Drawing Basics
Getting Started
Lines
Shapes
How Perspective Works
Intuitive Perspective
Values
Bonus Content
Mike Mattesi is back with another lesson on shapes!
This time he shows us how the shapes we choose to use in our composition will effect how our audience feels.
He gives us his reasoning behind why shape composition is so powerful and gives examples of how it’s used in major Hollywood movies.
Newest
@leolopyz
25d
I have a feeling I’m going to do many many studies like this in the future they really help me understand the simple idea behind all the detail
Josh Fiddler
3mo
oh! About the dances with wolves shot, I would add that the gentle angle of the long horizontal value and colour shapes adds to an overall sense of gentle, sweet passage of time! no matter how short lived.
Josh Fiddler
3mo
I’m one of Mike’s mentees and I’ve done this with him, although at the time, and I think he’ll agree, I wasn’t quite getting it lol. Fast forward to now and a lot of progress made in seeing and thinking, I’m sure that Mike will be happy with the new one’s I’ll be submitting lol.
The concept of making the viewer feel things really crystallized with the analysis of the second frame from Silence of the Lambs and all of the social cues that can be teased out by “connecting the dots” with shape.
It makes even more sense that by combining shapes in ways that either leverage some collective psychology we can create images that people connect with and get curious about.
Cas
1yr
it would be super helpful to have an assignment for this like mike mentioned his students doing, is there anywhere we can find that?
Jean-François (Jeff) Durix
1yr
A great reading about those topics is actually the book “picture this” by the Molly Bang which I am reading again triggered by this section of the course
Lynn Fang
1yr
If there are more detailed courses on improving shape design and composition, I will definitely sign up.
Pedro Branco
1yr
The Death Star is pretty interesting.
It's a base so a "friendly" place to the empire's troops, while at the same time looking grey and lifeless. It's clearly a military contraption being effective in design and having no unnecessary artistic flair. It's also indestructible unless you hit a very specific spot, so it's about as stable a construction as it can be. The circular shape fits very well in this case.
When it fires its laser. The beams converge into a point creating multiple triangles or, when looking at the general shape, a neon green tip that protrudes from the grey circular shape. Since it destroys planets, it's as aggressive as it can be.
Funny how simple old Star Wars is in its designs.
Josh Fiddler
3mo
and don’t forget the equator for the docking bays n so forth. It creates a sense of visual stability, letting viewer and pilots which way is up, as it were.
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About instructors
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
Author of Force drawing books. My focus is teaching how you can express yourself purely with line and gesture.
