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Topic: Q for JB: Drawing the Human Figure Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Robert Shepherd
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Hi JB,

I was scanning some fan art and noticed anatomy challenges new artists have with the human figure and a question popped up in my mind.

Obviously, and in all seriousness, you draw everything well, but my question is, is there a part of the human form that you find most challenging to draw? Or yo take the most time getting right?

I'd like to open up this question to all artists on site too: 

What is the most challenging area, of the human form, for you to draw?

I think everything is hard to draw of course, especially hands and faces, but shoulders stand out, for me, as something I have the difficulty with and tend to look the most unnatural in my sketches.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

What I got from Gil Kane among others is to start thinking a lot about how the things you want to draw are constructed. Human beings are skeletons with muscles and skin on top. You can't put up a building without a framework and foundation. Good art is built. At first it will be awkward, laborious, difficult. In time it can become easier and your 3-D imaging muscle (or computer if you prefer) in your brain will have developed.

Work out constructions and representing something 3-D in 2-D in sketchbooks or workbooks. They are for you to work in, to struggle in, and not necessarily for showing anybody.

Oh yes, and especially for hands and faces, you are observing them all around you everyday. That is data for your brain to store and use in art. This is from Dick Giordano. While looking you can think about the underlying structure and how it moves and maybe even the effect gravity has, lighting, things like that. Comic art like any illustration is a translation of all we have observed into a two-dimensional representation suggesting a larger reality. I hope I can help as I have been helped. :^)


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 23 June 2018 at 1:17pm
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Robert Shepherd
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 1:19pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Rebecca...just FYI, there is an unwritten rule of etiquette to let JB answer first before others contribute. No worries though and thanks for contributing.....though you missed the question entirely....;-)
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Robbie Moubert
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

It's actually a written rule!
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John Byrne
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

What is the most challenging area, of the human form, for you to draw?

•••

Everything. Seriously. But after years of pounding my head against this wall, I realized some of the best artists worried less about photographic accuracy than creating stylized forms that represented the body without trying to "hold a mirror up to Nature."

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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I apologize for my rudeness there, it was rude of me.
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Robert Shepherd
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Rebecca, I wouldn't say it was rude. You might not have known is all....;-) All good.
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Robert Shepherd
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Thanks for the answer, JB.

Stylization opens up a ton of new questions. I think style is a bigger, more wonderful mystery to me...bigger than photo realism skill. 
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Eric Jansen
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Rebecca's mention of Gil Kane made me think of "building" vs. "observing."  I'm somebody who can copy/sketch what's in front of me pretty easily, which is good for classic art (life drawing, realistic painting, sculpting, etc.), but comic book action requires more building of the human form.  I can't always have reference in front of me for every super-heroic twist of the human body.

I love Gil Kane, who seemingly built every form from the skeleton up, but I also love Gene Colan, who was more fluid and sometimes (like Dracula's arm extending out of his cloak, as JB has mentioned here) you couldn't always trace the skeleton under his forms.

So, I find myself still learning and going back and forth between the two approaches.  I can "build" a powerful man more easily, but if I want to draw a graceful woman I find myself going back to reference clippings.  I can draw a face from my imagination, but if I want to draw a head (and ear) from behind, out comes the reference.  Even for men, the reference comes out sometimes for the right back muscles or hands.  Reference is not cheating, it's diligence.  When I see a comic book artist draw something badly when he could have just looked in a mirror or stepped outside, etc. (we have Google now!), it just seems lazy.

I imagine it's the same for a lot of comic book artists.  I can spot when even somebody like Neal Adams uses reference for accuracy, but I also know (and I've seen him sketch in person at a lot of cons the last few years) that the man has SO MUCH of this reference stored in his head that his "making it up on the spot" is still more accurate than a lot of people looking directly at reference.

So, that's the thing I'm learning and doing--the more you use reference, the less you need it.
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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

For me there are two areas of the human figure that I feel I need to work on most. 

One is bare feet .Drawing a foot in footwear, I think I draw the foot well enough. However, drawing a bare foot is still tricky for me at times, without reference.

The back muscles. The front side I have down pretty well, but the back musculature is perhaps the area I feel I need to work on the most.

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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Drawing the neck and underside of the chin
as the figure is looking up.

Then there is that point in the armpit
where the Shoulder,chest, trap, tricep and
bicep all come together.

Those are the trouble spots for me. If I
have to draw a hero flying upwards, with
his arms out while looking straight at him
from the front...I'm doomed.
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Joe Smith
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

The whole thing is a constant struggle.
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