Details, Details...

How much detail is enough in an illustration? How much is too much? This is an important question every illustrator has to ask. There's a tendency among artists starting out to think that every inch of an image has to be filled with detail, that the merit of their work will be in how much detail there is, and how much it looks like its subject. They think they need to make their illustration like a photograph -- as if photography were somehow superior to what they were doing. Absurd! (And, of course, the best professional photographers go out of their way to limit the detail in their work, with lighting, focus and cropping techniques.)

So just how much detail do you need? Well, before you answer that, you need to ask: What is the purpose of illustration?

The purpose of illustration isn't to look good; it's to tell a story. Oh, make no mistake -- the illustration better look good. I mean, who wants to look at an image that doesn't? But what makes it a good illustration isn't just that it looks good: it needs to tell a story.

By "tell a story," I mean it needs to get something across, to convey something. It might be a narrative, or it might be a mood, or a concept, or a setting. That's the purpose of every illustration. And once you recognize that, the question of how much detail to apply becomes a lot easier to answer.

Detail that enhances the story is good; detail that detracts is bad. Seems simple, right? Well, of course it's not. It's still hard to decide exactly what's necessary to get across that mood, or concept, or story. But at least now you begin with a specific goal in mind.

In sequential illustration, the need for detail varies from image to image. The sequence I'm using to illustrate this point is from my comics work -- specifically, from an early Jazz Age story -- but the ideas apply to all kinds of illustration.

Each of the panels in a comics sequence needs to convey something different, so although they all need to have a consistent feel to them, in a way they're all separate illustrations. Some panels establish the setting of a scene, or perhaps they're meant to be slow-paced, and contemplative. These scenes are often more full of detail than others. This isn't just to get across the factual information of where the characters are and what they're doing -- it also gets the reader to physically slow down his or her reading, taking in the scene and its details. This is a subtle way the illustrator can try to manipulate the pace that the reader uses in reading the story. Lots of detail in every panel will help give the feeling of a slow-paced scene, as if the characters in the story are also noticing these details.

A faster-paced scene -- like some of the action panels in this sequence -- lets the reader "read" the panels faster. It speeds up the reader's experience of the sequence, just as the characters in the story, running or fighting or whatever, wouldn't be noticing the background details either.

Detail in illustration is like pace in fiction writing. I made the comparison to photography earlier, but illustration -- especially sequential illustration, though not exclusively -- is also akin to another storytelling medium: fiction. Fiction writers know how to control the feeling of unfolding pace in their story by the details they throw in. A slow-moving introduction to a new day might be full of long, detailed descriptions of the landscape, the light of the morning sun through window lace, or the slow meanderings of a fly on the wall. But when the action picks up, a good writer knows not to clog up the action with too many details.

"Lefty Adamson, the uncle of Little Jerry, threw a haymaker punch at Rocko, his $300 Rolex watch glinting in the mid-day sunlight that filtered in through the latticework outside the back porch, where Lefty's aunt used to grow tomatoes until her hip began giving her too many problems. This was, of course, before they decided to rent out the twenty-year-old New England style duplex..."

Enough! We want to get to the fight already! We're (hopefully) vested in these characters, and we (should) care about what happens to them. So let's just experience the fight as it happened and leave the long-winded discussions for later, okay?

It's the same with visual storytelling. Give the reader -- or viewer -- just enough to get the point across. That point may need lighting, perspective, landscape or any number of things to fully get it across. But if it doesn't, leave it out.

Stumble It!