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View Full Version : Kai's Anatomy Experiment & Study



Kailestel
12-04-2015, 04:23 AM
Heyas!!

So a little while ago I started looking at different body types for my girls. I really wanted to express their uniqueness and not in just variations of their eye color, skin color, hair color/style and/or boob size. I wanted to really dive into understanding anatomy and teach myself how to draw different body types beautiful and in my style.

What really started this endeavor was my notice that while each artist in the comic industry has their own unique style, they tend to draw their characters the same. I was wondering if anyone in the industry could provide insight as to why this is. I mean surely we can recognize that Wonder Woman shouldn't have the same physique as Super Girl or that Storm, being of African decent would probably have wider hips than say Psylocke who inhabits the body of a Japanese woman, yet for the most part a particular artist will draw the foundations of each woman's body the same, disregarding the effects of ethnicity.

Also, I noticed that faces are all drawn the same, in that almost every artist draws women with either a heart shaped face or an oval shaped face, which is particularly odd considering that some of the most attractive women in the world have square faces (Olivia Wilde), round faces (Michelle Williams) or oblong faces (Kate Beckinsale).

Another thing is boob size. Nearly all the top rated celebrities in terms of sexiness are a natural "B" cup, with a few "C" cups and the very rare "D" or larger falling to the naturally blessed Sophia Vergara, Kat Dennings, and Selma Hayek coming to mind. But these well endowed women are very curvy too, not the supermodel tall, thin pinups that we see Marvel and DC producing in their comics.

So I guess as I continue this study, I was wondering if anyone else has done something similar or found resources in tutorials from artists who have done similar studies.

I'll keep ya'll posted on my findings.

Kailestel
12-04-2015, 05:00 AM
Here's an example of a face study:

Below is Ms. Miranda Kerr - a Victoria Secret supermodel

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And now the lovely Ms. Kate Beckinsale - a British actress

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While both women are beautiful, you can see that their faces are quite different.

The distance from their hairline to the center of their eyes appear to be the same for both women, but Miranda (top) definitely has a larger ratio between her eyes to her nose compared to her nose to her mouth and mouth to chin. Kate on the other hand has much more equal ratios between eyes to nose, nose to mouth and mouth to chin.

Also, Miranda has the much more traditional Heart Shaped face where Kate has an oblong almost diamond shaped face.

D Akey
12-18-2015, 10:46 PM
Heyas!!

So a little while ago I started looking at different body types for my girls. I really wanted to express their uniqueness and not in just variations of their eye color, skin color, hair color/style and/or boob size. I wanted to really dive into understanding anatomy and teach myself how to draw different body types beautiful and in my style.

What really started this endeavor was my notice that while each artist in the comic industry has their own unique style, they tend to draw their characters the same. I was wondering if anyone in the industry could provide insight as to why this is. . .

It's not a very interesting answer. It's how one gets hired. You have to be able to replicate characters whether within one form like animation or from one venue to another because they are copyrighted and have to conform to a standard. So if you get a job (in animation I assume -- comics as well but they're tied together), you need to be able to draw the figure "on model" which means if you're hired as an artist, they can hand you work and insert it anywhere and it will look like it's done by the same artist. The characters exist with this scrutiny as a corporate logo in essence -- most of the time. The owners of the characters need to not let the characters go off the rails without approval.

Also if you're animating, you are part of an assembly line, wherein if you do something differently, it won't move properly and give the illusion of life and changes in the wrong place stick out like a sore thumb. Compound that difficulty with sending the production work (the actual animation) to foreign countries where, if you don't watch them closely, you will get all kinds of slop sent back. It's not so bad probably now that these studios have been around for a long time and most of the artists are trained. But still supervisors need to oversee quality. And by quality, I mean it has to look like the model and follow the story boards that are sent over to them to follow. So for all the hands that touch the product, they need very tight guidelines. And not all artists are created equal. You often have to simplify way down so people can both crank it out at a good speed, plus be able to draw it right.

Nothing worse in animation than having the mechanics get in the way of the story action with glitches and pops. It's very formulated from line weight, proportions and colors for the characters -- in day, in night, near lamps, etc. They have people who specialize in just coloring props and characters. Like from the very earliest days where much of how things are done, they found that a simple trap line is safe and can be followed seamlessly rather than an expressive line as with a dry brush for example. The other thing is that artists in studios get into grooves and when they change shows or production and they suddenly have to draw different characters, that can take time for them to get the knack. And all that adjustment time costs somebody money when they can't really move forward until the artists are in line.

Artists in these genres MUST be able to do that if they want to get paid and/or not sued. Also if you have a whole line-up of different characters in a show, the models need to stay looking like the characters they are so that when another character is along side them, it's clear who is who. If they get distorted by an artist's style, you could really loose that effect. Also you need to think about collateral things like toys and action figures and all that. If your toy looks like your cartoon character, the kids are happy.

Now I have seen comic books where they have deviated. But I'm not sure why or how it happened. Often times comic book covers can have full lifelike renderings of the characters within the pages it has the standard comic book look with ink line or whatever. You also may have movie posters where they can sometimes deviate, but not if the characters are very known, and more to look like what's appearing in the movie.

There are practical reasons why this is the way it is. And if anyone wants to work in a studio, they better be able to follow. . .

Now if you have control, you can stretch the artistry out into some novel areas. A one man operation or a small studio would be easy to keep consistent, depending on the skill of the artists and the style that is chosen for the project.

There are always exceptions. But these exceptions are less likely to be seen in a Disney production, even though Walt Disney did experiment as in Fantasia. But that's getting away from your question. Hope that clarifies. And if you want to get a job in a studio, I strongly recommend that you learn to imitate. Also be careful because you may not have trained your eye to see the things that the hiring people look for. So you may think what you did looks exactly like the model, but it may not be to them. So develop into those sensibilities if that is a career goal.