for me was the book Framed Ink. I leveled up the day I got that book.

[Buddhabellie]

Dont apologize cause this is where so many of us need to learn and see this process as is....thanks so much. Learning so much

[Albelius]

I really wish the schools I've attended gave this type of education! Really helped me to think my artwork differently and how to create more emotional pictures. The sketches I made during this are quite simple and not-good, but it was a fun practice while being eye-opening as well!

[throughthewatcherseyes]

Thank you for this, I always wanted to see videos for beginners that allow them see not only what to Study but how to practice what they want to do. We need more videos like this.

[LauraTeAhoWhite]

Good god, I have been needing this video in my life for years. Composition is the one thing I continue to struggle with, I need more videos like this in my life.

[BreezyDefrag]

I really love how you describe and treat drawing... When you talk about the fact that you can draw something simple but still make it appealing to look at really kind of enlightens me. I tend to draw a lot of characters... on blank backgrounds because that is all I really know, but I love how you demonstrate that you can start with that simple piece and think of the variables that CAN be manipulated is really cool, like hair, or jewel stuff. And I really love how you outline that you can create the rough sketching thing and then come back with the Composition Pass, then the anatomy pass. That really helps because most of the time when a teacher says, 'Draw the s curve and use that as the foundation' my brain is like...'ok so I have to stay as close to this line as possible'... which I have tried and it always made my images look empty. That's just how my brain works, you give me an image of an X and tell me draw something using that composition. I always would draw as locked to that X shape as possible... So all that to say it is nice that you bring up that you can draw something you want, explore it in the artistic right brain space AND THEN go back over with the Comp Pass, and Anatamy pass. It really helps my mind understand that it can explore an idea before I get the gritty academic part of the image. So thank you.

[Sketchnd]

Been struggling for a bit to create a storytelling kind of mood and conveying different emotions with composition. I'm glad I came across this video to brush up. Thanks man. You killed this!!

[sharongillesp]

EXCELLENT tutorial on planning a work of art! Thank you!

[not_floater]

Just wanna say through my process of teaching myself you have been a huge help throughout these past few months

[vespi]

I've only watched a couple of videos of yours, but I already can say that you are one of my favorite youtube teachers! The calm voice and clear instructions reminds me that I shouldn't obsess over drawing and that I should just have fun with it. Thank you very much, really helped <3

[JH-pero]

The way I currently approach composition for panels is very top-down structured: words, faces, hands, figures, background. And this is logical in the sense of showing the theatrical elements and building a graphic design: I maintain a lot of control over the eye flow and acting so the story always reads the way I want it to, and the text isn't crowded. Since I've been drawing the panel details on index cards, scanning those and composing the page digitally, I've noticed that I end up with interesting crops and adjustments that I'd never achieve by doing it "on the board" - sometimes it's just in the card being a little bit off-axis, other times I notice an opportunity to do a deeper close-up or move around the figures. I've also been working through *Framed Ink* and it has a method that is much more oriented towards cinematic storyboarding: it thinks about an actual camera lens and sets, and then discusses how to enable a formal composition over that with lighting, foreground objects and other details. That's something that I can still work on more, since a downside of the way I'm doing things is that I never break away from the acting.

[evethecraftlady]

Dude!! This is AMAZING!! Thank u for sharing all this excellent information. I feel like I just came out of a great workshop!!

[MrExcaliburg]

Super helpful as always! I feel like this really fills in a gap that I've had from learning fundamentals and actually applying them to engaging images, which is why I learning them in the first place 😅 Really excited to push my design skills further and create some sucky thumbnails in the meantime.

[asdfzxcv]

Loved the video!, my main takeaways are to start to frick around and find out and to be curious about what you want to create and what you want to add to your drawing, I'll definetely start implementing this into my drawings and start thumbnailing more often, it looks fun too!

[Mr-rjfb]

I love your content man, excellent work as always!!! You’ve taken my art to the next level.

Could you eventually do a video on comic book panel/page composition? Does that obey the same considerations you expressed here? I’ve really struggled with that!

[sunshineanddoodles]

only found your channel recently but THANK YOU! it's like the glue i needed to put some things together

[dertethra]

I would absolutely watch a 3 hour thumbnailsession😊

[WyvernCult]

this is exactly what i've been looking for! thanks so much!

[PatricioSoler-ixrt]

Wonderful video, I'll make sure to share with my Content Creation class!

[MH-lrue]

I like this video. I need to practice more thumbnail planning and plan out illustrations. Please do the 3 hour video. I would draw along with that as well. 😊