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

You people have got to be kidding me.

[poe99.livejournal.com]

The level of overblown "outrage" I see here is more cartoonish and exaggerated than any of the T&A cited in the original post. I swear- if this sort of thing is where you're spending your precious outrage, then you're either wasting it or you've got way too damn much of it.

Yes, comic book women are often drawn sexualized, and extremely stylized. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Or even better- make some of your own. Surely you've got more intelligence and talent than any of these 'chauvenist' artists- and there just *HAS* to be a huge untapped market out there that's begging for drawings of fat women in realistic poses!

Re: You people have got to be kidding me.

[brownbetty]

You created this account just to leave this message? Wow, you must feel really strongly about the oppression of straight white men. If someone doesn't defend their right to have even comic women presented as sexually available, it's just like they're emasculated.