Link to the pdf of the tool kit

hmm... characters' personalities seen thru body language, the story, and then whatever makes the composition work. recent example!

i drew #1 first and while motion of their outstretched arms feels more dynamic and soft, it doesn't really suit them (at least the part where i was at in the book lol). kdj is a slippery person who nonetheless craves connection (albeit only on his terms), whereas yjh is a lonely but strong-willed guy who's found a companion he needs to stay... so i switched the pose to #2, kdj keeping his hands to himself but still perched lightly on yjh's shoulder, and yjh encircling his whole forearm with a strong grip, shoulder and elbow locked. "no direct skinship, but the kind of touch that wants to ground and to hold close" ...is the feeling i was shooting for (': then the other adjustments are just for tuning up composition

I really admire your grasp in composition. It really shows how much thought you put into the characters backstory and trying to capture the story themes thru illustrations!

Do you have any advice for someone who's bad at composition? Did you ever do exercises to get good at it?

hello!! i got ur other ask on this topic, but i've been thinking about how to answer haha... composition is a really involved subject....... i started writing but got worried about yapping too much and then got busy :') i talked before about composition here, here and here, + check out these artists' super good threads on layouts and pose/silhouette!

you can learn a lot by yourself just by being interrogative with the works you encounter. try tracing over the silhouettes or lines of action in drawings you like and observing how the artist fit them together, then think about why the artist might have made those compositional & technical choices - what does it *do* to the image? what function did this blocking/pose/line/color palette serve?

the composition triangle to me is: STORY (symbolism, meaning, storytelling conveyed the image itself, (implied) action), MOOD (the atmosphere, emotion and expressions), and LEGIBILITY (how the eye is drawn through the image). each point on the triangle affects the other parts, and your technical choices support all three. think about what you want to convey, how you want to draw attention to it, and then use tools like contrast to guide the viewer there

Bitch before enriched flour, neural tube defects like spina bifida were far more common. Even now, spina bifida clinicians and researchers are begging to have salt and maize fortified to reach groups that don’t use as much flour. Before iodized salt, the United States had a fucking GOITER BELT. Eleven years after the introduction of fluoridated water, a city in Michigan found the rate of dental caries among school children dropped a staggering 60%— in an era where tooth decay regularly fucking killed people

I’m literally not even going to start on vaccines, which are among the most successful and robustly studied public health measures in world history

1) Who the fuck cares. Who the fuck cares what people do with their time! That's kind of the fucking point!

2) People aren't going to stop laboring. Housework (look, it's right there in the word!) will still need to be done. So will maintenance on our homes and personal spaces. Children will still need carers, as will the elderly and disabled. There are millions of examples of ~work~ that we do all the time, uncompensated, that won't suddenly stop because we aren't forced to sell our labor to provide corporation's profits.

I'm not surprised that what is traditionally women's work is invisible to these dipshits, but it never fails to anger me.

Anyway. Join the IWW.