STRUZAN CONTRAST PART 3

I wanted to dig deeper into what makes Struzan… Struzan. One aspect I landed on was how he uses variation in his compositions.
Let’s look at the example below. 3 elements all using “black over midtone” contrast.

Below, we see 3 elements all with different tonal contrasts for more variety and a more interesting composition:

Let’s take a look at all possible basic tonal combinations:

Contrast Combinations
white over black
white over midtone
midtone over white
midtone over black
black over white
black over midtone

Anti-Contrast Combinations (Shape Welding, more HERE)
white over white
midtone over midtone
black over black

For the example below, Struzan uses mainly “midtone over midtone” for Buffy, “black over midtone” for her stake, “midtone over black” for her screen-left side. The poster also features “white over black”, “midtone over white”, and “black over white”. There is a lot of “black over black” shape welding. The sky background also has “white over midtone”. This poster uses every possible combination of contrasts except “white over white” to add maximum visual variety.

DYNAMIC Contrast Range

What I’m calling dynamic contrast range is when a single element has more than one value (a strong white highlight, a black shadow) for more contrast combinations within a single element in the composition:

For example, in Struzan’s Lady Pendragon, there is a strong white rim, a strong dark shadow areas (hips, sword, armor shadows), and midtones in the rest of the character. This offers contrast combination variation when layered on a midtone fire which itself is “midtone over black”.