I just had to share...

[ratcreature]

This is a scan from Wizard How To Draw: Character Creation, from the chapter Super Women




WTF? That woman on the left looks freakishly disproportionate, not attractive, not even if you like larger breasts. And that thing with the ashamed body language of the normal woman left me speechless. To be fair to the book as a whole a few chapters onward in another section on female archetypes titled appropriately "Vixens" (sic!) the same approach to drawing breasts is actually mocked, so strangely enough the example "vixen" drawings have thus smaller breasts than usual for superhero comics. Go figure. Anyway, so it's not consistently advocating freakish balloon boobs.

However that in the archetype section the chapters are Super Men, Super Women, Acrobats, Costumed Vigilantes, Brutes, Vixens, Armored Villains and Sidekicks, and the only chapter with examples from both genders is the one about acrobats (by Adrian Alphona, who draws Runaways), is quite telling. I mean, talking about archetypes I kind of get why they wouldn't think of women as typical examples for brutes or even armored villains, but no sidekicks and costumed vigilantes either? *grumble*

Comments

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

O.o

Wow, I agree with you. That girl on the left isn't sexy, she's a MAN!

[ratcreature]

Well, there's still the balloon boobs...

[quivo.livejournal.com]

*because she's reading a book on it* I tell ya, it all comes down to self-hate. Because why else would people actually draw this and circulate it as a good set of guidelines? It doesn't just affect the average woman's self-perception (grr, the posture of the last figure on the right makes me so mad), it also affects the self-perception of guys who don't like bigger boobs, taller women, longer legs or what have you - they feel odd, abnormal, when there's no real need to do so. Everyone sort of collectively looks to a higher standard that's not possible for everyone without surgical intervention. It's a sort of useless downward spiral - the so-called 'average woman' feels bad because she's average, the 'not-so-average woman' feels bad either because she's not special or not average enough, and the 'super woman' feels bad because she's too super and has to live up to some sort of super image.

Okay, /rant for now, but this just makes me mad. Superheroes are all very well, but it's like people get too invested in them nowadays, and start secretly thinking they have to classify to the boundaries the behaviour of superheroes and supervillains set, whether in the creative arena (no women as brutes/armored villains/sidekicks etc) or in real life.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Ergo, man with boobs. Super drag queen, if you will.

[brownbetty]

I could almost believe that one on the left as a sort of Decathalon Valkry, but her waist is far too slim for those shoulders. If she has exercised enough to get those shoulders, she should have started bulking up her waist, too.

[ratcreature]

Though with "beauty" ideal you see in models and such currently they often seem too skeletal to even have regular breasts.

I mean, if you look at the classic, widely recced drawing books for human anatomy, many of which are reprints from stuff first published in the 1920s and 30s (which has its own problems, such as that are no black people in them), all the idealized women look fat to our eyes...

[ratcreature]

That drawing looks freakish for so many reasons.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

I know - there are horrible extremes in both directions. Being somewhat interested in fashion as a whole, I understand that clothes do tend to look better on people of a certain size and body type. However, it's not a reason to despise whatever shape you have, be it thin, large-breasted or large-bottomed or whatnot. We've somehow been conditioned to such a point that we aspire to unnatural things - extreme skinniness AND shapely breasts, one of the greatest non-sequitors for average women ever. The conditioning changes over time, of course, so though the human anatomy books of yore have shapely women idealised, they exclude black people and people with colored skin. Nowadays, the ideal woman would probably be thin, fairly large-breasted, and have tanned skin.

Or, tl;dr version: ideals suck as a whole. Discard if possible :P

[catmoran.livejournal.com]

It looks like they left out at least two figures between muscle/boob-job-woman on the left and average/athletic woman in the center.

No wonder the poor thing on the right is embarrassed -- based on her hips I'd guess she's either 13yo (aren't most 13yos in a constant state of embarrassment over their bodies?) or anorexic.

[catmoran.livejournal.com]

Oh! The one on the left looked familiar to me, and I just placed her -- either of Katchoo's half-sisters from 'Strangers in Paradise'. Add a ponytail and make the head a smidge bigger to get it in proportion, and it's a match.

[ratcreature]

Heh, maybe he used some anorexic model as guideline for normal? I don't know. But at least that one doesn't look like a plastic surgery gone horribly wrong.

[iamza.livejournal.com]

The drawing on the left reminds me a little of the artwork on She-Hulk...

[ratcreature]

I've never read She-Hulk, and I can't say that this description makes me want to give it a try...

[(Anonymous)]

*grin* I love it because it amuses the heck out of me. And because it focuses as much on Jen Walters as it does on She-Hulk. But sometimes the big and green and full of muscles art makes me sigh. :-)

[iamza.livejournal.com]

Er, that was me. D'oh.

[amnell-kahlan.livejournal.com]

While it's true that MOST 13yos are self conscious, not all of us are thank you very much. However you're right. Not only the 'average' woman is more of an average model, but if superwomen have to fly and do acrobatics wouldn't larger than usual breasts hinder them? Also, why are their heads pretty much the same size?

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Are you sure the title wasn't How NOT To Draw?

The supposed "super" "female" on the far left is nothing of the sort. Breasts like that can be achieved by only two methods (cheap plastic surgery or lousy comics art) and there is a distinct lack of female pelvis in the body depicted. Women with PCOS still have more curve to their hips than that. MEN still have more curve to their hips than that.

::uses Les Toil icon to balance the abominations above::

[ratcreature]

I KNOW. *headdesk*

This one is definitely one of the worse examples even for this series. The only consolation is that each chapter is written by someone else, so they aren't all appalling (or at least not all appalling in the same way, like, I mean there is the thing that the only obviously black character in the whole thing is in the "Brutes" chapter next to the gorilla villains...) and some drawing advice and tips are actually useful.

It's really sad that so far I haven't found a single drawing book with a focus on drawing humans (rather than landscapes or inking techniques or something) that isn't either racist or sexist or both in some way, though admittedly some are worse than others.

[honeydew-melon.livejournal.com]

I laughed at Amazonwoman and her ridiculously short arms.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, she looks disproportionate overall. I think the arms are still in the right range proportionally to the head, but he made the legs and torso so much longer that the hands only reach the hips, instead of mid-thigh or so...

[neery.livejournal.com]

Sorry, coming to this post several months late, but I couldn't resist commenting.

I can actually deal with the way the woman on the left looks, because something about the way she's standing and the shape of her upper body makes her look not quite human, a little wild-animal-like to me -- in other words, like an alien shape-shifter just starting to transfrom into a tiger or something -- and that seems to stop her from pinging my disproportionate-human-woman radar.

It's the one on the left who bothers me, because "average"? So very, very not. Her legs have been stretched and lengthened past the point where they'd look unnaturally lean and shapely and well into absurd -- they're actually slightly longer than the legs of the superheroine next to her, who is a good bit taller.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, her legs are a bit longer than the rule of thumb that the crotch would be at half her height. It's just bizarre.

This

[(Anonymous)]

Hey if u had all scans from book plz send me to darvel@o2.pl or to www.rapidshare.de PLZ if u can i can buy book from you!

Re: This

[ratcreature]

I haven't scanned the complete book, and have no interest in doing so. From any of the series I just scanned specific pictures or sometimes chapters I wanted to discuss with others so I'd have exampels of what I am talking about, and the Character Creation book is the weakest of the series, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it. The volume on Storytelling is more interesting.

Sorry for "coming in late", but...

[flaviarassen.livejournal.com]

... is there anyway we can manage to bitch slap the stupid bitch who wrote:

"she [the average woman]'s feeing slightly inferior standing next to these women" ?

'Cuz I am pretty sure the little bitch didn't make a corresponding set of MALE pictures....

Re: Sorry for "coming in late", but...

[ratcreature]

Well, it was guy who wrote and drew that (that chapter's by Don Kramer, in case you're wondering), and yeah, the chapters on men look quite different, though the comparison pictures of "normal guy" vs. "superheroic man" are a staple, they just usually are about body size and muscles and lacking the embarrassed body language, but hey, in the same series Frank Cho explains the reasoning very plainly *snerk* and well, Linser puts the highlights and most important parts of female characters in the terms of "the triple threat" (in case you can't guess, it's tits, ass and legs, though it never became quite clear to me where the "threat" comes into it), and considering that the chapters dealing specifically with women have almost all titles like "Sultry Women", "Vixens" and "Sex Appeal" (yes, the sex appeal one doesn't mention men at all) and the like this... it's a Wizard book series after all. *shrug*

[robvinci.livejournal.com]

Although im a girl and i agree with you . I know i know i should be out supporting the chicks. . But whatever.

[(Anonymous)]

look i admit there pritty good drawings but there body types can be put in a more suitable setting for example the one on the left she could be a giantess, the one in the middle perhaps a super heroine oh a female warrior/assasin the therid on the other hand could be a nymph or dryad or even a fairy but you've got to use you imagination im 17 and i can. Yes i do see the slite sexisam but tbh evey one has diffrent tastse in women so why complain

um................

[(Anonymous)]

well I do agree with some of you that it is quite appalling (character on left), and I also agree with the other half of you that it isn't that bad if you just use your imagination. i mean come on. im almost 13 and im NOT emmbarrassing looking (like the one on the far right). But still, say an 8 year old, searches up "character sketch". Do you think their parents would want their 8yo (year old) son or daughter looking at some one with over sized breasts? ..... didn't think so. So if you really want to post this kind of stuff, why don't u post it on a grown up's website, NOT google, cause, i mean, any one can go on google, but not every one can go on a grown up's website. Thanks.~jillybean (my nickname at home)

late as well but wth

[(Anonymous)]

Hello there. I stumbled across this article somewhat by mistake while looking up for help to draw some stuff I can't. I could not read those comments without having a few questions raising in my head. While I agree with the sexism image that is spreaded as model for youngsters and young girls in particular, I think that some of the opinions go a little too far for nothing...Don't get me wrong, this is not what woman *should* look like but common...As I read as well the texts that are displayed on the pages for tips and such, more often than never, the artist states that this is not a real representation of what a woman should look like...I mean, let yout imaginations run wild! Those are comic books! All features of everything regarding the characters, the setups, the language, the events, EVERYTHING is exaggerated! I would point fingers to television channels displaying "women of low standards" as role models for younger woman, so-called fashion magazines determining what measurements a women should be, pop-culture icons that are no more than glitter and surgery! The comic book style is on its own with everything so much over the top it is blatant to be like that. Probably that the words that are used in descriptions are not the best chosen but they do not make a statement that their drawings are guidelines to what a real woman looks like. For my research, I was looking for "how to draw female comic characters" and...this guide is exactly what I was looking for...Most of everyone knows that this is not reality and far from it. I will probably get fried for this one but hey...what the heck. I feel that maybe you guys see problems or faults where there are not. Obviously, I am a man, I probably don't see this the way you guys do. But I can assure you that standards are not necessarely what you think they are...hell, I don't even know one person who has "standards" for how women should look like except tools and fools, juiced up roid-monkeys that you see on the Jersey Shore. Good night to all

[(Anonymous)]

To be fair--not that he is owed fairness at this point--he *did* say that the woman in the center was like Black Widow or Catwoman, and he claimed the woman on the right was "average". Which indicates that he is an ephebophile with an anorexia fetish and extreme tunnel vision.