ratcreature | how to draw female comic characters (according to Wizard)...

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:

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I don't know a lot about most of the artists in these tutorials, except for Turner. Most of the examples shown would probably be used for a cover. If you read his books you'd realize that the lead characters are mainly powerful women: sara pezzini, aspen matthews, grace, and kiani all have their own books now and they usually have a weaker or normal male sidekick or boyfriend that they often have to protect. There are some sexy poses in the interiors, but for the most part they are actors in the story. None of his characters are promiscuous, and are alone for the most part. If you get on his message boards posting drawings of nude or sexually explicit characters they are deleted, and if you repeat you will be banned.
I am an amateur artist, and I know the reasoning on a couple of the points raised. Drawing people in skin tight spandex is easier to draw than a person in baggy clothes or clothes with a lot of wrinkles. When you have to draw multiple pages of the same character day in and day out you use shortcuts to make your job easier. And a lot of times the character is being viewed from above or below or in an unusual pose. That huge male character is definitely an exception, not the rule. Maybe five percent of characters are drawn like that, and usually to show that they are very strong. There are a couple of muscular female characters...She Hulk is the only one coming to mind, but there are a couple more I know. Wonder Women is starting to get a little more muscular. A lot of artists use photo reference to help get poses for their drawings, so if it looks like a victorias secret model or si swimsuit model that's probably where it came from. As far as drawing a beautiful character over a normal character, if you spend 8 to 14 hours a day drawing a character they better be interesting to you. Human beings are sexual beings, and if that makes men cavemen don't expect it to change any time soon. Do you date guys with a big beer gut, hairy back, shabby appearance or do you move on to the next guy? I don't know how that Balent guy got in the book because there are a ton of artists way better than he is, but remember that he is on a strict deadline, so that may be his way of getting his artwork done on time. Better to suck and have a job than to be the best artist ever and unemployed. Turner owns his own company and about twenty five percent of his employees are female. The number of females working in comics is growing, and I've noticed there are a few doing the drawing.
Also, please realize this is a small portion of that book. There's plenty of how to draw men, (not really sexy) buildings, vehicles...etc. This is also a compilation of what topics wizard readers asked about and wanted covered.

Well, I have seen the whole book, and actually three others of this series as well, and while naturally the quality and tone varies a lot (as is the way with compilations) and I found several chapters helpful on comic related topics (and I partly scanned and discussed those too in my LJ, so it's not as if I set out to misrepresent Wizard or their book series, like, I liked the chapters on pacing from the graphic story telling book quite a lot, as I said here and here), they are explicitly sexist in many places not just the chapters dealing with women, though especially those. For example Frank Cho's chapter on how to draw effective covers from Wizard's "How To Draw: Advanced Techniques": "VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!
You also can't use the same pose for guys and women--and women are much harder to draw covers for. With guys you just have to convey power to make the figure work, while with women, you have to emphasize their, y'know, curvaceous nature. It's almost like a swimsuit-issue pose--you have to emphasize their curves, yet at the same time reflect their power as well.
[...]
SKETCH APPEAL
Drawing a cover is mostly just trying to come up with a strong pose and trying to build upon it. It's kinda hard when you're drawing girls, because you're trying to come up with a strong, dominant pose, yet at the same time make it very sensual and sexy. I was just playing around with various poses, and for whatever reason none of 'em were sexy enough for me."

Or the fact that in the book on character creation, in the archetype section the chapters are Super Men, Super Women, Acrobats, Costumed Vigilantes, Brutes, Vixens, Armored Villains and Sidekicks, and the only chapter with examples from both genders is the one about acrobats (by Adrian Alphona, who draws Runaways). So you have "Super Women" (and some great ramblings about breast size under the header of "Rack 'em up" I shared my joy about that here), and "Vixens", but no examples in vigilantes or sidekicks, which even in actual superhero comics aren't uncommon for female characters. So the books do worse than the actual comics.

I have all the wizard how-tos as well. :) I don't have any love for wizard, and I can see how these drawings can be viewed as sexist, but not the extent of the alarmists position a lot of the people took early in the thread. If women are that enraged by these pictures I'd hate to see them pick up an issue of Maxim, watch any rap video, go to a car show, etc... There are definitely different levels of "cheesecake" to the artists. The Cho picture you are talking about is one of the most offensive I've seen of the mainstream artists. I guess the comic artists of today are keeping the pin-up style of Vargas, Soryama, and Olivia alive, or to profit off of that formula. I don't know that I've seen the more iconic women drawn in porn-like poses, or not by well known artists in the major books. I don't think DC or Marvel wants Wonder Woman or Kitty Pryde grabbing their ankles looking back and winking at the camera.

Oh, one addition to the Frank Cho thing in case you don't have the book in front of you, none of the poses actually look "powerful" to me, they are all the kind of pose where the woman has spread legs and a flirtatious look towards the reade, and leans or drapes rather than standing firmly.

how to draw female comic characters (according to Wizard)...

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