Marvelous! And Fritz slips in past my guard

The Marvel Way

In response to my poorly-proportioned pectorals, I decided to beef up on proportioning, and started digging through my library for a good chart. I peeked into How to Draw Comics the Marvel way, which I hadn't looked at in ages and was a bit embarrassed about having. But Lo and Behold! It's actually an amazing book - basically the Hogarth technique boiled down to its essence and with the addition of composition, backgrounds, and layout for sequential comic pages. Except that they start with a gesture sketch in stick-man form, and then develop that with oval forms that can be given direction by adding the center lines - in other words, the best stuff from Vilppu and Hogarth thrown together into one tight system. Though they push for a bit too much dynamism - far more than will work in a fantasy painting.

Fritz slips in

Tonight I drew a wiry little theif/rogue who's caught an attacker's heavy axe on the haft of his rapier and is holding it with straining arm pointed straight overhead as he draws his dagger for the fatal thrust. Dammit - I realized a little ways in that it's a ripoff of Frank's John Carter painting. My only saving grace is that the legs are different - well, sort of. At least I was thinking about changing them so one points out more - but then I realized that's ripped off from a different Frankie. Crap!! I'm afraid I grew up on his stuff and the images are whirling through my head to rise unbidden when I'm trying to find a pose. I've really gotta watch that. 

My drawings are starting to tighten up though and the anatomy is starting to look a lot better, even though it took a lot of re-dos to accomplish it. Thanks to plate Strathmore, a kneaded eraser and 4B pencil (should use a lighter one for preliminary guidelines).