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

[mon-starling.livejournal.com]

To be fair... as a female comic artist (or wannabe artist, or student, whatever) I can't draw men convincingly to save my life (or rather, I can only draw one type well: the pretty girly boy), and I've noticed most men who draw women have the same problem. Try to get fanboys to understand that most women have wide hips - all they can manage to draw is ugly men with gigantic breast implants - the legs are either slim as a boy's or with awkwardly placed muscles, and their hips are so narrow giving birth would be impossible. It's a sad fact that most people who draw cannot possibly draw the opposite gender convincingly. We draw what we know... and judging by their production, most comic artists aren't very well acquainted with the female form, or are too distracted by the breasts to take a good look at the rest. Of course, the real pros don't exactly have this problem - if anyone should be teaching the fanboys to draw sexy girls it should be Milo Manara. The content is sexist, sadly (or at least the things of his I've seen), but his women look gorgeous, have different body shapes and aren't posed quite so unnaturally when compared to your standard comic heroine. The man handles anatomy (and line!) so gracefully this looks like garbage in comparison.

Mind you, I am not saying the comic book industry is not inherently misogynist (well, duh) - I am just saying sexism isn't the only thing to take into account here.

[raptorinblack.livejournal.com]

lole lole icon love!