Learn to Draw Action Heroes Page 6
Gently erase the lines you made in the previous step and draw the basic shapes of the anatomy. Use an arrow shape pointing up for the stomach into the rib cage. Draw the bottom of the chest muscles with a slight upward bend from this perspective. The lats will be visible only on the right side so draw them in with a large rounded curve under the arm cylinder. Add a small basic cylinder for the neck area as well.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Now redraw in the anatomy a bit more clearly. Notice the pinch on the right side of the inner torso and the stretched out curve to the left side. This effect really helps to show the stretching muscles of the torso and give the pose a more dynamic feel.
4 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Draw the shadows. Picture the light coming from the upper left of the superhero torso.
5 ADD THE FINAL DETAILS
Draw the final shading lines and round out the forms a bit more. Add a fair amount of shading in the rib cage and lat areas under the right side to add depth to the drawing.
Drawing the Female Torso Bending
Let’s approach the female torso once again, but this time let’s add more of a bend and a twisting motion to the pose. This can really push the dynamic feel of the forms.
1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES
Draw the shape for the rib cage. At the top, draw a line for the shoulders or collarbones. Connect this line to two circles for the shoulders. Then draw a curved line down the middle. Try to imagine the bend in the stomach and show the twist in the hips by drawing the bottom line at a different angle than the top and the midsection.
2 BUILD THE STRUCTURE
Before you start to draw the primitive shapes of the anatomy, focus on the overall shape of the torso. Notice how the left side is pinched and the right side is elongated. Pay attention to the hourglass shape that women are so famous for. By adding that twist to the hips, the form seems to be in motion, which is great for comics.
3 SKETCH THE ANATOMY
Now draw the basic shapes of the anatomy. Keep it rough and really feel out the shapes. Add the cylinders for the arms to further illustrate the direction of the character’s movement. Avoid drawing the breasts as perfect circles. This is a common mistake. It is better to think of them as teardrops rather than circles.
4 REFINE THE ANATOMY
Now add more definition to the anatomy but remember to stay loose at this stage. You can fix a lot in your work by knowing when to sketch and when to clean up your lines. Play with that idea when creating your drawings.
5 FINALIZE THE LINE WORK
Gently erase the sketching you did in the previous step and draw the forms over with more deliberate lines. Notice how the thicker curved line on the right of the drawing helps to push the form off the page. The weighted lines also help to direct the viewer to parts of the illustration.
6 ADD THE FINAL DETAILS
Finally add in the shadows and your final line work. Remember that less is more on the female form. We want it to appear softer in comparison to the male counterpart—and thus more feminine.
CHAPTER 3
CREATING CHARACTER DETAILS
In this chapter you will learn how to design characters that have lots of unique traits. We will cover the differences that create variety in our heroes and characters. You will learn about face shapes, superhero poses, foreshortening, line of action, lighting, clothing and armor. Putting together all these various elements will help to design your unique characters for comics.
Drawing Characters with Various Face Shapes
This lesson focuses on some of the primary face shapes to consider when drawing your characters. No two faces are exactly alike, but you can rely on some common face shapes.
Face Shapes
There are lots of shapes when it comes to the face. A helpful exercise entails creating a variety of faces with a few primitive shapes such as these. Notice how each of these characters was formed using one of these basic shapes. And keep in mind, it isn’t just the face shape but also the hairline that helps to define these looks. Now give it a try. Start with any of these shapes and create as many characters you can think of. This can be lots of fun and an excellent way to learn.
Character Design
Can you tell what basic primitive shape was used to draw each character? If I am any good at my job, you should be able to figure it out. If not, it’s back to the drawing board I go!
The Superhero Body: Three Main Masses
In this lesson we will work on developing the superhero pose. Let’s start by studying the three main parts of the body that construct the pose: the head, torso and pelvis. Training your eye to see the relationship of these three masses will help you to construct more poses from memory. Study the way these areas of the body align in certain poses and separate away from one another in other poses, as well as how they twist from one another in more dynamic poses.
Create a Strong Pose
Draw a typical superhero pose like this one and focus on the distances between the head, upper body and pelvis. Paying close attention to the spaces between these areas is very important to constructing a dynamic pose.
Practice the Basics
Draw as many poses as possible. Make sure to study basic poses like this pose of a character standing with its arms resting on its hips. Including some basic poses will help to make the superhero poses more impressive by comparison. You need lots of variation in your poses to tell a good story.
Try a More Complex Pose
After you get some basic poses under your belt, try something a little more complex, with forms that overlap one another. Try getting as much expressiveness as you can out of the drawing even though these are basic drawings. Just like gestures, this practice is a very important part to building a comfort level with drawing the dynamic figure.
Don’t Forget the Side View
Notice in this profile view how the three main masses are at different angles from each other. It helps to pay attention to details like this so you don’t draw the forms completely straight up and down.
Superhero Poses
Study and draw lots of various poses like these. They don’t have to be completely refined to convey the idea. It is more important that you draw lots of these without too much time spent on each so that you have a great variety of poses to work with. Drawing the same poses over and over again can be a problem and studies like these will help to fix that issue. Look at life, comics, take your own photos and even just imagine. There is no one singular way to create and you never want to limit yourself with that idea. The main thing is to fill up those sketchbooks with as many various characters and poses as you can. You will learn a ton in that process!
Drawing Foreshortening
In this lesson you will put foreshortening into action on a muscular arm. Concentrate on the overlap that is evident in this type of example.
Learn the Basics
Draw a series of cylinders that taper toward the bottom. Create three segments and use lines on both sides to keep the forms consistent as they taper. Notice how we can draw through the objects to better perceive them in a three-dimensional plane.
Practice Different Angles
Draw the same cylinders but in a perspective view directed toward the camera. Notice that they now appear larger at the closest point, even though they are actually smaller on this side. This is how foreshortening appears. Since we didn’t measure the objects and simply drew them by eye, the segments are not in the right place.
1 SKETCH SHAPES FOR FORESHORTENING
Draw a series of cylinders to represent the arm coming out at an angle toward the viewer. The overlap of the forms helps to convey depth. Notice in the bottom example how much longer the individual sections would appear in the horizontal perspective. To get the foreshortening to look believable, you must overlap the forms and condense the length of the shapes according to the viewer’s position.
2 ADD THE HAND SHAPES
Now add in the hand using a wedge-like shape for the pa
lm area and smaller cylinders to define the fingers. When drawing tricky hand poses use a mirror. Try not to use your drawing hand to pose with, unless you are ambidextrous, of course.
3 DEFINE THE ANATOMY
Gently erase your guidelines and begin to draw the anatomy of the arm. Notice how each muscle goes in front of the previous muscle group as it comes closer to the viewer. Even if one line is only slightly in front of the other it will help to convey depth.
4 CLEAN UP THE ANATOMY
Now draw over the arm again and this time focus on your line weight. Give the muscles more depth by adding thick to thin lines around the curves. There are lots of ways to stylize your work with line weight. The main thing is that you vary the line weights to give the art more appeal. You can also add thicker lines to the forms that are closer to the viewer (to create depth) or on the shadow side of the form (to enhance the light source).
5 ADD SHADOW SHAPES
Shade the arm like it is covered with a darker suit material. Use heavy coverage to illustrate that material. When drawing the shadows make sure to give the lines a feeling of movement or flow. Since you are shading muscles, they should look and feel organic. Notice that you are drawing a dual light source on this arm. It helps to add more curve to the muscles and provides a nice effect for coloring later.
6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
Add in the final lines. There are lots of ways to create your line work for the final shading. Using short abrupt lines illustrates a more specular material. On the second lower light source, use more line coverage to make that area appear darker. You can also leave a small white line around the bottom of the arm. This helps to keep the line weight separate and can provide a night effect against a darker background where the forms might otherwise get lost.
The Superhero Body: Characters in Action
In this lesson you will take the three main masses concept and put it into practice. Let’s create a couple characters jumping into action!
1 DRAW THE BASIC GUIDELINES
First draw a line of action. In this case a couple of elongated C curves get you started. Draw the head, upper torso and pelvis against the action line. Remember that each of these parts can be angled differently to give the pose a dynamic feel. Once you get more comfortable with this method you can really stretch these parts away from one another to create more expressive poses. But always use life drawing as your guide so you don’t take it too far beyond the believable realm.
2 BUILD THE POSE WITH BASIC SHAPES
Add the direction of the legs and arms. Use basic circles and lines to represent the length of the limbs and their direction. Don’t get caught up in the details yet. That is where too many artists fail at figure drawings. Get the foundation of the pose and focus only on the action line, length of the limbs and relationships of the three main masses. That is enough to worry about at this stage.
Action poses can be very tricky to get right. We don’t see them as much as we see static poses so our minds have a tough time remembering placement of the limbs and how the body contorts. Study contact sports, gymnastics and dancing. Use your imagination to put different poses together. Through practice it will all start to make sense.
3 BLOCK IN THE FORMS
Here you will add the solid forms to the characters in action. The previous steps determined the direction and scale. Now you have to add the rest of the solid shapes.
Gently erase the guidelines. Begin drawing in the cylinders for the limbs. It’s okay if you want to change something from the previous step. Don’t feel confined by your early sketches. This process should be an exploration of the pose and structure. Each time you make a change for better or worse, you get closer to the right choice. Use wedge-like shapes for the hands and feet. Keep the drawing very basic at this stage and worry more about proportions and the direction of the limbs.
4 REFINE THE FIGURES
Lightly erase the guidelines and focus on the new line work. Notice I have the lines in blue to help illustrate the next step. Now draw in the anatomy. Use the cylinders as a base, but again don’t hesitate to go outside or inside their lines. They are more like perspective tools at this point. Use them to stay focused on the look of the muscles. When drawing your anatomy, try a variety of curves with small amounts of angular lines. Lines used to draw the anatomy will feel organic when they flow in and out of one another.
5 SKETCH THE DESIGN
At this stage you can have some fun with your concepts. You can use this redraw stage to further tighten up the anatomy as well. Let’s give the character on the left robotic arms and legs. Suit markings can be as simple as a few dividing lines that you will shade differently in the next step. For the character on the right, add a large logo on the chest and a utility belt. Character branding can be lots of fun and great for toy sales later!
6 ADD FINAL DETAILS
At this point you’ll render the characters better. Use large shadows to push the forms around. Remember that shadow pushes areas back into space and light pulls them forward off the page. Use larger amounts of shadows on the suit materials, which will be darker in color. Notice how it helps to add contrast to the character on the left. With the darker suit material on his upper legs and shoulders, it provides contrast to those other areas. To help bring out those mechanical limbs, create shadows with swirling lines breaking away from them. Don’t forget to include neat little glares on the side with the light source. Effects like these go a long way in helping your illustrations become unique but believable.
Designing Characters: Varied Suit Designs
In this lesson we will talk about adding variety to your character concepts. There’s nothing worse than all your characters looking the same. It is hard to tell a great story with a bunch of clones running around.
Practice Different Styles
Notice with these examples that they are all from the same initial drawing. This can be a great exercise to stretch the imagination. Working from the same pose but adding lots of variety allows you to focus more on the concept and less on the foundation of the character.
The first hero is drawn with simple suit markings. By adding various shapes and contrast to the materials you can quickly create a costume. This can be a great design for a hero that needs a large range movement when he fights. On the second design the character has lots of armor and weaponry. Obviously he’s a lot less limber of a character with all that luggage. The great thing about a design like this is that it is easy to add textures and effects to the various materials and add depth to the character. Adding lots of contrast to the design will tend to make the character look more interesting to the viewer.
A Traditional Hero
With this hero concept we go with the cape and cuffs. It’s a very traditional look, and we know right away that this character can fly as well as maintain some style in the process. A logo on the chest can be a great asset for identifying this hero in a line up. It also gives you some clue to the nature of his power and/or his backstory. The mask tells you that he needs to protect his identity and adds a bit of mystique to his character.
Weapon and Suit Elements
You also need to practice drawing a variety of weapons and suit designs. There are countless possibilities when it comes to this subject, so be creative. Don't worry too much about what has been done before. Just create and have fun. You will put your own spin on it as you create and refine it. Use basic shapes and build up the ideas like the other lessons in this book have shown you. Notice how many of the forms in these sketches are basic shapes. Oval, diamonds, triangles and squares comprise most of the design with basic lines connecting them together. Then the shading creates the effect that they are all one object.
Drawing Clothing and Armor: Light Sources
This lesson will discuss light sources. Superheroes wear a large variety of materials, and the way those materials reflect light plays a big role in how you finish the work.
1 DECIDE ON A SINGLE LIGHT SOURCE
Draw a
muscular arm. Also draw a small symbol to indicate the light source. In this case I drew a mini sun but you can draw whatever you like. Use that reference point to figure out where the light might hit the object. You can think of this the same way you would when drawing in perspective, but you have to imagine how the light would react as it passes a series of rounded forms such as the muscles.
2 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES
Outline the shapes of the shadows. It is better to draw the shape of the shadows versus trying to sketch them in. It is quicker and more focused so your work will look cleaner because of it.