Rules? How Icky!

[TimonQ]

It's not so much that art is limited, but the people that view the art are limited. Generally, a large portion of a population will have approximately the same reaction to certain elements (like red is hot and blue is cold). Composition and the way things are read are also part of what makes that initial instinctual reaction that people have. To maximize a desired effect you have to work very closely to how the brain of your audience functions.
Most artists (at least commercial artists) usually try to appeal to large audience, so as you try to please more people you have to keep going to the lowest common denominator of rules. The more specific you get the more crazy the rules (or perhaps guidelines is a much better word for it) get because you're able to tailor the image to a more specific group of people and thus increase the potency of the image for that group.
It's kind of ironic in that, the closer you create something to the way peoples brains work (the more rules you follow) the more impact your piece will have on people.
Of course, also part of what influences peoples reactions is what they are accustomed to. So by following the "rules" you just further enforce them and make it harder for the next guy to break away. Who knew good artists had to also be psychologists!

[ThePhotographer]

Valentina, I think they are a bit right about cropping a bit more in on the characters, but that may be a matter of taste ? I would do it myself though. I really think it would make the picture more interesting.

Right or left - both is good to me, but I'm going to bother you with something else : don't place the characters too much in the middle of the picture :twisted: Left or right, the characters have to be placed in a way moving into the picture from the border - they have to face the middle of the image although not BEING in the middle of the image.

They are quite nice those Norwegian guys ! As a Dane, I understand everything ! I always wonder about us Scandinavians - whatever happened to those brutal vikings ?

[AfroditeOhki]

I think it depends on what you want for the image. Are you making it for yourself or do you want people to be able to feel and understand what you're trying to picture? The artist in my soul tells me I should express whatever I want the way I want. The graphic designer in my brain tells me there are certain things proven to affect people.
As Timon said, red is hot and blue is cold, and everything as colors and shapes has a meaning and a reaction. I wouldn't design a logo for a dentist using red, and I wouldn't design a toy for a kid using gray and faded colors. Those things are researched, tested, there's even a dictionary (maybe more than one) for them. Though I'm kinda sad that it limits my art, I'm happy to study design because now I know HOW to reach people's feelings and reactions (well, sorta, I'm still a student!)...

It's up to you. I'd say go your way if you're making art just to be art, and research about symbols and colors if you're going commercial. But that's me. :)

[LadyMedusa]

Oh and one thing I seem to have forgotten, That is not my image! Just so people don't missunderstand ^^.

They have to face the middle you say. What if we have, like a hall of goblins and they all look in different dirrections, so to say. Some looking behind at the others, and others looking more thowards the camera? What rules/guidelines are there for this?
Is there anywhere I can read about it that has colorfull picture examples of good and bad (or pictures at all... text only ducoments get way too heavy for me D:)

Lets say I started drawing something for a watercolor painting whit some colored cranyons (that don't seem to go away whit the erazer), where I had this mage guy attacking some red spider creature... None of them hardcore as in the example fortunatly.. but reading those rules made me go, "heh.. no use putting all heart and soul into some shit that is just plain wrong :(", sure the endresult can still be shitty, but attleast you don't feel it's just because you can't flip unless you scan it.
If it looks perfect in my head (just using me as an example, but I think everyone does this), I'll start drawing it before I get to think, "Left goes home, attacker should be over there, or was it like thet? I have to check it out"

The brutal vikings have been replaced whit alcoholics and generally nasty people ^^, were just followers of the Njord-Vikings :D
-
Looking at Frank Frazetta's work, the attacker is usually above the victim, sometimes they are more on the left, other times, on the right but still more above. But then again his talent balance out the "errors" or...?
I also notice that he sometimes has one or two characters looking out of the "edge" when he drew bundles of characters.
TimonQ- you mentioned they would be more eppealing to the public if we followed the rules, but yet Frazetta's work is some of the most amazing and the average peron probably agrees
(its 01:35, got problems sleeping, but I still can't see all my keys, sorry in advance for all the possible spelling errors, grumpyness and confusion, if there is any)

[nafa]

Some rules are good and should be followed (most of the time anyway). Examples are anatomical proportions, good compositional guidelines and color theories.

So called "rules" like left/right go home, right/left attack would best be ignored so they can rot in hell. They have no base in reality/logic. If I want to attack a victim, I will attack from any coordinate (2D, 3D or nth dimension if I am able to) whenever the opportunity comes, and art should depict that.

[ThePhotographer]

Did you go through Philip Straub's tutorial here :

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=3275&page=

That will probably give you a good idea of composition.

I think that I often - even unaware - study ads. Some photos and the way they are made just silently slip into the back of my head and even when I do portrait photos in the studio, I'm much more inspired by ads, magazines etc. than I am of the current photo courses that I could take part in for photographers. Hell ! I don't like them ! It's so corny, silly, banal everything you want. I prefer all those super ad photos that just slip into the back of my brains and I try to make my portraits accordingly.

One picture here that I really think is a 100 % good compositionwise is this :
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=189869

I find it has a very nice diagonal composition with the cat, the weapon and the girl. The deadspace on the left has been filled in with the moon - perfect ! On top of it, it has a nice style, some beautiful colors and enough contrast. One of my favourite images around here.

In photography they say that you have to learn all the rules before being able to try to do the opposite. Why shouldn't the same thing apply in drawing/painting ?

I'm one of those who always think that cutting off a little bit of this image on the top or on the right side or what ever would have looked better OR on the contrary add some space. I also don't like big images with subject in the bottom an a big big sky on the top with nothing in it - why ? Why make a great big sky with NOTHING in it ?

Personally, I think that you have to think about what you REALLY want the spectator to look at in your painting and then make your composition, cropping etc. accordingly. It can be a matter of millimeters :twisted:

[AfroditeOhki]

So called "rules" like left/right go home, right/left attack would best be ignored so they can rot in hell. They have no base in reality/logic. If I want to attack a victim, I will attack from any coordinate (2D, 3D or nth dimension if I am able to) whenever the opportunity comes, and art should depict that.

Well, kinda... Things like reading direction are proved and tested, people will look at a page (or image, whatever) from top to bottom, from their left to their right (at least in countries where that's the reading direction...). In graphic design, we tend to go for that idea, using it in compositing the elements of a graphic product. In pictures, with no text and brand marks and such, I believe that "rule" (in lack of a better word) isn't very important, though of course you still use composition in art.
As I said, it's up to you. As my teachers say, you need to know the rules so you can break them. Well broken rules leave a good impression and stand out. Badly broken rules will simply make a piece be useless (in design). I think in art we can take that risk more easily, as the art in general will probably still "save" the image. :)

[Stahlberg]

Some art teacher reads someone's farfetched theory and decides to teach it to his students, because he needs to sound like he knows what he's doing.
The students repeat it their whole lives as Truth, and it becomes an urban myth.
Students think it must be true because so many people are repeating it.

IMHO it's better to think for yourself, to take everything with a grain of salt (and some things with a whole salt factory), to make your very own experiments until you find the real truth.
Make a picture with a guy walking right to left. Do a poll online to see which way people think he's going - home or away.
Personally I suspect that particular one is bs, since I can't for my life see any difference myself, but you never know. Same with the 'attacker' one, pure bs imho. But by all means, test it on people first, if for no other reason then you can reply that you have proof it's bs.

edit:
Looking at the picture in question, I find the first version's direction best, though I have no idea why... probably because as I'm reading it from left to right (which I wouldn't be doing if I was chinese or arabian), I'm seeing the victim first and the attacker afterwards. It's just funnier that way. It's less funny seeing the attacker first and the victim second, like starting a joke with the punch-line.
Except the first version should be cropped a little - NOT as much as in the second version, and there should be a bit more space visible at the bottom. The point of the picture is to show the vastness of space, not the vastness of the empty ceiling. My 2 cents.

[LucentDreams]

actuall Stahlbergs comment ont he image brings up a good point in that the composition is mosr about what your trying to make important, lets ignor whose thea ttacked and whose the victim etc, lets look at the difference the original and cropped version have.

The focus of the large empty shuttle bay shows that clearly no one else is around, and that to appracht he victim the attacker would have a long and exposed journey simply to reach where the victim is. this is not a gut reaction but an intentional very well thought out attack.

I the cropped version we have no clue if others are around, if the guy simply tripped if he's running from somethign else and this other guy just happens to be unaware. I think the environment gives more story than the simple edge of the ship and vastness fo space. But what does the artist want to focus on, if the main focus is simply the attack then the second composition is mcuh simpler it onlyt he important details why he's attacking and what is required to do it are not important.


As for rules about Left and Right and all that, they never work, many people read right to left, while northerners typically also lean to clockwise movement, thouse south of the equator are more comfortable with web compositions going counter clockwise.

When Iw as studyign directing in Theatre, our one instructor really pushed ruls about a character goign off left stage meant they wer no longer part of the story and going off right stage meant they were likely to return, problem is on aythign but a one man show, you need your actors to get on and off ont he most appropriate exit, IE the closest one typically.

Imo compostion is more about use of space, positive and negative, direction targeting and the likes, not about left to right, up to down. You can make a viewer follow a path and see elements in the order you wish with good composition.

[JosephGoss]

"if you are on the right side of the image you attack, If you are on the left side you are the victim"

Why can't the attacker be on the other side,

What other (awkward) rules are there?


you can't attack from either side, you need to attack from above,
he he

if i were to agree with all these rules, i would be coming up with very unoriginal artwork,
in terms of composition anyway

i am new to painting, and while i will want to learn composition , i don't want to be told how to position everything in my artwork. if its clear and does make sence, then i don't see whats wrong with that..

>joe

[ThePhotographer]

Lately, there has been quite a lot of girl/dragon pictures in the 2D gallery. I would like to make a picture like that myself. But a bit funny - a little bit different picture - with some humour.

I'm not at all sure how to make the composition. I would like both of them to be on a bench seen from behind, but that would mean that their faces would be very much seen from the side/profile. Somehow, I don't find that very original ...., but at the same time, I don't see how I could do it in another way.

Personally, I'm also much for - heck, I'll do it the way I think it looks good, but some scenes you can imagine in your head just need a little bit of .... planning perhaps ?

I also think that some people just simply have it all naturally and others don't .... Some don't have to study composition that much - they just have it ! Others don't ....

Anyway, I don't think it hurts following a couple of tutorials - if you feel sure of yourself, you can always choose to do things your way.

[Per-Anders]

Theories about visual flow and composition are unfortunately as already stated often given some form of imutable truth, mostly in order to justify critics comments and actual physical existance :D

There are no hard and fast rules about... well more or less anything in life. That's a totally scary concept for many people to they cling to these rules they're given and treat them as unbending. This is no different.

In truth composition "rules" are really guidelines. However there are certain things that people do psychologically and are interesting (but nothing more), for instance amatures often try to fill up the corners and edges of images, that's where they frequently put areas of interest, perhaps it's similar to the reasons cats walk around the edges of rooms rather than in the centre, some insecurity and lack of confidence only perhaps, however it's an interesting thing only, and doesn't mean that once you understand something you shouldn't use it.

That's the crux of the matter: It's good to know some theories and concepts, because then you can safely ignore them, well ok, not ignore, but test them, become a little more sophisticated, abuse them for your own ends. It's like... noticing a habiut of yours, then choosing whether to modify that habit, or explore what possibilities might be possible by taking things to extremes, what responses you might get etc, or maybe just eradicating teh habit if you don't like it once you can see it yourself.

Anyhow, don't take critics and their theories too seriously. After all they're not the ones actually doing the art.

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