Visual compositions and color blocking reference sketch guide for 4 kinds of subjects

post header image with an overview of 12 of the 14 pages in the guide

What would make a simple subject design stand out? What are some approaches I've used? How can I look them up quickly? Those three questions are what led to me making this guide for myself. Useful when I'm making an illustration for a talk, blog post, or my art design products at my Redbubble, Teepublic, or Society6 stores.

The guide I sketched is a visual reference of ideas to compose four illustration types with different background approaches. Single character, character face, cartoon scene, or doodle scene. Those categories work for me and the kind of illustrations I do most often. You'd probably have a different list. Then once you have your list what sorts of background treatments do you want to do? For me it's: block, oval, center block, center oval, center angle block, brush strokes, outline, angle block wide top narrow bottom, diamond, ground cover, wall cover, ground and wall round, ground and wall block.

Here's the guide