How to tell a successful story with one image

Illustrator and concept artist Dominik Mayer takes a look at telling a successful story within a single image...

We look at many new images every day, and there are several things that draw our attention. To make sure that our audience will keep looking and doesnt skip to the next one after a few seconds, we have to establish an interesting component, that motivates them to explore the image and all its detail. A very good way to achieve this is to tell a compelling story, that guides the eye through the picture and makes us aware of all the small details. I will tell you some ways to create a story like that.

The following tips are based on my experience in creating my own paintings and observing and analyzing the work of others. It doesn't matter if you use 2D or 3D. You can apply these tips to every new image.

Composition and leading the eye

As soon as you have the idea, a story you want to tell, the most important next step is to think about the composition of your image. That is the basis on which your story will work of fail. A good composition will lead the eye to the important storytelling elements in your painting and make it easy to understand.

For my painting A Warriors End, I had the idea of an epic holy burial ceremony of a mighty Viking clan. Everything is planned perfectly and all members of the clan come together to show their fallen warriors the last honor. But the guy who shoots the burning arrow fails to hit the last boat and ruins the whole thing.

A detailed scene of a Viking funeral. But the archer who has the honor to ignite the three boats fails to hit the target

This image shows how I planned the composition to lead the eye

These are some important lines, which are directing the eye to the point where the action is going to happen

Contrast draws our attention. To make important story elements more readable, it is useful to increase the contrast there. Here we have a high contrast in value and color

Movement and action

Another very helpful feature to tell your story are things/characters in motion. Or the absence of it. But make sure, that you do both with purpose and emphasize it enough, so it looks natural and not staged. Believability is the key to making the actions pleasing and readable. That means that you should add some everyday action to your characters motion and the way your elements react with their environments in general. That is important to let our audience know instantly how to feel, when things are behaving in the way they do and how characters feel in certain moments, because they can sympathize.

An example:
Imagine you would like to establish a large spaceship in the sky, suddenly breaking through the clouds, while some people on the ground are witnessing this dramatic event. You could add some people to the foreground and let them stare directly to the spaceship above. That would work, but it would be way more interesting and more believable if you added some everyday action to them, which creates a great immersion.

Let one guy drop his coffee or suitcase, let some cars cause a fender bender in the back, or a guy who ties his shoes and looks up in surprise. All these actions will support your story and how your audience will feel while they are looking at it. It also tells a lot about the situation right before the spaceship appeared. Everything was normal. That helps your story, because it gives more depth.

Action in the future

It would also work the other way around. You can decide not to show an event and build up your image, so it tells the viewer that it will happen in the next moment. That also adds great suspense to it and gives some space for the imagination, which is very important as well.

In my painting Ambush I did exactly that. The yellow knights are hiding in the woods to attack the red knight any second. You can feel the stress of the yellow guy on the ground. He cannot see properly, so he pushes away the branches of the bush besides him, but he doesnt want to blow his cover, so he remains where he is, ready to strike. He kneels on the (probably wet) forest ground. This is a pose everyone knows from the times we all played hide and seek, where our hideout is great, but it gets more and more uncomfortable, the longer it takes.

An ambush is going to happen. The tragic event lies in the future and gives room for imagination

Details of the uncomfortable situation of this character

Action that happened in the past

Another way to tell a story is to establish a scene where your action has already happened. We just see the results of it and can imagine what happened right before we arrived. If you want do something like that it is crucial to show key elements of that action so we can understand what happened.

An example:
We see a guy standing in a tavern. Another one lies on the ground, knocked out. Both are surrounded by a curious crowd. The fight between these two is already over. To make the story more interesting we have to place some hints in the image, which tell us what happened before.

We could add a table with cards on it, in the back. We can see that the guy on the ground was hiding some cards in his boots. So he was obviously cheating, which was the reason for the fight in the first place. To emphasize this, we can create a bit of a mess around the place where they played. Some single cards on the ground, a chair that fell over or some beer mugs lying around. Finally the guy, who still stands, could raise his hands and tell the crowd Hey, what are you looking at? It was his own fault!

With all this established, the story is easy to understand.

Detail from A Warriors End: Small details that show us what happened. The archer failed three times to hit the last boat. We can see the smoke of the arrows, which have fallen into the water

Background details

To make the story even more interesting, we could some small details which are not directly important for the story, but tell us a lot about the world in which it happens. That gives a lot of room for imagination and opens the window to a lot of possible stories.

We can see the huge crowd in the back. The whole tribe is there and that makes the failure of the poor archer even bigger

So if you want to tell a compelling story, do some world building, decide whether you want to show an interesting event directly, its anticipation or the result of it. Build up a solid composition to arrange the single key elements in the most readable way, and add interesting detail and life to it. That will help you to structure a new image and it also helps your audience with reading and liking it.

I hope this small tutorial was helpful and you can use it in the future for some awesome storytelling in your painting! I cant wait to see what you will come up with!

Related links

5 composition mistakes to avoid
Building your portfolio
Quick Tips to Paint Lighting Effects
Check out Dominiks ArtStation