So you want to draw Heroes, and Villians?
Fellow Voxer Eien has been posting a lot of great art up on their blog over the past several months. It got me thinking back to my old high school days many centuries ago, and how my brother and I drew a lot more comic book art then. Of course I still doodle during Writer's block. But I haven't had as much time to draw over the last few years.
That said, we taught ourselves almost as much as what we learned taking cartooning, and animation my senior year.
Ultimately I don't think I'd ever be good enough to hang with the likes of Jim Lee, Dan Jurgens, or either of the Kuberts.
But one thing happened in a few comics magazines back in the day. A little column by Bart Sears in Wizard which I believe he called the bubble method. This technique helps you use simple shapes to set up a base line for your finished project. And if it works for you, I suggest tracking down Bart's old columns, or buying one of his books, because I'm afraid I can't remember but a tenth of it. But that tenth goes a long way. Especially if you love the Marvel/DC classics old Bart himself has drawn many times over.
Also keep in mind along with rust, I don't have a scanner, nor a current copy of Photoshop, or a digital tablet for that matter so I had to do this all with the craptacular MS Paint, A Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse, and what little eyesight I have left.
But hopefully you'll get the idea, it works for you, and you run with it.
In the figure above, I started out with many BUBBLES. One thing to keep in mind is to keep proper form, your CHEST oval should be two HEAD ovals on their side. Any knowledge of anatomy will also help you out a lot in laying out your bubbles as well. Generally three or four bubbles in the shoulder blades, two around the biceps, a few for the forearm (Dont forget an elbow bubble!), and so on and so forth. Again, I realize the leg bubbles are too large here, but this is merely a point of reference.
After you lay out the bubbles in a general pose the way you like, remember you're going to have to set up lines on the face of the head. There are three main lines, and some artists label them differently. Personally I set them up, EYES, NOSE, MOUTH. Some people prefer to treat the eyeline as a line for where hairstyle should end. For all intents, and purposes, let's just say I'm right.
The illustration may not be clear enough, so I'll explain. What you then want to do is DEFINE (Ie: Darken)
the pencils (Areas of bubble) that will be part of the finished project. I darkened some of the shoulders, the left arm, and the chest in this figure. This part takes a long time, but as you can see the bubbles keep a nice guideline, allowing for a point of reference.
Definitely leave some bubble fragments because they can be the beginnings of details you'll add to your drawing later.
That's all for now. If I get enough requests I'll add more to this project. But in any event it gives you an idea of where to begin. Some things you might want to do before starting your bubble method is stick figure outfit designs. Not every character needs to be in tights after all. Other's like to use a ruler to keep a scale so the bubbles (or other technique ) stay within reason for proportion.
Keep in mind again, I'm no comic art pro, but it should help anyone with at least a passing interest in character art.
Good luck!
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