Here you see I've drawn a simple scale. It's got a fulcrum in the center. And if I were to put a heavy object on one side, it would not be balanced. This side would go down and the other side would go up. Okay, well what if I put an equal weight object on the other side? Then you'd have balance. So if I had a smaller object on one side, I could still have a balance if the larger object were moved closer to the fulcrum. Sound familiar? This is basic physics. If you can wrap your head around this idea, it's going to be no problem understanding this concept of visual balance. If you can think of your composition as one of those scales, then all of a sudden you have a balancing act. So if I have one object right in the center, we'll say he's on the fulcrum, that's balanced. If I were to move him to one side of the composition, that would be unbalanced. Now I could balance it again by duplicating him and giving it a bit of symmetry. So what this means is that each object in your scene carries visual weight. One way to achieve unity or harmony in your image is to have a balanced composition. So the balance can come in a couple different ways, but it doesn't have to be symmetrical. So I can shrink this guy down and put him in the distance. And then enlarge this guy, but move him closer to the center or closer to the fulcrum, and it's still balanced. And it doesn't just need to be two objects either. You could have a large scene populated with tons of characters. Maybe it's one large character in the foreground, and then a whole crowd of other characters in the background. Because they're physically smaller in the composition, that gives them less visual weight. And so a whole crowd of characters can equal the weight of one character that's in the foreground. So this is still a balanced composition. So if you're not seeing it in this example, I'll show you a quick diagram. So here I've turned the same image into that horizontal scale. And you can see the left object is much larger, but it's closer to the fulcrum. And the objects on the right are smaller, but further from the fulcrum. And you end in a nice equilibrium, a nice visual balance. Looking at this, you would say those two are in total balance. In fact, it's a pretty symmetrical composition. But now I'll throw in some quick lighting. All of a sudden it's not balanced anymore. The characters are equal size. If it were real life, they'd probably be equal physical weight. But they are definitely not equal visual weight. And this is because the value of an object, whether it's light or dark, has a big effect on visual weight. So all I did here was light it, and yet the balance of the image changed completely. So if I wanted to balance this out, I would have to add some extra light on the left side of the composition. Now there's much more visual balance, but there's not a symmetrical sense of lighting. And when you take a look at these abstracted value studies, these are balanced, and yet they have no subject matter at all. So you can see how important value is when it comes to balancing a composition. Generally speaking, things that are too symmetrical are boring. The trick to making really lively compositions is asymmetrical balance. So you have a large object that's counterbalanced by a group of smaller objects. Or a light area that's counterbalanced by areas of dark. So when it comes to composing an image, there's a lot of factors. And generally speaking, your brain is already wired to recognize whether something is working or not working. When you see this line drawing, some part of your brain is already seeing this diagram. You're just not actively realizing it. So as you begin to understand these principles of design, you're going to unlock the code that your brain already knows about. So look at the bottom of the post, and you can download a PSD filled with some orcs. You can also try these same exercises with random black and white marks on a canvas. However you want to do it. But remember, it's not what you're drawing, it's how you're arranging it. So go try making some balanced compositions. Have fun guys!