Spidey.

[PsychicHeart]

So i am really not liking the anatomy on this.
Particularly around the shoulders - i'd really prefer if it didn't have that 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' feeling to it.
Waist down i'm relatively happy, i think i did an okay job on the legs.
Maaaaybe would like to kick a few kinks out of the head, but low priority at the moment, the current problem is shoulder area.
Thanks,
Cherub.
The artist formerly known as 'Flukezy'

[Babar]

I made this about 6 years ago, when I was somewhat more into Spiderman than I am now (and when I had even less artistic ability than I do now). What's the purpose of showing this to you? Probably none . The pose on yours just reminded me of it. Don't know if you can pick up anything from it, and I don't know about any minor costume changes since then, but be careful, because it's not all 'right'. In fact, you probably had a better go at foreshortening his leg than I did.


About your drawing, you might have wanted to use a less thick pencil(?).

You wanted some advice on the shoulder, well, the most obvious thing that pops up is the weird bulge on his left shoulder, as if he's wearing a thick vest, and his arm is coming out from under it. You'd want to connect that to his arm properly.

He's got awfully pointy fingers

His left leg is too flat and rigid- like you made it from two straight lines. The hamstrings are supposed to be slightly rounded and stick out a little.

His torso seems to be leading to his left side, which makes me wonder what his right leg is connected to.

[brokenbutterfly]

I can't say what looks wrong unless I draw the picture myself. I traced over yours and erased/added stuff (sorry it looks awkward, I've only got MSPaint). And the colors are there because it looked fugly after my tracing and erasing so I thought I'd fill it in.



Anyway I made the butt(??) smaller, changed the left foot and left arm a bit. I also changed the orientation of the eyes, and I think maybe of the body slightly, but this was unintended. The end result is a bit different from your version

I'm not the best artist there, but I hope I helped

[Joe]

I prefer Cherubgeist's.

How long were you doing it?

[brokenbutterfly]

Yeah I like his version too, it looks more dynamic or something  I tried to change some stuff that looked awkward, and I think I got rid of the "hunchback" problem, what do you think? About how long it took me, around an hour maybe, I'm not sure because I multitask.

[Ubel]

Thought I'd try to fix some points and maybe give you a few ideas:



The first thing to bother me was the head. The eyes in his mask seemed a bit too small and overall it looked a bit wonky. Then there was the huge ass that doesn't necessarily even have to show from that angle. Then his left foot was really overly large.

I did like how you managed to do the hands though. I personally find drawing hands very difficult and especially his left hand (our right) looks very well positioned.

I also tried to give you some pointers on how to make his torso a bit more muscular.

I hope you find some of this helpful! Keep it up!

[Fee]

You guys trying to "help" just made a mess of it.

IMO the first is the best out of them

[Ubel]

You guys trying to "help" just made a mess of it.

IMO the first is the best out of them

Well, seeing as this IS the critics lounge and seeing as his image indeed needs improving and seeing as he asked for "help" himself it would be sort of rude not to "help".

[PsychicHeart]

thanks guys, will work on the edit when i'm awake

[Allocius]

One thing that could help, that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned, is during the sketching phase, lightly sketch what is behind the stuff in the foreground. In your case, Spidey's waist to his hips, his neck and where his trapezius  muscle connects between the neck and the upper shoulder muscle (the deltoid). This should help get rid of that feel of different parts of the drawing floating on eachother.

Also I would suggest reading up on muscle anatomy since it is a huge part of drawing superheroes and villians. Comic book artists love drawing out muscles, makes the characters seem immensely powerful. Plus it will also help your art skills in other areas as well, even cartooning! (Trust me on that one, I've been banging my head against the wall on parts of my own art till I started taking anatomy seriously.)

All in all, I love the picture very dynamic and a very cool feel of perspective. I feel like I'm about to take a Spidey knee in the face just looking at it!  :o Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Tuomas]

You guys trying to "help" just made a mess of it.

IMO the first is the best out of them

I find this completely untrue, well, maybe not your opinion, but still, I'd like to give you a try then because the picture is really off when it comes to even basic anatomy. As Pablo said, his right buttock seems to be way too down and to the left of us. Thinking the left side, it's like the whole leg was unattached to the body. While there, the torso from chest to hips seems to be completely attached to the left leg that begins reall from the pelvis area leaving no room for the other leg.

The eyes are most annoying too. A basic human being or a human-like being as this does have mostly symmetrical eyes to a degree. Having one eye visibly higher than the other makes him look like froma  Picasso painting.

Now realise you have two legs, from which the right one is easily bigger than the left one, it's wider, longer from the knee to the foot etc. Whereas the left foot is apparently covered by 70's bellbottom-pants. The foot usually stands out from the leg, the calf area.

I think Pablo's paintover is really on the right track. To it I would add, that you might want to have an elbow on the right arm stretching forward, just somehow visible.

[Questionable]

...during the sketching phase, lightly sketch what is behind...

Most helpful post here, re-read it. I'm can't read French, but I found this website while I was in high school biology and I've been referencing this on page in particular ever since: http://www.emusclor.com/fr/articles/fitness/corps-humain-anatomie-systeme-musculaire

If I ever need to find more images, of how a particular muscle looks I type the Latin name into google images. Another helpful resources is workout videos; you don't have to buy any, there are thousands available online for free! Find an exercise that puts them into a position that works well and translate it.

One comic book artist I know always draws people standing in a generic position, then he manipulates each part of the body individually until he gets them to where he wants them to be. Tedious, but effective. I've never really read comic books, but I was always infatuated with the art of it all, so I got into it while I was young. I bought a couple books when I was about 7-8 and tried to follow the directions. They wanted me to draw sticks... then pipes, then blobs, all the way up until the character is finally fleshed out. I thought that was lame, so i would draw sticks... THEN THE CHARACTER! But a lot got lost in that broad translation.

Sometime last year I was forced to draw humans, a practice I usually avoided... I just couldn't get them to look right. So I drew a stick, added some shape, beefed it up, defined that, refined that, detailed that, polished it and, wow... it actually looks like a person... I used this process with some different steps for the sprite jam.

I started off with a concept, this is arguably the most important step and the hardest. Alot of people say that they can't draw, well drawing is just making a representation of something. There is SOME skill in using the tools, pastels, pencil, knife on wood, ketchup... whatever, sure there is a skill involved, but not enough that persistence or experience or even an eraser can over come. What the REAL problem is that most people don't have a strong enough idea of what they're trying to represent. This causes them to simply draw as they go along, or "doodle." I have NO problem with doodling, I doodle all the times... that sounds strange... ANYWAYS!

The point is, I sat down and thought about what I wanted to represent. I decided and tried to figure out it would look. Once I did that, once I had a general idea in my head, I drew a vague figure, a stick figure. Then I added some shapes to the lines, trying  o figure out the dimensions of the muscles and his body. Do I want him to be fat? Do I want him to be skinny? Muscled? How big is his bicep, etc. Once I did that I do what's called selective detailing. I know that my next step is going to be outlines, what parts are important enough for me to outline? Major muscle groups: Abs, Pectorals, Brachiis, Delts, Serratus Quads and Gastrocnemius. Those are generally the ones I focus on. So I add those into my line figure.


You can't much see the line figure, or any of the pipes I drew on him, but they're mostly there... I have to transfer my sketches to my computer via cell-phone camera, so there's quality loss. You can tell that I've drawn in some muscles and i'll be using these as a starting point.

The first thing I do when my sketch is on the computer is redraw the stick figure, this is mostly just as a guide, when I don't do it the proportions somehow get off. Then I outline the figure, only giving lines to what I feel is important. I usually draw the lines a different color than stick-skeleton, then I redraw the figure until the muscles look like whatever I'm using as a realism reference, in his case an overhead squat work out video and some examples of a muscular body.

You will notice that I changed the way his body looks, too. This is because the art creates itself, you Have to let the image evolve on it's own. After drawing his arms above his head, it just looked weird, that and his legs being extended made it feel more like he was falling than attacking, so I brought his arms behind his head and made his chest muscles more taught as if he was tensing, ready to bring the axe forward and kill. Then I tucked his legs under him, otherwise he would look too small when resized to 200x200, this gave me maximum usage of space. the requirements influenced the image.

Drawing is a matter of patience and an eraser... a BIG eraser, so after you get something you like, erase it ad draw over it, you'll forget the stuff that you didn't like and you'll keep the good stuff you did like, then you can compare it to the new stuff, and then erase it and redraw it.

"It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, sand and stars, 1939

[GarageGothic]

If you're going to keep on drawing comic book heroes, you might want to get a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema. I got it as a kid and I still keep it on my shelf - even if I have very little interest in superheroes there's still a lot of useful stuff on anatomy and perspective.