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

Stating the obvious

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

It's a book about a particular style of art. It's the style these people make their living at, so they're hardly likely to rock the boat.

Some people in their business know what real humans look like, and recognise the sort of exaggeration they are using. The good artists can draw realistic figures--Picasso could--and they know what they are doing.

These guys, they're teaching you how to draw a particular style, and they show little or no sign of knowing how it diverges from reality. There's no sign of an anchor. The little I recall of the older, still-extant. comicbook superheroes, they're drifting away from reality. Superman today is that bit less real, that bit less plausible as Clark Kent.

(Though, as Christopher Reeve demonstrated, a lot of that difference is in body language.)

And the attitudes built into thet style stink.

There's something pretty rotten about the scripting too.

I mean, Buffy is unreal, in a Hollywood-cute way, but the actress is still a human being; she's not average, but she's still real.

Re: Stating the obvious

[ratcreature]

It's a book about a particular style of art.

No, actually it's not. It's collection with contiributions in a variety of different styles, and only some suck like this. You know, I didn't buy that series (and yes, I bought several of the Wizard books) to rant about them. In other entries in my LJ I posted scans with chapters that cover topics in a really helpful way. And yes, superhero stuff does dominate, but it is not just about that style.

Also, I don't like writing off the superhero genre as a lost cause, because I am actually a superhero comic fan. I'd just like them better with less sexism.