Humanizing?

[bcholmes]

I recently bought a bunch of art books for my comics class. How to books. Reference books. I've got two interesting books of action poses. Get a few models and photograph them in various comic book-suitable action stances. There are even some brief sections that tell you how you'd use the poses to create comic art.

They're good references. And the art examples are by cool artists like Paul Chadwick and Terry Moore. But sometimes the words make me want to hit things.

Take Moore's write-up in Comic Artist's Photo Reference: Women and Girls:

As you read his lesson on page 73, you will understand why Terry is a modern master of the art form. He reveals how he not only draws the model, but actually thinks about her as a person.

Wow. An actual person. Huh.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

The how-to books bug me for that reason. So many of them are written by old coots from the dark ages whose attitudes show through in their styles.

I tend to read the books that talk about how to tell stories and compose pictures and pages, but not the ones that tell me how my characters should look. Scott McCloud is my favourite. I read comics and sketch from life and stock photos to learn how to draw figures the way I want.

Disclaimer: I have no idea if it works. ^^;;

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

That's kind of true though. When I was a nude model, the students never thought of me as a human being. I was totally objectified. I'd peak over their shoulders and look at pics of myself and my glasses would be missing or my tattoos would be absent, both of which are quintessentially me.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

We need to talk.

[lovecraftienne.livejournal.com]

Isn't he wonderful? Sometimes we're even almost people-like. I feel all warm and fuzzy, only not so much like a kitten as like pizza you didn't realize was mouldy before you stuck it in the nuke...