Learn to Draw Action Heroes Read online

  3 FILL THE SHADOWS

  Now fill in your shadow shapes. Don’t hesitate to change something just because you have already outlined the shape. I often add to the shapes here and there as I fill them in.

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Add final line weight and crosshatching to finish off the drawing.

  1 DECIDE ON THE LIGHT SOURCE

  Draw another arm and this time add a second light source. I drew one light source smaller than the other to show that one should be more prominent and from a slightly different angle in almost all cases.

  2 DRAW THE SHADOW SHAPES

  Draw the shadows. This time use your imagination to envision the light on both sides of the arm. If you can’t seem to get it right, study from life. You don’t have to find an exact match to learn how shadows work. You can adjust the work accordingly and add your own style. Photos can help you in a pinch.

  3 FILL THE SHADOWS

  Fill in your shadow shapes and adjust any edges that need it. Remember to try this exercise with all sorts of shapes and objects. Only then will you start to feel comfortable with this technique. One day you will forget that you ever struggled with shadows, and what a fine day that will be!

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Add your final lines to finish rounding out your shapes. You can even choose to use one type of line on one side and another type of line on the other side. This will further indicate the difference in the light sources. Then when your drawings go to the colorist, the effect can be enhanced!

  Drawing Clothing and Armor: Capes

  In this lesson you will draw the superhero cape. It’s an essential suit design for your fantastic flying friendly superhero!

  1 DRAW THE BASIC GUIDELINES

  Draw a basic perimeter shape in which the cape details will reside. This is just a basic perimeter shape so don’t hesitate to draw through it or go outside of the lines. Make sure to draw the bottom wider than the top to give it the feeling of the material flowing outward.

  2 SKETCH DIRECTION LINES

  Begin to draw lines for the folds. Think of the directional lines coming from the area where the material pinches at the shoulders. They will widen outward as the material is more free to flow around the base of the cape.

  3 ADD FOLD LINES

  Begin to add the folds in the material. A good way to practice this is to hang a shirt over the back of a chair and study the different folds it creates. For thicker materials you will have less compressed folds, but they still react in a similar way. Add a series of curves on the bottom edge to give more depth to the flowing area of the cape.

  4 REFINE THE DESIGN

  Now draw in the folds with more clarity and line weight. Add small hints of shadow where the material overlaps itself.

  5 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Finish it off with some added line work and crosshatching. And there you have it: the ever popular superhero cape!

  Drawing Clothing and Armor: Gauntlet

  In this lesson you will draw and fully render an armor gauntlet. It will allow you to study the chrome-like effect that is so popular with comic book hero suit designs.

  1 DRAW THE BASIC GUIDELINES

  Draw out the basic shapes of a fist and the wrist area with a cylinder for the arm and small circles for each knuckle. Since it will be armor plated, make sure the primitive shape of the forearm is wider than a human forearm would be.

  2 SKETCH THE DESIGN

  Roughly sketch the design of the armor. Keep the lines loose and sketch in tiny details. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your design at this stage of the drawing. If you are unsure about the look that you want, draw lightly to give your imagination time to kick in. When all else fails, seek out references from the knights of old. You’ll find lots of great designs to learn from there.

  3 CLEAN UP THE DESIGN

  Gently erase your previous sketch and redraw the lines with more clarity. When drawing a segmented object such as this, remember to make certain areas appear in front of the next by drawing it larger and with an overlap to the previous segment. Notice this is evident in the wristguard and the larger segments on the bottom of the forearm area. As the shadows are applied in the next steps we can further illustrate these areas being raised over the other parts of the gauntlet.

  4 ADD SHADOW SHAPES

  Continue to clean up your lines and begin to add the shapes for the shadows. Try to envision how the segments will look with a light source coming from the top left of the gauntlet. Drop shadows are a great way to help illustrate the highs and lows of your design. Also consider how the shadow will react against a reflective surface.

  5 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  When shading a reflective surface, try to think of the shadows as swirling around the object. Remember that this is simply the environment reflecting off the object in a distorted way because the object is not flat. So your shadows need to look as if they are moving across the surface. You’ll also want to add crosshatching to further round out the object and give it additional shading.

  Drawing Clothing and Armor: Helmet

  In this lesson you will learn how to draw a superhero helmet for our do good-er. Helmets can serve a few purposes for our characters. They can conceal their secret identity, and they can add a much needed bit of style and flare to the costume. So let’s get to it!

  1 DRAW THE BASIC GUIDELINES

  You need a head to put a helmet on so draw a character of your choice. I like to keep them pretty basic in the beginning to not distract too much from the helmet design. Place some features so you know where to add in the details of the helmet concept.

  2 SKETCH THE DESIGN

  Draw the basic shapes of your helmet design. Try to start with a very simple design since you can always add to it later. You want to show the area the hero can see through, so draw a visor that covers his eyes. Adding segments to the helmet can be a nice touch. It also allows you to shade the various areas differently for some added effects.

  3 ADD SHADOW SHAPES

  Now draw in the larger shapes of shadows. You want parts of the helmet to look specular so you can draw in some rounded glares to help illustrate that. For areas like the visor that need to be darker you can draw larger shapes of shadows with smaller highlights.

  4 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Draw smaller line work to finish out the detail effect. You can use small wavy lines to show the reflective look to the helmet’s material. Then add your cross-hatching to the lower parts of the metal areas to round the forms and show the effect of bounced light. Notice how I even added a small amount of shading behind our hero to help him stand off the page. Just remember that by using different thicknesses of lines you can vary the intensity of the shading and make the illustration appear more interesting.

  Drawing Clothing: Suit Design

  This lesson covers the design process of a new character’s suit. This can be tons of fun, and there is no right or wrong way to do it. The only rule is to experiment with new ideas!

  1 DRAW THE BASIC GUIDELINES

  We need a character’s frame to begin with, so draw something heroic like this guy to get started. Just keep the details to a minimum since you will be drawing all that fancy gear on top of the pose.

  2 MARK GUIDES FOR THE SUIT DESIGN

  Begin adding outlines for the design of the suit. Indicate where the leg cuffs, wrist armor, belt and chest shield will go. You can also begin adding facial features. Don’t get too detailed at this point.

  3 CLEAN UP THE DESIGN

  Now draw some gear. Things like belts and pouches add dimension to the hero. You can use simple shapes like a partial oval for the chest belt and cubes for the pouches. Then add some details on top. You can also add details to the mask area as well by changing the shape and defining the mouth.

  4 ADD SHADOW SHAPES

  Draw the shadows to add depth and weight to the character. By strategically placing more shadows on parts of the suit design, you can convey the contrasting materials. It is
now more clear that part of the suit is a much darker and even slightly specular material. Add shadows on the lighter part of the suit to help shape the anatomy.

  5 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Finalize the drawing by darkening the pencil lines and adding crosshatching. And now you have a superhero all suited up and ready to fight some crime!

  CHAPTER 4

  LAYING OUT A SCENE

  In this chapter you will learn how to put all of what you have learned so far into a scene. How to make the characters occupy space and react with it is a big part of drawing superheroes. We will cover various perspectives and compositions when creating your scenes, as well as how and where to add your details to those scenes. And finally you will learn how to apply power effects to those amazing characters.

  Laying Out a Scene: The Rough Sketch

  Here we will talk about laying out the scene with the rough sketch. This type of quick drawing is very important to creating your ideas fast and expressively. I like to use rough sketches to work through lots of ideas and warm up my imagination. Time your sketches and see how much information you can fit into the sketch within a couple of minutes. The trick here is to express ideas and not worry about refinement yet. The refinement process can sometimes hurt your creativity and slow you down so save that for after you have worked through your concept. Put as much information as you can think of into your rough sketch.

  Try a Different Perspective

  Before you start any new project you will need to get your ideas in order. There is no better way to do this than by drawing a rough sketch or thumbnail of your concept. Here you can add in and edit your work very quickly. Try various camera angles and perspectives.

  Try Out Details

  Rough sketches allow you to think more dynamically about your characters and scene. You can add lots of small details in the rough sketch and see how they work together before putting in the time and work on a refined piece.

  Block in Shapes

  Even at this thumbnail stage you can block in the shapes of shadows to see how the composition is working. Don’t worry about your perspective or details looking just right at this stage. Just put the information in there and you can refine it later in the drawing process.

  Keep It Loose

  By keeping the drawing loose and unrefined, you become more expressive and less inhibited with your concepts.

  Plan a Scene

  Everything is drawn better when an initial rough sketch is done. Even an action scene like this one can be better visualized with a quick rough sketch. This becomes the blueprint for the real drawing!

  Laying Out a Scene: Blocking in Shapes

  This lesson covers blocking in shapes, a great way to get a feel for the overall scene before spending too much time on something you might not like in the end. Blocking in shapes allows you to see the composition very quickly.

  1 DRAW THE GUIDELINES

  Draw a typical superhero stance, strong with clenched fists. Use basic primitive shapes to place the pose and the limbs. Block in a few buildings in a one-point perspective. Think of this scene in three parts. The character and the ledge is part one (the foreground). The buildings in red are part two (the midground) and the distant buildings in blue are part three (the background).

  2 START TO DEFINE THE CHARACTER DETAILS

  Sketch in more anatomy and suit markings for the hero. Take your time and don’t move past this stage until you are satisfied with your work. You want to work out as many imperfections as you can in this beginning stage to save yourself time and heartache later on.

  3 ADD BUILDING DETAILS

  Draw the details of the buildings. Keep the lines loose, and draw through the artwork. This helps prevent proportion mistakes by stopping at the existing lines. Add the most details up close but feel free to reduce the details as the buildings or objects are farther away. You will save yourself time, and we cannot see tiny details at a long distance anyway. Unless you are a superhero of course!

  4 DRAW THE SHADOWS

  Block in the shapes of shadows on the character and on the buildings. This is where the scene really starts to pop off the page. Strong shadows give your illustrations weight and depth. It is easy to shy away from using good shadows, but I assure you, your drawings will look much better with them.

  5 ADD FINAL DETAILS

  Render the line weight and crosshatching to add more depth. For the hero, round the lines around his muscles and think more spherical and organic when adding them. For the buildings, think more about the shadows and textures working in perspective. Then add another pass of textures that are more random. For instance, I added the cracks in the ledge next to the hero. There are lots of ways to stylize your shading, so have fun with it and always experiment with new effects.

  Laying Out a Scene: Perspective

  In this lesson I will cover the basics of perspective drawing. This will help you understand a scene and better make your characters fit within that scene.

  One Vanishing Point

  By drawing a forward-facing square with a horizon line (hl) above it. We can establish a vanishing point (vp). By drawing perspective (p) lines from each corner of the square to the vanishing point, we can easily construct a three-dimensional cube.

  Two Vanishing Points

  By adding a second vanishing point, we can turn the cube on an angle to the viewer very easily. This works well when creating the perspective of the viewer looking down at a street corner.

  Three Vanishing Points

  By adding a third vanishing point at the bottom of the cube, we can add a bit of distortion and a dynamic feel to the perspective. The blue lines from the previously drawn cube illustrate the change it has on the overall shape.

  One Vanishing Point, Low Horizon

  Now back to the single vanishing point, but this time use a low horizon line. Just remember that anything above the horizon line will appear to be over the viewer’s head and anything below the horizon line will appear to be below the viewer’s head.

  Two Vanishing Points on the Horizon

  Notice how this cube occupies space above and below the horizon line. So you are able to look up at the top edge and down to the bottom edge from this perspective. And the same rule for finding center by creating lines from corner to corner applies here as well. This is a great way for quickly drawing in building details while maintaining the correct perspective.

  Laying Out a Scene: One-Point Perspective

  In this lesson, start using some basic perspective to work out the scene. One-point perspective is probably the most used in comics and is very powerful for directing the viewer.

  1 DRAW PERSPECTIVE GUIDELINES

  Start by creating a frame, or panel, to contain the scene. Draw a horizon line a little above the halfway point. Now add some directional lines to show the vanishing point within the scene.

  2 BLOCK IN BUILDING GUIDELINES

  Start blocking in some building shapes. You want to create the impression that we are looking down on the scene, so keep most of the shapes below the horizon line. Vary the sizes and shapes of the buildings. Remember to space them out to make room for streets and parking lots, and to add a bit more realism to the scene.

  3 SKETCH THE FIGURE GUIDES

  Block in a foreshortened pose of the hero flying toward the viewer. This can be a very impactful shot, so practice it often until you get it right. Use overlapping shapes to convey the arm coming outward. Hide parts of the body such as the midsection since it wouldn’t be in view from this angle. Use the perspective lines to help with the character as well. The body can be drawn in perspective, just like anything else, but you must figure out how the anatomy looks from that particular angle. That is why figure drawing studies are so important.

  4 START DEVELOPING THE ANATOMY

  Refine the character a bit further and draw in the muscles. If you have a hard time with the arm coming out toward the viewer, study the pose in a mirror. Or take a photo. You don’t need to look like
the superhero to get the information needed for the pose. Your imagination will take over from there.

  5 DRAW THE SUIT DESIGN

  Draw the suit for the hero. Since he is in the air, let’s give him a cape. This is where you can really be creative. There are so many things that you can do when it comes to the look and style of your character. Anything goes! There is no right or wrong way to design a superhero.