First impressions... (Complete.)

[Ionias]

Ok, I’ve got a character I’ve designed and drawn and I’m not very good at drawing just ordinary people. They all seem to turn out very “super-heroish” so I was wondering what your first impressions of this are:



Boy or Girl?

Spoiler

Girl.

[close]

Mood?

Spoiler

A tad grumpy.

[close]

Age?

Spoiler

16.

[close]

Your feedback is greatly appreciated. Like I said already I’m not that good at not drawing a normal character so I’m wondering what your first impressions are.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Wow I didn't expect it being a girl at all.  With those big blocky shoulders, lack of breasts, solid cheek bone, and really big feet.
The sweater being pink doesn't even help. lol

[Ionias]

Ugh. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m trying to move away from this:



/sigh, I'm just no good at drawing a normal girl.

[Mantra of Doom]

I did a quick paintover if you don't mind...

I softened her cheek out a bit and gave her a more girlish shape... as she's supposed to be sixteen, she should have a little curves. I also made her shoulders less pointy.




She still looks like she's going to beat me up though.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I imagine it's those clenched fists and the rolled up sleeves that make her look like she's going to kick someone's ass.

The paint over is much more feminine though.  It's a nice style, just needs some fine tuning on the female anatomy.

[Gilbert]

Well, besides, her punches are holding so tight that it looks as if she's going to beat someone. The facial expression looks a bit unfriendly too.

Edit:
Quick paint over, hope you won't mind. (I used a pixel graphic software, so I later gave up touching those anti-aliased lines, just live with the pixeled jaggy lines on the editted parts.)

- Changed her eyes and mouth, hopefully made her looks less angry.
- Though smoothing out some of the sharp angles (like what MantraofDoom did) in the shape may help, I decided that those are part of your style, so I rather keep them.
- Lowered shoulders a bit (but tried to keep the sharp angles) to make her less... er... fighter style.
- Boobs!
- Changed punches into hands.
- Though I think the looooong body is part of your style, I still decided to shorten her torso as well as shortening her arms to deal with the change, as I think the loooong body did account for the "Hero" look.

[Trent R]

I like both paintovers and think you should lean towards them and take the advice they've mentioned.
But I think Gilbot really summed it up:

- Boobs!

Honestly, I thought it was a man, and it even reminded me of either me or my brother (we'd both wear that style---rolled up sleeves, pink, converse, tight shirt and pants, and we're both tall and skinny)

~Trent

[ThreeOhFour]

She seemed male to me as well. I really like the superhero chick you drew!

My advice is to give her some more feminine characteristics. I only have paint, but here is a quick paintover (of Gilbot's paintover):



I made her feet smaller, her waist less straight, her face girlier. Her arms are pretty buff for a 16 year old girl, too. Also, she's really tall, and the archetypal 16 year old girl ain't that tall. Of course, I understand that characters should be unique, it's just another thing that makes her look boyish.

[rbaleksandar]

With these closed eyes and clenched fists she looks more like someone that will kick your butt when she first meets you... She looks a little bit like that girl from the Dark Angel's series (never watched them, only saw a couple of posters  ) Ben304's paintover gives her a more decent look...The hands and the forehead(looks a little bit like a forehead from the Stone Age ) need to be fixed on my opinion though.

[markbilly]

Gilbet V7000a 's torso. The original arms, and MantraofDoom's head would make the perfect edit!

[Tuomas]

Not all 16-year-olds have large boobs though.

[Misj']

Ok, I’ve got a character I’ve designed and drawn and I’m not very good at drawing just ordinary people. They all seem to turn out very “super-heroish” so I was wondering what your first impressions of this are:

Boy or Girl?
Mood?
Age?

Gender: Didn't know (wasn't surprised it was a girl, but wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a boy either)
Mood: was clear
Age: Didn't know.

On the subject of 'her' gender:
   face
           - The first thing I would do is make her nose slightly smaller.
              Hard (or big) features like this give her a masculine look.
           - I might add definition to her lips, but it shouldn't be necessary
             since this definition is mostly caused by make up, and girls
             without make up are still recognizable as such.
           - add a little curvature to her eyebrows. Straight eyebrows
             are often perceived as more masculine than curved eyebrows.
             (compare Ben's edit)
    body
            - In general a female's body is more curved than a male's body.
              However, because of her age, and immaturity of her body
              (from the looks of it) this curvature make be limited.
            - Women have - in general - a pelvis that is about as wide as
               their shoulders (as opposed to men, who's shoulders are
               normally far wider than their pelvis). The exception to this rule
               are super-hero's by the way. For even though their shoulder-
               to-pelvis-ration is much lower then their masculine counterparts,
               it's still much bigger than normal. This is something to take into
               account when avoiding the super-heroish look.
    breasts
             - breasts should not be necessary. I know several mature
               women with (really) small breasts. Still they are easily
               identifiable as women (even without DNA tests and such).
               However, even if her body is still mostly immature, I would
               advise to add at least some curvature here.
               (although I think the breasts in Gilbet's edit are a to big for
               the character).
    stance
              - In general weight on both feet will appear more masculine,
                whereas weight on one foot (while rotating the pelvis and
                shoulders) is considered more feminine. (example)

Ps. I don't think the edits made her better...

[InCreator]

I second everything Misj' said.

And point out that I don't like this "girl" at all. Not your art, it's fine, but the girl in general: Long sweater, those footwear, pants and really unattractive feministjugend face, sorry, no.

In a game, I would imagine her as extremely annoying and mean person. The kind that bitches all day about men being pigs and people pointless idiots overall.

When drawing women, pay attention to manga "rules": Big eyes, long eyelashes, less nose and mouth that goes with the packet. It makes drawn women cute. Simply stay to human proportions.
Your girl has everything opposite: tiny, evil/bored-to-death eyes, an enormous nose and mouth that doesn't add anything to the rest.

[pslim]

Although I agree that she could be more realistically female in body shape, I think it's kind of self-absorbed and unimaginative (and sexist, sorry) to suggest that female characters should be portrayed as someone one would personally find attractive 100% of the time in every way.     We rarely hear, "change your wizard sprite like this because he's not sexy enough."

God forbid we should be asked to identify with a plain, unhappy, nerdy, or even -gasp- mannish girl. 


There's body shape, which people have made really useful comments on, and then there's personal style, which Ionias hasn't told us much about for this character yet.

[Apocalyptic]

  TRY THIS 

[Trent R]

Although I agree that she could be more realistically female in body shape, I think it's kind of self-absorbed and unimaginative (and sexist, sorry) to suggest that female characters should be portrayed as someone one would personally find attractive 100% of the time in every way.     We rarely hear, "change your wizard sprite like this because he's not sexy enough."

God forbid we should be asked to identify with a plain, unhappy, nerdy, or even -gasp- mannish girl. 

But he wasn't going for a plain, unhappy, nerdy, or mannish girl, he said he wanted a normal 16 year-old girl.

~Trent

[pslim]

But he wasn't going for a plain, unhappy, nerdy, or mannish girl, he said he wanted a normal 16 year-old girl.

~Trent

What's normal? Oh, right, perfectly proportioned happy bouncy cheerleaders. 

[Ionias]

Actually, I was going for a slightly tom boyish 16 year old girl who has a bit of an attitude problem. But looking at some of the edits and reading all the advice, I can see I made her much too manly. I was afraid of this in the first place, thus why I posted it here to confirm it.

Anyways, I’m going to have another crack at her taking into account everyone’s suggestions. I will say that my style does lend to sharp lines and exaggerated features and I’m finding it very hard to tone it down and still get my point and style across.

I’m looking forward to redrawing her especially with the new stance that you suggested Misj’ I think that will go a long ways in helping to identify her as a female, haha. I don’t want to giver her breasts though only because I wanted a taller, skinny, do it herself kind of character. I’m not saying she should be ugly, I’d like her to be cute mind you but not attractive in the typical girlish way … if that makes any sense. I think I’ll bump up the curves and try and tone down the hands. With any luck and some free time I’ll post the outcome.

[Trent R]

I just left highschool months ago, and yes, normal girls with normal bust sizes have breasts.

Ionias, I might even suggest that you think of giving her a little bit of cleavage (how much exactly is up to you, I'd say a bit more than Mantra's paintover). Sometimes tomboyish girls act that way because their body portrays a femininity they don't want to show, but does anyway.

That doesn't seem like it came out right. Did I make enough sense?

~Trent

[Misj']

I did a quick free-hand sketch (not taking anatomy too much into account) during one of my - way to many - meetings. It's partly an extension/repetition of my previous post (sorry for that).


<click image to enlarge>

The reason why I made this sketch was to point out a few things:

1. The face doesn't have to be particularly girly to be feminine. The goal is not to create a Disney-princess here. If she's a tomboy, then make up is not her first priority.

2. Curves and 'soft angles' (for her body) increase the feminine look.

3. Cleavage (which is the most discussed subject in this thread ) is not an essential feminine feature to distinguish between genders (particularly not for teens).Yes, many girls in the teens already have breasts (although a lot of them also use fill-up bra's, which would not fit the tomboy character). This is - by the way - more than, let's say, fifteen years ago due to a more extensive use of birth control pills at a relatively young age (the first menstrual cycle is also often earlier than it was fifteen years ago)...and you can guess what all these hormones do to their body. Men should really thank medicine for side-effects. Nevertheless, I know women in their thirties that are quite flat chested (or started developing breasts in their late teens), and it doesn't make them any less feminine.

4. Stance can really make someone more famine (it's also great to turn men gay). Moreover, toughness of the stance does not have to compromise femininity (which according to my spell-checker is a word).


Hope this is useful (to somebody)...