Milly meets Milly

The brief for this session was that two or more figures might be combined in a composition. Usually you need to produce subsequent drawings to achieve a satisfactiory combination.

But sometimes this combining can be done right from the start, and David (above) certainly seems to have succeeded. A definite interaction, eye contact, expressiveness, a feeling of something happening.

Nina’s combo works too… with just a slight resizing and repositioning in photoshop:

Yes, definitely a relationship between the two characters, as well as aesthetic relationship between them as figures.

Photoshop, photocopying, lightbox tracing, even straightforward re-drawing, can play their part in this sort of development.

Nicely drawn figures by Esther (above), and even without eye-contact you can believe in a certain amount of connection between these two characters. And an idea that the bookcase behind can help link them in a composition.

Chris’s characters connect, but because one is further forward, she needs to be bigger. Photoshop to the rescue again:

A back view – especially with a mass of hair – might make it hard to express character. But in this case Steve has put enough character into the second face to carry the full expression of the interaction:

Two strong individual figures by Jane (below) that would surely work well together:

Here’s a photoshop combination, reducing the size of the further figure.

Similarly with George’s nifty watercolour sketches: the twins not quite seeing eye to eye perhaps?

It’s not always quite possible, this combining on first sight. When you’re drawing Figure Number 1 you don’t yet know exactly how Number 2 will fit in. Roger has made a brave attempt, but the feet have clashed. This should be easy to adjust in a subsequent drawing, but it’s a reminder that foot positions can be key in these combinations. They dictate the three-dimensional positioning of figures, that in turn brings depth to a composition