I'm curious about how people feel about the often unrealistic proportions of comic characters?
I'm in two minds- it is fun to draw busty ladies and hulking great men, it is also fun to draw willowy bedroom eyed matchstick limbed Bishonen/Bishojo! Part of the fun of drawing is being able to exagerate proportions.
but on the other hand its a bit of a downer to compare yourself to these creatures! It's not often you see a slender women with a massive chest- because fat just doesn't work like that (without surgery of course )
Edit: (I DON'T REALLY COMPARE MY SELF TO COMICS, I KNOW THAT IS SILLY)
Last edited by Princess on Thu Oct 06, 2005 6:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Comics are not made of mirrored glass because you are not expected to compare yourself to them. Read comics to enjoy them. Get your expectations from society, or better, ignore society all together and just be yourself. *shrug*
I like some exaggeration. Not the extremes - it pulls me out of the story, but some extra bulk or women with perfect clevage upon waking up in the morning is fine by me.
Crossfire: "Thank you! That explains it very nicely, and in a language that someone other than a physicist can understand..."
Denial is not falsification. You can't avoid a fact just because you don't like it.
"Data" is not the plural of "anecdote"
Heh. I read over 500 comics a month. I read everything from ultra-realistic figures to stick comics, and everything in between.
Personally, to me, it's more a matter of "Does this woman/man fit in with the theme of the world I'm being presented as a reader?" For example, Real Life by Greg Dean. The women in his comic look like they belong there. They're not uber-realistic, and neither are they uber-fake. They look natural to the environment.
Same thing goes with, for example, Xmen comic books (drawn by people that can actually draw, but we won't go there). Every mutant on the face of the planet has about 1.1% body fat and bodies to kill for... it's a given, and accepted fact. There, heavily sculpted bodies and pencil-thin women with mammaries most hollywood stars would kill for are everywhere.
As long as the women and men fit in with the general theme of the comic, it doesn't make any difference to me at all. Comics are made to be unrealistic. Heck, I have spell-casting gnomes and a halfelf in my comic. Haven't seen any of them walking the streets lately. It's fantasy, it's unrealistic... and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I hate to be the lone objector, but I do see it as a problem. Saying, oh that's just the way comics are, and people don't get their body image from comics excuses the issue. You could say the same thing about hollywood actresses, it's okay for them to get implants because everyone knows its fake.
But we're adults, this isn't about us, its about preteens and teenagers and even wee ones these days. If you get a group of only girls together, I guarantee each and every one of them has a body part they don't like. Statements like, "if only my boobs were bigger" or "I'm a size 0, but I don't like my stomach" and from destiny's child "i gotta keep my figure up for my man".
And a bunch of boys are going to come on and say theres pressure on them to be perfect too. But none of those boys has been raped, beaten, or stalked because someone saw them as an object. I won't say none, maybe some girl held a gun to your head and forced you, but I doubt it.
I think it's irresponsible with all the eating disorders and body image troubles we have these days to say oh comics are outside the realm of reality.
Because it wears on girls self esteem. And it raises boys expectations to unrealistic proportions.
I was beginning to feel stupid for bringing this topic up but it's important to me because like it or not the media does affect a lot of us. I'm not saying that we should stop drawing tasty glamazons and yummy boys!, but it would be nice to see more variety especially in comics marketed to young women.
Puberty was not kind to me (I shot out before I shot up) and I would have dearly loved it if one of the sailor senshi was a little chubby!
blackaby wrote:I was actually going to post something along these lines, although my topic would have probably been, "What's wrong with all these boobs?"
My opinion though on Buff & boobs? I'm all for them! That's the joy of comics!
princess wrote:
Puberty was not kind to me (I shot out before I shot up) and I would have dearly loved it if one of the sailor senshi was a little chubby!
Or short. In conventional comics, everyone is tall. And I'm, well, not.
I still prefer long limbs and big chests, though, because, as said above, comics are about escapism. Comic books are meant to be pleasant to look at, so general character designs tend to be as aestheticly pleasing as possible. That's the cool thing about them.
This is going in my notebook titled "Things I Didn't Know about Surface Dwellers."
princess wrote:
Puberty was not kind to me (I shot out before I shot up) and I would have dearly loved it if one of the sailor senshi was a little chubby!
Or short. In conventional comics, everyone is tall. And I'm, well, not.
I still prefer long limbs and big chests, though, because, as said above, comics are about escapism. Comic books are meant to be pleasant to look at, so general character designs tend to be as aestheticly pleasing as possible. That's the cool thing about them.
But what irks me by your logic is that it says, non ideal people are not asthetically pleasing. And I'm sorry but I love all the quirky irregular hot mamas we have here in Berkeley. Uniqueness is beauty not conformity.
I'm actually working on designing a prototype heroine for a future project of mine, and I'm actually taking an opposite approach, at least regaurding to her chest. She's actually gonna be quite flat chested, although that's another works with the style sort of thing given that her design is gonna be based off of Flappers.
She's probably going to be unnatually thin though, my humans tend to be...
I think that some comics can have an effect on a young, easily malleable mind, but I don't think necessarily those comics are wrong to exist. (censorship is a weird deep gray area for me)
I can't understand the attract to waif thin girls with breasts the size of small moons.
Though I tend to be more attracted to hair color and body decoration than breast size, so maybe I'm weird for a male?
I try to draw more varied body types when I'm sketching, for whenever I need new characters. The biggest challenge I'd like to see someone try? Make a comic where the hero/main character isn't that attractive. Just something that'd be interesting to see. Maybe the comic "Ugly Hill" counts for that... but still...
Also, I say the more varieties we get in depictions of the human body, the better! It's always neat to see how different people tackle proportions with their unique styles.
Most of the time it doesn't bother me, just because the character design is part of the comic's art style. It blends in.
Then, for whatever reason, I start to think about it. I think about how the main cast of practically everything are young, attractive people.
But even in the more mainstream, escapist works, you can have more variety in male characters than female. You can have distinuished older types, old men with full beards as princepal, guiding characters (I'm thinking proffessor-types, but there's lots of variety). You can have a grizzled old mercenary with an eyepatch and tons of scars, and he'd still be badass.
Female characters? Older women just look like the young ones, but with fuller lips and seductress-style evening dress, or with small lines around their mouths and frumpy dress suits. You can't do a wrinkled old woman without her being a hag or a cookie-baking grandma. And a heavily scarred woman just loses something. And they're just plain not as common in mainstream escapist stuff.
And in sci-fi, you can have old male scientist, but if you have a female scientist? She's got to be a genius, because if she learned things the hard, usual way she'd be past 25 by the time she reached the skill level the TV show required of her. And this is supposed to be a good, feminist pleasing thing, just because she's an intelligent female character? Not if it's a rule, god damn it!
There's a section in How To Draw the Marvel Way (which I don't own, sadly, but have flipped through a few times) which says, basically 'Drawing heroes is boring 'cause they all look the same, but villains? Fun!' and proceeds with facinating characatures. But women? Aside from the obligatory nag, there's not much to choose from. And there are so many types of women to choose from in real life! This usually gets me thinking about the issue.
It makes me want to do a comic with less-used character types like that. The problem? If you'll look at my comics, you'll notice that all my characters look alike aside from hair and clothes. They, too draw from the same 'perfect face' template. It makes thing a lot easier, but it worries me.
So female body types in comics don't bother me on their own, if only because I see them and zero out the scale - that is, that body type becomes roughly 'normal' for the comic (which is scary in its own right). What saddens me is the lack of variety.
And when I think about a piece of it, I start thinking about all of it.
is that the point of art, noteriety?
And is that all breasts are just some object to get what you want? Can't we be innovative, break rules, do something different?
is that the point of art, noteriety?
And is that all breasts are just some object to get what you want? Can't we be innovative, break rules, do something different?
Inspired by this speech and my desire to be an innovative rebel, I'd like to say that I'll be reducing all breasts in my comic by 25%.
I'm kind of mixed about this subject. On one hand, I don't feel that I should be held responsible for the upbringing of children that could be potentially reading my comic. I am a lot of things but one of them isn't their parent.
On the other hand, there is some validity to the issue. Do all main characters have to be young, beautiful and fit? And when you think about it...how many comics reflect real life out there? I never liked how some of the superheroines in comics are protrayed: barely clothed with huge breasts but incredibly thin. But am I just feeding the problem? If I don't like how things are, shouldn't I be doing something different?
But I feel no guilt when I draw what I draw truthfully. Maybe it's because I've often been told I draw in a children's illustration style anyway. Maybe it's because I don't really have that much interest in fanservice so my female characters don't stick their butt in the air or such. I like to draw characters that can be sensual or sexy but I also like to think of sexuality as something that's positive.
I do know though that when I draw, it's ultimately self-serving. I'm not making a public service annoucement, I'm drawing because I have free time and it makes me happy to draw. So I draw pretty girls, cutsy things and weirdo animals.
In conclusion, I'm not quite sure what I'm talking about anymore.
I prefer realistic body figure when drawing my characters. Over bulky male and overbusty females just seem wierd to me. But that's probably my taste of drawing a character sometimes.
(without surgery of course 
)
It's fantasy, it's unrealistic... and I wouldn't have it any other way. 
