Catwoman, why does your butt stick out like that?
Oh HAI tumblr! I apologize for my prolonged absence from this part of the interwebz, which was mostly due to being in pre-convention mode (art show and commissions and art for the con itself and being GOH and all that) and job finding (woohoo! Back to storyboards in August!), which all gets in the way of sitting down and finding + correcting bad T&A comic book art. I’ve received some questions and submissions from you guys, and I will get to them, thanks a lot for sending them my way!
Okay, back to … well, this thing.
It was tweeted to me by Lar de Souza who found it from Faith Erin Hicks. This is an extremely clear example of hypersexualised art, complete with requisite both breasts and both butt cheeks be not only visible, but highlighted, the spine twisted in such a way to accomplish the previous demonstration, and unfortunately no thought whatsoever in the logic of the pose as to how possible it is to perform.
That said, overhead views are extremely difficult to draw because we are not used to seeing people from above. They take a lot of work to figure out if you don’t have a model (and even if you do, but it is easier). I didn’t have a model and there are things I know are wrong in what I did, but I don’t know how to fix them since I lack reference.
Anyways… The original drawing, aside from being a big squashed bubble of butt and boobs, also has the head really off center, and the side of the face squished in while the right shoulder is elongated out, which exaggerates that off-center state even more. Artists, flip your drawings over once in a while when you draw. Things that seem okay in one direction may be skewed, so by flipping the drawing (either using “flip horizontally” if you’re drawing digitally or turning your page over and light-boxing your drawing) will allow you to notice those skewed and crooked things, which you can fix in flipped mode and turn back to the original way to continue drawing.
The original’s pose is also all squished up, and there’s foreshortening on the arms but not on the hips. I tried to place the structure underneath, but it didn’t fit. So I did a sideways pose to try and figure out where everything was. That box at the top is shorthand for a camera. I’ve put some notes on the drawing, as you can see.
So what should that pose be? If she’s jumping, there should be some extension. If there’s extension, there should be some contraction. And for interest in the pose, a twist at the waist is not a bad thing (it is if it’s exaggerated, but by now you know what that means and looks like). Contra posto means counter position, a thing the body naturally does to keep its balance. One hip rises, the corresponding shoulder lowers to compensate so you don’t fall over.
Translating this into an overhead shot means figuring out first the general body direction, then where the shoulder to hip relationship is. And that’s where the problem often lies, in drawing poses like this: how do I show a narrow waist if my character’s ribs and hips hide it? So we try to smudge things, shift things, move pieces of the body in order to show that small waist because otherwise she’s going to look fat, no? Yes, it’s hard. It’s hard to overlap shapes and show volume. I fought with this drawing and redid the lower half of the body about five or six times before I finally dropped the stylus and declared it good enough for this purpose. I wished several times I had a model. Yet… I managed to place the head right, include the shoulder blade on the left arm, take in account that the left breast is pushed forward while the right one is pulled back with the right shoulder (and thus is less round, more stretched sideways); I made the left butt cheek rounder because it is flexing to pull the leg back and is pushed up by the back of the thigh muscles, and the right butt cheek is flatter because the muscle is relaxed since the leg is forward. These are all things to think about when you’re drawing a character, even a simplistic, stylised or cartoony one. You want the curves on the flexing muscles, and the straight lines on the relaxed, extended muscles.
Anyways, enough from me for now. I still have a pile of commissions to finish; I’ll get to some of the questions and submissions later this afternoon or tonight.
Thanks for your support, reblogs, notes, plugs, comments, questions, submissions and general finger pointing in the direction of art that needs a bit of attention. Keep ‘em coming! You guys are the reason I keep at this blog, because of all the new redraws I see other people do, because of the “angry” tweets I get about how I ruined comics for people by pointing out the bad anatomy for the sake of teh sexy, because of the “yes, this!” with the reblogs, and because of the “actually you should watch out for that thing you did wrong” so I can fix it.
And a special thanks to Eschergirls, whose blog inspired this one, and who not only gives this blog here the regular plug back, but also has been especially nice and encouraging in what I do. MUCH LOVE TO YOU!
blamerades said:
I just wanted to share this image with you -
- from a recent issue of Marvel’s Generation Hope, and maybe get your thoughts. The pose is…it’s something special.
Yes, it is, and it has been posted before in Eschergirls and even tackled by Toxicnotebook here at Lesstitsnass. This pose is wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny. Heck, it even got posted in i09! Even Danger’s pose is awful.
genderqueerbookshop submitted:
I found this browsing the Star Wars tag and….
I’m pretty sure Twi’leks can’t dislocate their spines at will and I have no clue what the Sith chick is doing.
I’m really curious what this looks like if you continued their bodies beyond this panel. What is Twi’lek girl (is that Aayla?) doing? Where are they standing? What does the ground look like? Are they fighting inside a sphere?
Okay this one I had to do. This is also for my April Drawing day 3 to boot.SO!
Pic One: Figuring Out WTF is Going On
As you can see, the pose is really weird once you try to figure out how they’re standing. It’s pretty obvious that the artist didn’t crop from a larger image, they just threw the two fighters into a space that doesn’t really let them breathe.
Also- boob flounder, redhead chick isn’t even looking at Twi’lek girl, neck and shoulder WTF’s.
Pic Two: Sticking to the Source
This was me attempting to stick to the same composition/general positioning while fixing the weird anatomy. It’s not bad, serviceable even but I had one more try for something I think might be better.
Pic Three: Let’s See What We Can Do
I wanted the same feeling of the red girl bringing the force line down on the Twi’lek so I put the Twi’lek on her knees, trying for a blocking sort of positioning (note: I don’t know anything about fighting but I did have the sense to google for ‘sword fighting’ or something similar to get an idea of what is in the realm of possible if not perfect). I like my version, but of course I would, right? ;)
Hi there! Love your redraws! :) There’s one or two things I’d like to point out about your Twi’lek’s kneeling stance that look wrong to me as someone who’s practiced kendo for about two years. The Twi’lek’s light saber’s angle doesn’t look right. It should be tilted up, not down - right now, if the Sith hits her with enough force, her own saber’s going to go down into her own head. I’d suggest lowering her arms a little bit and angling the sword up. (You can look up pictures of jodan kamae to get a better idea of what I’m talking about.)
Also, her left foot would probably not be bent like that. If you keep your foot bent under you while you’re kneeling and someone else hits you with any force from the front as the Sith is about to, you’re going to be sent down and backwards, right onto that ankle and foot, and with it bent like that, you’d probably break something. The top of her foot should be flat on the ground, and her toes should be pointing out behind her, so that if her body is forced backwards, her butt will end up resting on her heel instead of crushing it downwards and hurting her foot. Try kneeling down and doing it yourself, to help you see and feel the difference between a bent foot and straight foot. (I can draw all this out later if you don’t understand what I mean.)
Hope this makes sense and helps you :)
I’m going to go from here and see what I would do with this. Here’s my view of what’s happening in the rest of this image:
Okay, in all seriousness, I’m going to tackle this one one pose at a time. In the original, they do look like they’re dancing. It’s not clear what the dynamic is between the two characters. I think the Sith should be attacking the Twilek jedi. Right?
Following the same idea as pariahsdream, I found my perspective in this scene and reworked the pose to make it a real attack. And yeah, I may have made a silly cartoon face on my sketch, but the facial expression on the original is all wrong. She looks stoned, not battle-enraged. Note the pinch and stretch counter actions on the body in the redraw, which are nowhere but in the arms on the original. (One good thing about the original is that the breasts are actually raised with the arms, so point for the artist.)
If she’s on the offensive, her adversary should be on the defensive:
And that’s how I’d handle this image. The Jedi’s actually going into a crouch, and will a split second later have brought her own saber horizontally above her head to block the downward strike of the Sith. I haven’t drawn the sword up because the opposing swing hasn’t started yet! It’s all in the timing of the action.
Hm, need to adjust the direction of the eyes on the Sith so she actually glares at the Jedi, not at her sword arm…
animalswithfancyhats submitted:
I couldn’t help it.. the strange ribcage… had to fix it…
Very understandable.
This here. I was going to tackle this one, but animalswithfancyhats beat me to it, and did a great job of it. *applause*
Okay, I know the Spider-people are flexible. I realize that’s part of their powers. However, being flexible doesn’t mean the spine turns to rubber.
I get that the artist wanted to display this contortionist’s abilities by having the legs and pelvis pointed upwards while the web’s being shot in the opposite direction. However, that sort of contortion has the spine collapsing in part of the ribcage, and at first glance all I think is ow, ow, ow. Contortion art, even when it is well done, still has the viewer cringing in imagined pain.
So I settled with flexibility without overt exaggeration. There is still a twist there, but it’s a doable twist, by a ballet dancer or gymnast, and I’ve focused on where the elements of the core sit with each other. Arch the back enough, you’ll crease the flesh (see right hip+ribcage); the shoulders are thrown back so the shoulder blades stick out; the head placement is corrected to fit the new ribcage.
I’ve left in some rough construction lines of the skeleton. They are important when constructing a drawing. Don’t fudge over the interior anatomy, or your outer anatomy, as pretty and correct as it may be, won’t ever look right.
About Less Tits n' Ass, More Kickin' Ass
