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

[brownbetty]

You're not bothered by the fact that sexualization is the default for women; that's your prerogative. But acting like a man can only ever draw women in sexualized poses denigrates the capacity of men to see women as people. I'd like to be able to see women in some of my favourite comics with an expression that isn't sultry/sexy, I find it aggravating that I can't.

People are allowed to be angry about inequality even when it doesn't personally bother you.

[kagechikara.livejournal.com]

True. But then again, if the inequality gets you that mad, if it really steams you up every time you see a woman in a comic drawn in a sexy pose, why do you read the medium? And I personally recommend Birds of Prey, Batgirl and even Astonishing X-men as comics with female protoganists who are shown in a lot of different poses other than 'generic sexy'. In fact, feminism has hit comics bigtimes these days and there are far more female characters who are equal to their male counterparts.

I don't mind comic fans questioning stuff like this, I was just wondering how many of the people who replied in comments actually even read comics.

And yeah, I got too annoyed, I just get tired of seeing people in livejournal finding things to complain about that they wouldn't normally seek out just for the sake of complaining. Sorry about the ranting.