6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
Give it one final pass to clean up and finalize your line work. Add
crosshatching, shading and heavier line work to the hair and mouth area.
And there you have it: a girl that is scared of spiders. Can you blame
her?
CHAPTER 2
SUPERHERO BODIES
In this chapter you will learn how to construct the superhero body.
You will learn about gesture drawing, proportions, drawing in the
anatomy and refining the artwork. These are the steps that I use to
create characters every day. Breaking down the work into these
stages will help you to draw complex characters more quickly and
easily. Practice these studies every day to help them become
second nature in your workflow.
Gestures
Practice the Basics
Drawing gestures is an extremely important skill for any comic book
artist. You must first learn how to capture the form with basic lines and
shapes. Focus on the action line of the body (i.e., the flow in which the
body or parts move).
Try Complex Forms
You will need to practice the complex forms as well. Strange and
unfamiliar poses will give your mind a workout and make you less likely
to draw static boring shots.
Action Lines
With practice, you will start to fit more information in with your gestures
such as foreshortening and action. Notice in the first two examples that
the action line is relatively straight but still helps to convey the movement
in those shots. In the third shot a character hangs upside down. This is
another great exercise to do. By forcing yourself out of your comfort zone
and drawing the figure upside down, it changes your perspective on the
forms and forces you to study them further.
Draw Quickly
Gestures should be quick and expressive. Start with as few lines as
possible, focusing on a quick representation of the forms. Sweeping lines
work very well for the body and its movements.
Do Timed Sketches
As you begin to feel more comfortable with the process, start to add more
hints of detail during the next stage of your drawing. Practice timed
drawings. Try drawing your poses in intervals of ten-minute, five-minute
and even one-minute sketches. Doing timed sketches then slowly
reducing the amount of time for the sketches will help you to build speed
and confidence. You will have a better understanding of what you can
complete in a certain amount of time, which you must know if you are
going to do client work.
You will be amazed at what you learn about the body in action with
timed sketches. By adding in more information, your pictures will attain
more of a mannequin style. Continue to fill up those sketchpads.
more of a mannequin style. Continue to fill up those sketchpads.
Hundreds if not thousands of these little sketches will lead to your artistic
greatness!
Practice Movement
Practice drawing the body engaged in various movements. Study from
life but then exaggerate a little or a lot. Remember that we are drawing
comics here, so we really want to push our poses to the limit.
Drawing Proportions: Male
In this lesson we will study the proportions of our superhero
characters. First we’ll study the different looks you can get by
varying the character’s height by the amount of heads tall he or she
may be.
Normal: This character is seven and a half heads tall. This is the
standard height of a normal male character. Aside from the
physique, there is nothing too special about this guy.
Super: This character is eight heads tall and already looks a lot
more dynamic in stature. Notice the longer legs and the slightly
wider shoulders. Small changes like these add up. Because the
head size remains the same, the character looks bigger and
stronger by comparison.
Superhero: With the character at nine heads tall, he is truly more
powerful. Bigger shoulders and limbs signify his strength. This guy
could lift a house and not break a sweat!
Drawing Proportions: Female
Females aren’t usually as tall as males, but you can still change
their physique to suit your character style. You can add more or
less musculature to any of these poses and make the female look
much stronger.
Normal: Notice that the woman at seven heads tall appears to be on
the shorter side. But that’s only by comparison. She is actually
much closer to the norm than the other two.
Super: At seven and a half heads tall, she starts to look more
heroic. She has longer legs for more kicking power and a longer
arm reach to deliver a ka-blam of a punch!
Superheroine: At eight heads tall, there is no doubt that you don’t
want to mess with this lady. She is large enough to beat up the
entire football team and still make it home in time for dinner.
Drawing Arms: Male Arms Flexing
In this lesson you will draw the muscular male arm. You know, “The
guns!” You can’t have superheroes without big powerful arms, so
let’s get to it.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
First draw a basic guide to show where the forms will go. Draw circles for
the joints and lines for the bones. It’s very simple and straightforward.
This helps you to think only of the distance and therefore the proportions
of the arm. The wrist to the elbow should be about the same distance as
the elbow to the shoulder.
2 BUILD THE ARM STRUCTURE
Draw in cylinder shapes for the upper and lower parts of the arm. Draw a
large circle for the shoulder for now to help you think about the shapes in
a three-dimensional space. The hand can be drawn as a block or wedge-
like shape with smaller cylinders for the fingers. Notice I drew the shapes
as dimensional as possible by drawing through the other objects. This
again is a way to think of the drawing as three-dimensional. Keep the
shapes basic at this point of the drawing.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase your construction lines and begin to add in the organic
shapes of the anatomy. There are no quick work-arounds to good
anatomy. Study it and study it often. Focus on where the muscles start
and where they end. Muscles go over and under other muscle groups, so
keep that in mind when drawing your shapes. And keep straight lines to a
minimum when drawing anatomy. They may add style but too many will
just look plain wrong.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Gently erase your line work again, and this time refine the lines with more
definition. Add line weight and clean up any spots that look wrong. Don’t
worry about perfection; there is no such thing. Clean, confident lines will
always improve your piece though.
5 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Outline the shapes of shadows. Try to picture how the light might wrap
around the anatomy of the arm. Make sure not to trace each muscle
separately and in doing so create too many segments in the arm. Try
combining some of the areas, showing small breaks or bends in the
shadows. Consider what percentage of the arm you want to be in
shadow. In this case, I thought the arm should be 20 to 25 percent in
shadow.
6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
With the shadow shapes in place, add the line work to shade the arm.
Think of these lines like gradients from light to shadow. Try to round out
the muscles even further as you crosshatch. Bending the crosshatched
lines with the shape of the anatomy is a good way to create a look of
depth. Lots and lots of practice is the key to doing it right!
Drawing Arms: Male Arms
Pointing
In this lesson you will draw the inside of the male muscular arm. It’s
the old, “Which way to the beach?” pose. We have all struck this
pose at one time or another, right?
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Draw the pose with the same line and circle method used in the previous
lesson. Think of this as the bones under the muscles, and at this stage
lesson. Think of this as the bones under the muscles, and at this stage
just focus on the length and direction of each section of the arm and
hand. Notice the relationship from the wrist to the shoulder. Also notice
the shape of the base of the hand from this angle. They are both
triangular. Taking notice of shapes like these makes your drawings more
consistent.
2 BUILD THE ARM STRUCTURE
Draw the cylindrical shapes. Think of a mannequin or marionette. Keep it
simple. At this point, think only about proportions and direction of the
segments. Also be open to changes at any stage of this process.
Correcting things early on will save you lots of time and heartache later.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase your lines and start to draw the curvature of the anatomy.
Notice the way that each area tapers as it meets the next. The shoulder
tapers as it meets the upper arm, and the upper arm tapers as it meets
the lower arm and so forth. Also notice where I changed the shape of the
anatomy from the initial mannequin stage. I dropped the shoulder down.
The basic construction is only meant to be a guide, so never hesitate to
make changes if you see something that could be better.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Gently erase your guidelines and begin to refine the anatomy. This time
give more line weight to the drawing as you add to it. You can also start
to draw veins to add to the depth and realism of the drawing.
5 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Draw the shapes of shadows for the muscles. If you are working with a
freelance artist who will ink your drawing, make sure to sketch small x’s
marking the shadows so they can read the artwork more clearly. You
don’t necessarily have to do this step if you are inking your own work, but
it doesn’t hurt to get in the habit just in case. Then you’ll always
remember where the shadow should be filled in.
6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
Fill in the shadows and add crosshatching and line weight to start to
make the artwork pop off the page. Notice how the veins cast small
shadows of their own on one side. And how they catch light even in the
shadow of the arm. This is more stylized, but it gives the appearance of
depth. Overall this is a very stylized arm drawing but that is the fun of
comics—not everything has to be entirely accurate!
Drawing Arms: Outer Female
Arms
In this lesson you will draw the female arm. There are a few subtle
differences to notice when drawing the arm of a woman or girl.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Start by drawing the lines to define the distance between the upper arm,
forearm, hand and fingers. This doesn’t have to be perfect. It just
provides a guide to get started. Notice that the lines for the upper arm
and forearm are roughly the same size at this angle.
2 BUILD THE ARM STRUCTURE
Draw the cylinder shapes over your skeleton-like lines. Make sure to
have the forearm taper toward the wrist. On the female arm, the wrist can
get pretty slender so it is good to start to draw that in even at this stage.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase your line work, and draw in the organic shapes of the arm.
When drawing the female arms, you can use longer sweeping curves
whereas the male arms tend to be more angular and abrupt. Notice that
the fingers are almost the length of the palm portion of the hand. Some
stylized comic art ventures far past those proportions. As long as the
fingers are thin and taper toward the tips, they will generally read well.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Gently erase one more time and clean up your lines. Notice that we will
use little to no shadows and less heavy line weight to finish off the arm.
This all helps to create the effect of a softer, more feminine arm. The
more lines and shading you add, the more defined the arm will look. But it
can quickly become too much. Oftentimes when drawing the female
characters in comics, less is more. Don’t forget to add the pretty
fingernails!
Try More Poses
Here are some arm poses to practice with. Draw them often and with as
many variations as you can think of to really memorize the forms. Look at
your own arm or photo references and keep practicing.
Drawing Arms: Inner Female
Arms
In this lesson you will draw another female arm. This time the pose
is from the other side. It’s best to understand these basic forms
before working on more complex poses with foreshortening.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Draw the lines and circles to get the basic structure in place. Notice that
the knuckles of the hand and fingers are not straight but rather form more
of an arc. This concept is important to remember when drawing hands,
and this will be covered in more detail later in the book.
2 BUILD THE ARM STRUCTURE
Draw cylinders over the basic structure lines in a three-dimensional form.
This helps convey the direction that the limb is moving within the space,
and also helps you to better visualize your drawings for the next stage.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase the previous step and draw in the organic lines. Use
sweeping lines to convey the female form. Sketch the lines at this stage
to best work out the proportions.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Gently erase your lines and finalize the drawing. Add in little bits of
crosshatching and use line weight to give the arm some depth.
Male vs. Female
Notice the differences between the male and the female arms. The male
arm consists of more angular and abrupt changes in direction, whereas
the female arm is made up of smooth curvatures in the lines. This holds
true for much of the body, not just the arms. The male arm can be
finished with more shading and heavier line weight. The female arm can
be drawn with less line work, conveying a certain softness.
Drawing Male Legs Standing
Powerful legs are a necessity for superheroes who leap, run, kick
and do all that other stuff that heroes do with their muscular legs.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Draw the basic skeleton. Notice that the distance from the hip to the knee
is only slightly longer than the distance from the knee to the ankle. A lot
of artists will make those distances the same, so this is merely a style
choice. Draw a line from the heel of the foot to the point where the toes
choice. Draw a line from the heel of the foot to the point where the toes
begin, then add a small line to represent the toes.
2 BUILD THE LEG STRUCTURE
Draw the cylindrical shapes over the rough lines. The pelvis can be
drawn as a wedge-like shape with ovals where the legs attach. Make
sure to taper the upper leg toward the knee and to taper the lower part of
the leg toward the ankle. Then draw the foot using a distorted pyramid
shape.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase some of the construction lines and begin to draw the
anatomy. It’s okay to start with angular shapes. There will be time to
smooth out the lines in the next steps. Concentrate on where the muscles
start and where they end. Notice how the two larger muscles in the upper
leg are not straight across from one another but rather on an angle. The
one on the inner part of the leg sits on the knee area, while the other is
higher. Little observations like this make a big difference even when
drawing stylized artwork.
drawing stylized artwork.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Gently erase more of the construction lines and start to draw the more
organic and confident line work. Here you can focus on line weight and
clarity of the forms. You can remain open to changes at this stage, but by
now you should have a better idea of how the forms will come together.
5 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Add the shadow shapes. The best way to get better at these is to study
from life. The same goes for improving your knowledge of anatomy. Just
remember that once you learn how to do this realistically, there is no
reason you cannot overdramatize the effect for your comic illustrations.
Notice how I added an angular effect to my shadows. That was merely a
style choice.
6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
Now to fully render the piece. Remember to curve the final lines around
the form to add depth and to crosshatch any areas that need to be
slightly darker than the other areas. There is no right or wrong way to
shade in this fashion. Just play around with a variety of line weights and
overlapping effects until you find your desired style. Always keep a light
overlapping effects until you find your desired style. Always keep a light
source in mind when rendering your comic art!
Drawing Male Legs Crouching
In this lesson you will draw the male legs in a squatting position.
You don’t want to get into the bad habit of only drawing our heroes
and villains standing straight up. Even they have to rest their
muscle-bound legs once in a while.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Start by drawing the basic skeleton. Get in the habit of drawing the lines
and circles even for the areas that may be hidden by other parts of the
body. This is helpful for accurate placement of the forms in the following
steps.
2 BUILD THE LEG STRUCTURE
Draw the cylindrical shapes to determine the proportions and
perspective. Notice that I leave a good amount of the previous step in the
sketch to help place the back foot behind the right leg. These sketch lines
will help you to envision where to place parts of the body in perspective
so don’t get rid of them too quickly.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Gently erase the guidelines from the previous step and draw the anatomy
of the legs. Keep the drawing loose. It is best to sketch roughly in this
stage of the drawing so you are open to changes. Remember, if you find
this type of pose tricky to accomplish, don’t hesitate to study from
reference. Taking your own photos is a great way to combat these tough
perspectives. Always keep a mirror by your art table or workstation.
4 REFINE THE LINES
Erase the guidelines again and draw the more defined line work. Here
you can use curved lines to give a more organic feel to the muscles.
5 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Fill in the shapes of shadows. Do your best to avoid giving each muscle
the same curve as the outside edge. This will only make the muscles look
like bubbles. You have to vary the shapes of the shadows to show the
dynamic curves that the muscles make. This is another thing that you get
better at when you study from real life.