how to draw female comic characters (according to Wizard)...

[ratcreature]

brown_betty asked for examples "to illustrate the exactly how and why female comic characters are illustrated differently than the male." And I thought, really, what's better to illustrate these things than the books teaching the style in the first place?

A while ago I posted some scans from Wizard How To Draw series on drawing female superheroes (here and here), and I thought I'd post a bunch more from the first book of the series on "How To Draw: Heroic Anatomy".


As everything, it starts with the basics, i.e. proportions. First the male superhero


The female example is similar, but slightly different, notice how he stands firm and straight, wheras she stands with her hips cocked a little and the leg thrust forward?


Also notice in the direct torso comparison below, how the male one is ramrod straight, but she curves and leans just a little bit in the same pose?


Now onwards to the chapter "Sultry Women". It even cautions you against overposing! Yes, it's not as if Wizard wasn't aware of the problems! (Their definition and mine of which poses are already overposed might differ slightly though, heh.)





Next, Michael Turner explains "Sex Appeal". (Or what he thinks sex appeal is.) Incidentally it also illustrates the meaning of "overposed" that was brought up in the previous chapter very effectively...





Finally for compare and contrast purpuses the chapters on "Superheroic Men" and "Superheroic Women". For the male superhero it is all about more or less ridiculously enlarged muscles as we learn:





Female superheroes don't have it that easy, they need to worry about tilting their shoulder, nipple and pubic lines attractively at all times, not to mention legs, breast size, eye make-up and hair:

Comments

[shaenon.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I remember reading some of these in Wizard as a teenager, way back in the '90s. They did a "how to draw" feature every month, and it was almost always about drawing either fight scenes or women in bikinis.

Adam Hughes is a hell of an artist, and his pencils here are gorgeous. Too bad every line of his sub-Maxim nudge-nudge text makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Would it have killed him and the Wizard editors to cut the cute stuff and actually tell people how to draw? Jim Balent and Michael Turner are, of course, unsalvageable. Turner's entire career is built on drawing "hot" women, so why is he still so bad at it? His lines are harsh and angular, his faces are squinty afterthoughts, and he seems to have no idea that women have things like ribcages. Don't tell impressionable fourteen-year-olds how to repeat your terrible mistakes, Michael!

[ratcreature]

Well, I found the chapters that are not dealing with human "anatomy" much better overall, like stuff on pacing or dramatic tension or inking tips. I mean my expectations for Wizard publications wrt women are so low that it didn't suprise me at all.

And Linsner's chapter on Women that I partially scanned for my initial rant when I first bought the book a while back says even less about drawing, he just rambles on for four pages about what he finds hot. The chapter is seriously bizarre, more so than Hughes', IMO:
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003ff38
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003g190

[wishbonedawn454.livejournal.com]

I can't help but think that the underside of some of these guys' drafting tables are awfully sticky. :(

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it's kind of depressing how logic, anatomy and the requirements of the characterization/story all seem secondary. I mean, I like eye candy as much as the next person (like for example those gratuitous splash panels with Flash collared and/or chained when that doesn't even happen in the story itself work quite well with my own kinks...), but some moderation would be nice, and probably give the occasional porn pose more impact too.

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

Le sigh. I guess it's not new or anything. When I stand in a comic shop wondering what title I might pick up, I start by filtering out the ones with tits and guns on the covers. And then I have four titles left and it's easy.

[ratcreature]

I guess if I employed that method I'd safe a lot of money....

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I don't know whether I should laugh or cry... I'm honestly a Witchblade fan, mainly because I got into it through the TNT tv series, but actually reading the chapter by Mike Turner gives me the heebiejeebies.

It's like "We know your wife is an underwear model, Mr. Turner, but most New York cops do not. No, not even the women."

[ratcreature]

I liked the tv series, but never tried the Witchblade comic. Personally I usually go for just ignoring the aggravating parts in a comic or tv series as long as there's enough stuff I like. They don't always make that easy though.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Sigh. One irritatedly expects slurs on fat women, culture being what it is, but I really looooove the part where all nipples point in the same direction and all breasts are the same fullness. Because, women don't actually need to wear bras to achieve that kind of shape! Wonderbras are just a scam!

Don't get me started on the part where even eye shapes are different if you're female. Yeah, my eye's a different shape. We call that the STINKEYE.

[ratcreature]

Well, I'm actually not as pissed off about the eyes and such, because the thing is that these visual shortcuts to make a face look "female" and the clues to the character type from the way the eyes are drawn work in part because they've become part of the stylization and visual language of Western mainstream comics. Which is kind of depressing in that it is of course sexist, but in the same way that outside of comics many women wear make-up (though I never have) but few men do. OTOH it's also kind of like the huge eyes and non-existent noses in manga, which annoy me to no end because I don't like the look, but not because they're ridiculous from a realism standpoint. When I draw in comic style myself female eyes get visible eyelashes, male eyes don't (though I don't go the route of the complete eye make-up and sultry bed-room eyes), it's just one of those things. I mean Daisy Duck has eyelashes, Donald Duck doesn't, same for Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse. No matter the realism level of a Western comic style it's nearly constant.

[xoverau.livejournal.com]

...Okay, I'm here via a friendslist link, and (without context or a presence in the fandom) I got halfway down the page before realizing IT WAS NOT A SATIRE. Then I wanted to puke.

[ratcreature]

Sadly you really don't need satire to mock that drawing style. I mean, I'm not sure you could make it more extreme, for example in the same book Terry Moore *does* mock it, and his exaggerated examples aren't that different from the actual ones, only look even weirder because they stand next to Francine...
You can see those pages here:
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003kf6z
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003pp5h

[sodzilla.livejournal.com]

OK, so as a bisexual, I have to admit there were a couple of those pics I found sexy.

Especially the Mystique one. The one meant to illustrate that "even a blue woman with things all over her can be sexy". In other words, that it doesn't matter how a woman looks so long as she has the right curves.

Sometimes I'm disappointed in my libido.

Anyway... I think this should be pimped as widely as humanly possible, because it constitutes dead proof that at least the guys who drew these have NO ability to step away from their male privilege when relating to female characters.

[xoverau.livejournal.com]

As another bisexual, I agree that some of them were sexy.

I'm not sure that it's even the pictures themselves that bug me, so much as the commentary accompanying them. Males in comics pose unrealistically, buns clenched, fists thrust high and chests flexed to exhibit appealing pecs, their manhoods painstakingly shaded and outlined. If these guys acknowledged that they were drawing men that way not just to show their power but to make women and gay men want to nail them, I'd be able to say, "This is just an immature, adolescent-aimed medium." But that, via the commentary, men have the chief purpose of getting super things done and women have the chief purpose of attracting men? EW ICK EW.

This is how I assuage my own disappointment in my libido.

[tennoarashi.livejournal.com]

I... I think I'm going to die.

[ratcreature]

You're not very sturdy? Or maybe just unfamiliar with US superhero comics?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Personally, I found the emphasis on giving women "cat eyes" in Balent's section... seriously weird. And I'm not even going to comment on how he apparently thinks that female characters should be able to arch their backs and torsos even when "running, jumping, or kicking through a brick wall."

Turner's women, on the other hand, struck me as very sexy and pretty (well, except for the contortionist underwear model pose in figure A). This may be because their breasts aren't quite so terrifyingly large, and their poses are only obviously posed and artificial instead of completely imposible for the female body to achieve (alas, bi-sexuality keeps me from ever being completely innocent when it comes to whole "women as objects of the male gaze," thing).

And I can't be the only comics fan who thinks that the ultra-super-muscles are grotesque-looking. Also stupid, and anatomically improbable. Why, why are so many super-heroes given the giant body-builder muscles regardless of whether or not it actually makes sense for the character to have them? Why isn't the Flash built like a distance runner, Nightwing like a gymnist, etc.

I am consistently denied my right to ogle a diverse selection of male bodies. Come on, Wizard! If women in comics exist only to be drooled over by men, surely men in comics ought to be there only to be drooled over by women. I insist that Batman be drawn only in arched-back, provocative, sexy poses from now on! With his shoulders and hips tilted toward each other!

[ratcreature]

Well, I'm a lesbian, so it's not like I dislike looking at women. I just like them to still have room for internal organs and a regular spine. Also Turner's proportions are just off in ways that I don't find attractive. I mean, since superheroes are larger than regular humans their proportions are wrong intentionally, but the way Turner just makes the legs extra long, combined with very slim waists but a larger ass doesn't do anything for me.

Also, since of course they don't assume that women read their comics the men are not for drooling but the power fantasy for identification (though why anyone would fantasize about looking like a the misshapen result of steroid abuse is a mystery) while the women are to be looked at. The intended reactions of the readership are explained to us by Linsner:
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003ff38
http://pics.livejournal.com/ratcreature/pic/0003g190

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Hey! You've probably got enough comments already, so there's no need to reply to this one. I just needed to say...

Fuck. The. Author. The - the - I'm almost speechless with rage. This is why I will never take comic books very seriously - how can any medium that has such hideous misogyny as part of its templates for portraying women ever hold any interest for me? All this does is just make me want to write that book I've promised myself - the one where the women are the ones with all the power and status, and the men are SLAVES forced to look handsome at every waking moment.

Gah. /rant

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

There are a LOT of comics that don't hold to these conventions. Comic books are a medium, not a genre, and they have their own genres. Super hero comics, yes, are pretty consistently horrifying, but there are some truly excellent comics out there that have beautiful, well-drawn women in realistic poses, and that even have good writing and storytelling. Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise has already been mentioned, Neil Gaiman's comic work is generally very well illustrated, there's a whole list. It's even possible to find female-friendly comic shops.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_fakewings_/]

Hey. I found this from bookslut and wanted to thank you for posting this. Honestly, and people wonder why so few women read comics.

[ratcreature]

Well, it's not as if all comics were drawn like that. Not even all superhero comics are (though it is far more common there). I mean, you get things like Witchblade or whatever with plenty of porn poses and T&A on one side, and things like Persepolis (you know that autobiography from Marjane Satrapi about growing up as a girl during the Islamic revolution in Iran?) on the other side, and anything in between, and it really has nothing to do with the medium or its possibilities.

[nonamecity.livejournal.com]

Dear gods. Jim Balent is NO authority on Drawing Women if anything....

[ratcreature]

So very true. He should definitely review basic anatomy.

[jesskat.livejournal.com]

Found you through a friend, and wanted to be among the people saying thanks for posting these. Truly hilarious, in a really sad way.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it would be funnier if it wasn't for so many superhero comics really looking that way. :/

[ryuutchi.livejournal.com]

I like that he shows you how to draw different sized male bodies. But the closest he comes for women is different breast size. >.

[ratcreature]

Heh, yeah. These how-to articles are nothing if not straightforward...

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder if it's more of a "This is what you will find on the comic stands, and here's how to replicate it" article. Unfortunately, it's not presented as such, but comes across far too much as "Here is how to draw, there is no other way, don't think about what you are doing."

[ratcreature]

Not really. See, the styles overall in the book series are actually somewhat diverse. Not as diverse as comics as a whole, i.e. there's few humor/cartoon styles, no fully painted or abstract styles etc etc, but about as diverse as US mainstream comics superhero comics. There are, in other chapters, styles that don't look like the "typical superhero" comic, like one chapter by Edurdo Risso on Silhouettes, or in general the women in *other chapters* don't always look like the women in the chapters *specifically about women* either. I mean for example there's women in Steve Lieber's panels when he explains inking techniques: Fully clothed women, in normal posture with normal breasts etc. They don't try to represent just one style for drawing comics. They just chose the most sexist approaches to cover the chapters dealing specifically with women, not to mention that they way they delineated and titled those chapters is sexist as well.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I felt compelled to twist it a little (http://vito-excalibur.livejournal.com/114588.html).

[ratcreature]

I'm glad you had fun with the scans.

[heebee.livejournal.com]

For once could we have a superheroine who had the figure of, say, a gymnast (http://www.du.edu/clipart/gymnast.jpg)?

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

Bart Sears' "How to Draw Burn Victims."

[ratcreature]

Huh?

[viistar.livejournal.com]

disgusting, but not unexpected. socially engineering yet another generation of young boys to view females as sex objects. just as bad as the old lois lane comics... *blarf*

reminds me why i don't waste my time and money.

thought the don't emulate japanese anime / manga comment in the pro tips was great, cause they just must see too much of it...

...as if they don't get inundated with tits and ass all the time. how different can boobs look between artist to artist... and oh look! it's a semi realistic muscle explosion man in brightly colored spandex fighting another man who is also wearing spandex... we don't see that often at ALL... *sarcastic*

[(Anonymous)]

Can i give my opinion as a male aged 20 years of age? Most, and i emphasise MOST, males know these drawings are unrealistic. those who dont are obviously idioits. Its clear by looking at these works that the female spine doesnt bend that way, as it is also clear that they don't have super powers! it was mentioned that they were drawn this way so that another generation of males would grow up to view women as sex objects. i personaly dont apreciate the anti male sentament, this is 2009 not the 1950s. Its time to give the feminist man hateing agender a rest, right now you have far more rights than we do, so what the hell do you want from us? let us have our unrealistic comic women. we, like you, enjoy a fantacy and yes we know thats all they are! dont assume you have us worked out because that in essence is the deffinition of sexism!

Sam

[euterpe35.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, right, because all fat women slump over and frown. argh.


Makes me want to go right out and start drawing "The Adventures of Fatwoman"

(a fattie, here from a friends-list post)

[ratcreature]

Yeah, what got to me also wasn't just the "fat is obviously ugly" aspect of that picture, but that she's a) eating and from the litter around her and the fact that it's not like she's sitting down for a meal it seems implied that she does so constantly (going with the cliche that fat people are fat because they have no self-control etc) and b) she's not even enjoying to eat, but looks very much unhappy. Combine that with the image that mocked the fanboy on the earlier page from Linsner's chapter which used "fat" among other things to evoke the impression of "ungroomed" and "unattractive"... and just... *flail*

"This is a touch subject."

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

I believe the above typo says it all. Yes, breasts certainly are a very touch subject. Unless you're a Wizard reader. @_@; Thanks for posting this, even though I nearly broke my eyes with all the eye-rolling.

May I friend you?

Re: "This is a touch subject."

[ratcreature]

Heh, yeah. That was a nice Freudian slip.

And sure, I'm thrilled when people friend me, though I don't friend back automatically, and I don't make any promises to be consistently interesting. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

wow this is pretty much the most disgusting thing i have ever seen, why is it that in comics the woman have to be porn stars? and why do my have to be big slabs of beef? there is a difference between subtle sex-appeal and sluts and there's a difference between well muscled men and a guy on staroids. these go way beyond what's right and it's steryotypes like this that turn people off from comics. A story is just as baddass with a realistic (but still very pretty) woman instead of a skank. It's insultive and comic artists should be encouraged to draw characters that apeal to both genders, if you want to draw skanks there are always openings in the porn industry

[withiel.livejournal.com]

Oh...dear. That's really rather upsetting, and gets worse as it goes on.

Comic Books are FICTION!

[(Anonymous)]

Oh good grief. Would all of you angst ridden, anger filled, disgusted and offended people get over yourselves. I agree that this article shows that most comic book artists have no idea about what real people look like. Especially how real women look. I was even a bit taken aback by some of the things that were written but come on it's COMIC art. I believe that most of the commentary in these articles was written with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

The comic companies are not looking for realism, they want the surreal, they want something that will take the readers out of the dull boring everyday life that they suffer through. Stories that are impossible, characters that are impossible. They are fantastical in proportion because they are not real.

So what if all the male heroes make Schwarzenegger look like a 5 year old boy? Yes all the women in comics are the misogynists idea of the perfect female body. So what? It is fiction. If the poor boys reading the comics don't figure out that real women do not look like this at least that will keep them from adding to the gene pool.

Now, before you get all upset about how I have no respect for women. Just put that thought out of your mind. I'm married to a wonderful woman who is shaped like a real woman and I find her sexy just the way she is. I have two daughters whom I will protect to the death. I was raised to treat women with dignity and respect. I know that women are not just objects to drool over or to use and abuse. So don't bother calling me a neanderthal or anything like that.

My rant is about people who forget that fiction is just that, Fiction. If you want comics that have real looking people find companies other than Marvel, DC or Image. But never forget that You are getting all worked up over fiction.

I'm not posting anonymously because I don't want to be know. I just don't have a Live journal account.

Re: Comic Books are FICTION!

[ratcreature]

Yeah well, considering how I actually like a lot about superhero comics (and not just as "default comic genre, I collected comics for two decades already without reading more than a handful of superhero comics when I first got into superhero stuff, seeing how I'm not in the US) I'd rather that genre wasn't misogynist.

And of course I'm "getting worked up" over fiction. First, that's what fans do. I care about comics, I'm invested in them, so of course I'm angry when they suck. It's my hobby, I spend most of my free time on fandom stuff, just as I assume people who build scaled models of historical battlefields or whatever will get worked up over that, when I couldn't care less. And second, just because racism or sexism and the like happen in fiction doesn't mean the attitude isn't real or worthy of objection.

Especially in an medium where fans and creators are in such close contact as in comics it just makes sense to be vocal about your preference. I mean, I *am* their audience. I am the kind of customer they like to have. I collect, I have subscriptions rather than buying just now and then, I spend a ridiculous amount of money every week on their products, so I refuse to go along with their silly preconception that all of their audience is male. It's just not.

It's a matter of opinion.

[kali-maxwell.livejournal.com]

I found this on a Google search for drawing tutorials, and after reading all the comments, and being a LiveJournal user myself, I thought I'd post...

First of all, concerning Mike Turner: do not insult an artist for his personal style. Just because he draws unrealistic women, does not mean that he is a bad person or a bad artist.

Secondly: you forget that this is fantasy; it isn't real. Just because something appears one way in real life, does not mean that it has to appear that way in our fantasies, as well. That's the point of fantasy altogether: to escape reality and the ordinary. Fantasy is dependent upon each individual's imagination.

Just because they do not draw the average woman, does not mean that they are yelling at you, "You're not good enough!" I know the following will anger a lot of you. Just hear me out.

Even if people are stupid enough to bash women for not looking like these drawings (i.e. they are silly enough to be unable to distinguish the fantasy from the reality), that does not mean that you are "under attack" for being what you are. The rare few people who are idiotic enough to deny you for not being a super heroine are the ones who aren't good enough for YOU. You are not being called inferior, you are feeling inferior. There is a very large difference.

I am a woman. I am a bisexual. I am attracted to these fantastical women immensely in most cases, in particular the Turner and Lisner women. However, I know the difference. I do not expect women around me, or myself, to ever look like this, nor do I think that it is a healthy thing to aspire to. All of the men I know and have known in my life, even though they, too, are attracted to these girls, understand this as well. We aren't perfect. We have properly proportioned rib cages and we have internal organs. Our breasts are subject to the forces of gravity. I weigh about 115 lbs, I'm 5' 3", my waist is 26" in diameter, and I have B-cup breasts. Compared to the 105 lbs, 5' 9" height, 19" waist, and DD-cup breasts of the average comic book heroine, I'm short, flabby, flat-chested, and pathetic.

But I do not feel inferior while looking at them. Art depends solely upon one's own imagination. I idealize my men and women when I draw. Certainly not to that extent, but I am not about to personally attack, insult, accuse of some sort of intellectual crime, or try to boycott an artist because they don't do what I think should be done.

Once again, I apologize if I've insulted any of you, but this the way I see it. I could understand being upset over a comic book that says outright that everyday women are worthless; but even if there was such a book, I would still stand until the very last moment to defend that artist's right to create his tale the way he wants to. Because I want to preserve the freedom to create mine the way I want to. If you don't like the book, don't read it. If you don't like how Marvel, etc. women are drawn, then don't draw them that way. It's as simple as that.

Re: It's a matter of opinion.

[kali-maxwell.livejournal.com]

And I apologize for elaborating on a similar point that was posted above. I didn't see it at the end there.