Composition practice

It seems I've forgotten to erase the pencils... Oh well.

It's supposed to be a- hmm.... I don't know actually... Oh well. I drew it, that's what's important, and here we are looking at it.

I had just watched Barry Lyndon, directed by the amazing Stanley Kubrik, before sketching this (do you see it in the setting, with all the hay, masonry, and cross-shaped windows where Barry and Lord Bullingdon had their duel). As I was mulling over what to take from the scene as I remembered it, Isildur and Narsil from Lord of the Rings popped in my head. Ah, there it was. That shall be my center of attention, I decided on a whim. Obviously, I didn't plan it out too well.

A large, brick building with a high, vaulted ceiling and windows. No floors or levels. Piles of hay all around and somewhere around the bottom center there's a sword sticking out of the floor. My main design elements- err... my props? Is that what they're called? I have no idea. I don't know these technical terms. I just read some books and drew for awhile. All I knew was, I wanted to pull the reader's attention towards the sword. To do that, I had to employ a few little tricks.  Or attempt to use them...

There was perspective, there was the line. This is not referring to line art, but to how the parts of the drawing all come together to try and draw your attention from one part to another with visual interest and other little details. Also, contrast.

While I used a lot of black in my older, much more embarrassing, drawings I feel I'm a lot closer now to the spirit of Mike Mignola's (one of my idols) artwork than the visual aping in the linework and basic shapes. I would have to thank Scott Allie for that and his comments on Mike's style which helped me realize one of the things that just makes Mike's artwork work. When the foreground is black, or mostly black, keep the background light. When the background is black, keep the foreground light. There's also a whole heap of crap regarding color and Mike's artwork but that's a whole other topic. A prime example of how to color Mike right is not getting too dark with the coloring (which is funny when you look at the heaps of black he just dunks on every page). Dave Stewart and James Sinclair did this amazingly well throughout Hellboy's run. To see Mike colored less successfully, look to Bram Stoker's Dracula, a pencil job by Mike in his pre-Hellboy days, with Topps comics. Notice how dark and incoherent it sometimes is due to the dark colors and all the black?

Sorry about that, I just get passionate with regards to Mike and the majesty of his work. I just love them to all hell.

Anyway, hopefully I did something right and made the blade and the area around it standout. I could have also used some white ink to add more "bricks". Maybe a skillful cropping could improve it. Maybe I should have stuck with the perspective and brought the eye level down a good deal more, gave less space to the whole pile of nothing around the windows and did more. Ach well... better luck next time.