Gnarly Tree Shafts

Here is the dissected anatomy of a tree shaft - it's made of subordinate tubes that cling together to make the bigger form.
Here are some good and rude trees to practice hierarchy on.

2 CONTRASTING URGES MAKE THE TREE'S FORM

Here the sub tubes are wrenched apart. The feeling I get from the form of trees is that they are constructed out of opposing forces. One major force is trying to hold all the sub forms together. For part of the tree that force is strong and binds the tubes tightly. Nearer the top of the tree, the tubes themselves have an irresistible urge to peel apart from each other. They want to escape the domination of the tree, but the power at the center is too massive to pull totally away from.

These tree tumors look fun to draw. They lack shame.
Frazetta's approach to trees and hierarchy is similar to Post's. He doesn't paint every detail. Instead he suggests the major forms and some of the sub forms that crawl along the overall shape of the trees. Also like Post, he uses liberal and pleasing negative spaces to frame the solid objects in the compositions.

Frazetta's details are wrapped around the direction and form of the twisting tortured tubes of tree meat. Smooth buttocks help set off the rugged texture of the trees.
Trees compose around characters.

Frazetta Caricatures Composition 18

Frank Frazetta became a master at composition and hierarchy - so much so that his work is almost a caricature of artistic control. Everything in his images fits so perfectly together that it's almost unnatural - even though he is using guidance from a great observation of nature.His images read instantly. I shrunk these down to show how the whole big picture is a blatant graphic design. If you click them and then look at the larger image, you can see how every level of sub forms and details fits within and flows along the larger forms and graphic statements.


The differences between Frazetta and good animation cartoonists are in individual skill and style, not so much in fundamentals. Frazetta can draw much better than most cartoonists (or anybody else). He also can control more levels of complex detail, and difficult elaborate structures - like anatomy.
But he doesn't let his complex knowledge and skill become a disorganized jumble of visual information (like modern superhero comics).
His compositions are as controlled as Milt Gross' or Harvey Kurtzman in his early years.
This idea of extreme composition and artistically controlled staging used to be popular among great movie directors. It was an essential part of their jobs.

John Ford could possibly be the most extreme of extremes.
He made caricatures of movies. The images in his films are so strikingly graphic that I find them beautiful and funny at the same time. They are almost cartoons. Imagine if life was this planned?

Most old time movie directors were artists. They were visual storytellers and used their sense of staging and cutting to tell their stories in the most personally controlled ways.


Modern movies - like modern everything - have a much more random haphazard feeling, as if the creators really don't have any idea of what they are trying to say. Big budget movies look like expensive home movies to me these days. They just follow a handful of trends and hope they win the luck of the draw with audiences. "Blow more sh*t up!" seems to be today's measure of quality.

How to tell if your staging and composition is clear

Look at the pictures small. If there is an obvious shape to the overall page, and you can still see what the composition is focusing on, then you probably have good staging.

Layout-Composition 16 , the Big Picture Designed Owen Fitzgerald

Owen Fitzgerald's layout and composition sense is great for study. Why?
Because he doesn't use a lot of detail in his scenes. It's all about the overall statement and clarity.

He uses plenty of empty space in between more filled areas.

He doesn't compose anything directly in the middle.
Nothing is evenly spaced.
He uses a combination of controlled framing devices and intersection. Nothing is placed in the scenes by accident.




He uses lots of contrasts, tall and thin, short and wide, characters posed on angles to contrast against perpendicular furniture and buildings. Organic VS geometric shapes.

His scenes have an overall clear statement. The whole frame reads as a design.

You know how you can tell if you have a good composition? An overall pleasing design statement and a clear image? Not just a bunch of clutter?
Look at the image small. If you can still easily read what is happening and the overall shapes add up to a clear design, then you are probably there.


Frank Frazetta has beautiful intricate details in his work, but his images also are stunning simple compositions. The whole image is a design.

Tricky angles

Owen can draw scenes from any angle, and he is still careful to organize the elements in the frame so that everything reads clearly and is a handsome design.

In my opinion, a good clean handsome layout beats a ton of evenly spaced cluttered detail any day. Especially in anmated cartoons where you keep cutting from scene to scene.