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

Wow - Seriously - Get Over It

[afrodark.livejournal.com]

I don't see what the big deal is...this goes out especially to those whining about the big muscular character...you're looking at a damn book based on comic book art of course you'de never see someone that muscular in real life so just stop being so damn narrow minded...and as someone said previously not all characters look like that...so you guys (and ladies, since the ones in this thread are so damn sensitive) mean to tell me that if he put a section on how to draw Optimus Prime from Transformers and told you that a sense of realism should be achieved when drawing this, you'de completely bash him as you're doing now? Those whining over that probably don't have much of an imagination...and as for the so called "sexist" attitude you guys and girls think he's portraying you too need to realize that the majority of comic book female super heroes look like that (the slender, curvy, sleek, sexy aspects of the female character)...if you ask me he's doing a lot of women justice by drawing them like that, and sure you bash him for drawing women that can bend in almost impossible positions, but it's a fuckin superhero, not even real to begin with...and also, I'm pretty sure if most of you tried to reenact such poses you could pull it off. So all in all, open your damn minds, and stop being so hard on this guy when he's just trying to show you something which a large portion of comic book artists do as well...I sware you people of this thread are more sickening than the actual post itself...really, and I love people, but DAMN, come on...