I like to do thumbnails. Starting with really simplified thumbnails then picking which one i would like to go with then do different iterations of that. Then rinse and repeat till i have a final draft then ask for feedback wherever i can and clean up the linework. Although some of my best work i just went straight onto the final canvas with no idea what to do. I think people often don’t care about the anatomy of the composition as much as the artist and the simplest and most beautiful pieces become the most popular.

You could make a decision according to the story of your image, try to imagine an event if you did not have one, and write it down somewhere, just ask yourself, what moment is more important? Which of these ideas best communicates what I want? I think composition is the subjective part of art, and a lot of that has to do with making decisions, there is no right way to make a composition, but try at least to be clear. You achieve clarity through contrast, if you do a lot of dark spots in a canvas, and then you place a yellow square somewhere, that square will be more important than the rest of the dark spots

Hmm... if I'm really in conflict, and I think that more than one idea will work, I think I usually choose based on things I haven't done before. For example, maybe there is an unusual angle or pose, or scenery I haven't depicted in a previous drawing. It's important to me to experiment and have accidents, because otherwise I will simply get good at drawing one sort of thing.

Actually, composition is one of the things I have the most difficulty with. :( At the Art Institute they didn't teach it at all (so much for the country of the Renaissance!), the only one I'm fairly familiar with is the photographic one of thirds but it's not always ideal. When I draw scenes, I start by testing the framing with mannequins and some box or cilinder for suggest the scene (the small and cheap ones, posable, made of plastic), shooting from various angles and trying out the lights, trying to obtain the effect that comes closest to what I need. At that point I start doing some layout tests on a digital drawing file: simple lines, light and dark, to get the right mood. I really hope that among the courses coming up here on Proko there will be one on composition because I can't go on instinct anymore! >_<;;;

I thumbnail them, see what "feeling" is the closest to my original idea, sometime let it on the side a few days before deciding... in ultimate conundrum, I ask a few people what looks better to them without saying what the image goal is. The image that got the "best" reading from my tester get to be choose. There are no absolute answer and often I have regret afterward, but I also know those regrets will help me in the futur :p