Less Tits n' Ass, More Kickin' Ass

Studio Technique Is Offering Online Classes!

Interrupted storyboards time!

You all know how much importance I give to practice and learning of proper anatomy, and how much I learned when I took life drawing classes, about movement and anatomy in detail. Well, the training studio where I took my life drawing classes and taught a storyboard class is now offering classes online! Samantha Youssef is an amazing artist and experienced animator whose credits include lots of Disney movies, and she teaches three classes starting this January: anatomy, 2D animation, and movement. Spots are limited, so if you’re interested, make sure you go sign up!

http://studiotechniquemontreal.com/english/registration-form.php

Here, let me just paste in her announcement and descriptions: 

Finally, a Recommendation for a Good How-To-Draw Book!

Submission from evalilith:

Inspired by the previous post recommending titles, I realized this blog would be a great place to share one of the most inclusive and least sexist how-to-draw books I’ve ever seen. After all, we’ve spent a lot of time commenting on awful ones, so let’s have a good example!

Now, the title will sound ridiculous, but bear with me. It’s called Shojo Fashion Manga Art School: Year 2. Despite the title, the style is actually more East/West fusion than anything- the cover is a good example of the style, and you can look inside on Amazon, which is where that link up there leads.

If you do “look inside”, you’ll see the first example of why the book is so excellent. One of the very first notes after the introductory pages is an instruction to avoid pocket boobs!

You can see that the first several pages also include a brief discussion of different body shapes and use an elderly woman as an example for a concept that doesn’t require her to be elderly.

Highlights further on in the book include:

• Examples of women’s shoes that are not heels.
• Two-page spread on maternity wear.
• Two-page spread on plus-sized characters and how they are underrepresented.
• Recurring use of varying body types for example figures, including a larger girl on the swimsuit page.
• Recurring use of older women (and elderly people in general) as example figures.
• Use of a young woman for the example on the ‘confident pose’ page- and it’s actually a real confident pose! My scanner isn’t working right now or I’d show the image, but she honestly does just look like she’s calling someone out on their BS or similar.
• The woman on the ‘camouflage’ page is in full fatigues just like her male counterparts.
• Explicit discussion of a variety of athletic body types.
• And the closest thing to a T&A pose is a pose with a POV that is from below a cheerleader because she is actually physically being hoisted up in the air.

It’s also just a really good reference book for clothing styles, including things like how to tie a tie (in case you need to draw someone doing that), different necklines and silhouettes of standard dress types, how to draw a skirt sitting down, how suspenders work, different sleeve types- just a lot of useful things to help give variety to clothing you draw. The other books in the series don’t focus just on clothes, and since they are by the same people, I assume they are as awesomely representative. So if you’re looking for a GOOD reference book and can stomach looking between all the Chris Hart in the HtD section of your local bookstore, keep an eye out for this one!

Evalilith contacted me afterwards and said she meant that post to reply to a pretty frequent question in Eschergirls, but I will post this because this recommendation she makes and the Look Inside! link on Amazon include all the things that we want to see in comics. I know I’m going to look for that book in Deserres when I go replenish my marker stock. Please share!