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

Hrm again.

[siouxmoon.livejournal.com]

Well, fair enough.

And I thank you for this, Rat, I forgot to say that originally, because I actually wanted to collect all the Wizard Magazines I found these in just incase I wanted to use them for drawing resources later.

As it goes, I know some people who like this style and they've been wanting me to draw them in styles like this stuff, especially the girls(I found it weird but whatever), but I had either never collected these or lost them.

So, I thank you for posting them up, even though it was more to just talk about the inabilities of Marvel artist to draw real people right or create a discussion on the matter or whatever.

I have saved em' up and printed and started drawing my friends the other night, I would post up the results but I fear I wouldn't know how at this point.

Re: Hrm again.

[ratcreature]

Wizard helpfully collected them into books, so if you really find them useful you could get those. BTW, in case you missed them, there's also scans of the sections on comic drawing I actually liked from this series, which I posted in other entries. *g* Like this chapter on pacing:
http://ratcreature.livejournal.com/150271.html#cutid1
or this on dramatic tension:
http://ratcreature.livejournal.com/150344.html#cutid1