Introduction

Hello

As you know, composition plays an important role in our arts.

It makes art more appealing and attractive.

Today, I wanna show you how I use triangles for composition a bunch of characters.

Process video

Usual compositions and references

You can find these compositions on the Internet easily by typing “composition” or “composition in art” on the searching bar.

(I usually do research on Pinterest)

However, it seems hard to arrange a group here.

These type of compositions are suitable for small amount of characters, maybe one or two. Or landscape.

(You can find them on Pinterest as well as their names)

Because of lacking of informations about how to composite many characters, we quite hesitate to draw them on 1 canvas.

Sometimes, we usually present characters coordinate.

It's so boring and stiff even if they all have different poses.

There are a lot of references out there, but we do not know the rule how to do it correctly.

Here are a few references I took from Pinterest.

(So that it quite hard for me to know they belongs to whom)

And I will analyze these Arts to show you the way help me arrange characters easily, then create another illustrations as samples.

Using triangles

As you can see here, there are 3 characters and I can draw a triangle from their heads.

A triangle made by 3 points.

And I will use these points to define character’s head position.

Step by step

First, you need to draw 2 characters with different heights.

Like image below.

So you have 2 points of a triangle now ( Character head = point)

Then you define the last point of triangle and that is another character's head.

Replicate the process to define another points.

Like images below.

 

 

Let's try another reference.

3 characters create a triangle.

From 2 of them, I define another point.

And anothers.

And another.

As you can see, beside placing characters head from triangles, the artist also diversify characters poses.

And change characters size.

Sample illustrations - Simple/ flat background

Have you read Bleach?

They have a bunch of Shinigami there.

Today I will create fanart about Gotei 13, which means I have a composition for 13 characters 😀

I will use this background for this one.

(Make sure you know I won't focus on rendering process, cause it not the main point today)

First I will draw 2 characters.

Then I define another character's head by triangle.

Replicate the process until I have a canvas fulfill by 13 characters.

THE SIMPLE RULE ARE

NEAR points => characters will be big or bold (much details)

DISTANT points => characters will be small or blur ( less details)

After you finish the rough composition, do whatever you like to fulfill your workflow.

As line arts, details, shading, color…

But here is my Process.

After I finish the rough composition, I tried to details characters right away and got lost.

So I decided to verify their posing then details later.

Then I dive into adding details for characters.

Then I only add values for them.

Here is my final.

Sample illustrations - Complex perspective background

I will replicate the process with this background and characters from Frieren.

This one requires you know about foreshortening.

Cause the characters must have anatomy suitable for background like this.

So I think you should break down body parts into squares and cylinders like this.

It is easier to image anatomy in 3d.

Let's do our process once more.

First draw 2 characters in different heights.

Then define the last point to find a character position.

And from 2 of them, define another point.

Then you can add anything you like from your workflow : lines, shading, color…

Here is my final result.

You could watch my video for full process.

Thank you for reading and hope this could help you.