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

WTF?

[(Anonymous)]

umm. breasts aren't turned over teacups plastered to a woman's chest. and even sultry women have pupils, not hollow white dead space on their face. this guy must be a necrophiliac since he draws his women to look dead. that's probably the only way he can get any. and if any man had that much muscle, it would be even harder for him to fight, run, or leap tall buildings. a human skeletal system, even a "lengthened, more regal" one, couldn't support that musculature. and the laws of physics still apply; the downward force of gravity is proportionate to your mass, which his superheroes have a shit-ton of.

Why do people who think they know things, but actually don't, feel like they have to spread their ignorance with the rest of the world? Its people like that who make our planet terrible.