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

Re: Women commenting here should read this

[slanted-edges.livejournal.com]

Pardon my language, but the woman who wrote that article is a FUCKING MORON.

She says in the article that "The core of this argument seems to be whether or not superhero comics being for boys is a bad thing," which is so completely missing the point that it's not even funny. This has nothing to do with that; it's about fucking artistic integrity and the incredibly negative nature of modern societal norms. The view that teenaged boys see females as nothing more than sex objects is incredibly harmful to both women and men; it turns both sexes into nothing more than one-dimensional, animalistic beasts -- as if humans are completely controlled by their "instincts." How can anyone who lives in the real world believe that?

And why, exactly, should comics that are "aimed at men" be drawn any differently than those "aimed at women"? Gender is not a goddamn dichotomy; it's a spectrum, or, perhaps, a pool -- undefined, undefinable. -- But no matter what our identity is, we all visually see the world in the same way, don't we? A square is a square is a square, no matter who looks at it, no matter what label people give it. And that's the thing: the figurative art of most comics is based in reality -- it's based in accurately portraying the human body -- so how the fuck can you say that any of the above illustrations are accurate? They're caricatures and exaggerations; women who look like that are one-in-a-billion in the real world, just as those male illustrations are unreal, also.

THESE COMICS ARE PROMOTING UNHEALTHY EXPECTATIONS OF SELF-IMAGE -- period. No argument.

And can I just say? WE'RE NOT UPSET ABOUT THIS BECAUSE "THIS ISSUE IS NEW TO US." IT'S NOT FUCKING NEW. We all grew up with this shit. We're upset because IT'S WRONG. And saying that "for me, it’s a part of the scenery I can’t get too worked up over" -- that you're desensitized to this issue -- IS NOT AN EXCUSE. IT MEANS YOU'VE LOST SIGHT OF REALITY, OR GIVEN UP ON IT.

It just -- oh my god, I'm so overcome with rage at the moment that I can't form coherent thoughts.