One early considered notions about having a weblog was to select some piece of fan-generated cartoon character art and re-draw it and explain the choices made to “improve” upon the dreadfulness that was so atrocious to my eyes. It seemed easy. This is something I regularly do as a staff illustrator at Cartoon Network: figure out what’s wrong with other folks drawings. Some days you can’t click a dozen buttons without stumbling upon some bit of horror, well-meaning as it may be, meaning the source material is abundant. This also could be a fortuitous method of generating new content since I can not readily share the things on which I am currently doing at work. As a topper, as Disney colleague,
Peter Emmerich once pointed out and I was quick to agree, I’m a show-off. That may explain why it takes so little to engage me in a game of “stump the artist.”
Such a series of ambush art lessons, I would have called “Picking on...” Alas, I’m too busy to do anything like that, and it may be just as well. However, in that spirit, it might be fun to pick on my own work.
Conveniently, this hero pose of Tuff-Girl was a piece I had recently completely drawn and inked twice. Titled “Hero”, this drawing of Tuff-Girl was devised for my
notice of my up-coming attendance at
Heroes Convention. It is based on a
photo-composited piece I did a couple of years ago.
As a character I now have been drawing for nearly seven years, it should have fallen out naturally. Looking at the original draft in red pencil, I don’t immediately find fault with. It wasn’t until after inking it and cropping it for the HeroesCon notice that a feeling of dissatisfaction began to creep in.
Two days later, I re-drew and inked a new image.
In this sample where the new art in red, is super-imposed over the first drawing in blue, my new choices are better revealed.
a) With nearly exact head/torso proportions, the legs are longer on the second new drawing. This is surprising to me because I thought I drew her at 7-heads tall the first time as I did the second. In the new, her legs comprise half her height, compared to the old with the median about the level of the bottom edge of her buckle.
b) Being longer, the legs became proportionately more slim, and the arms were slimmed in turn, and her hands followed by being made smaller. While her right hand is much the same, the more acute angle of her left wrist suggests tension, contributing to a sense of activity for the static figure.
c) Her right planted foot was turned more out, whose silhouette gives the leg a more flowing line, plus it’s angle makes her stance appear more stable. Her boots were re-designed to keep all the contrasting black areas on her torso, meaning with simpler boot designs, visual interest is kept high on the figure. Story-wise, off-the rack boots is something she would wear.
d) More subtly, her waist was given a more hour-glass shape, while her hips drawn wider. Even more subtler, the costume design over her abdomen and hips is less parallel in appearance, tapering down. The boxiness of the first just isn’t very complimentary. The buckle is smaller in the new as it works with the revised costume and makes room for the penlight on her belt, so that area is less cluttered in appearance. The higher hung belt splits the black costume design into more interesting patterns.
e) Her bosom proportionately isn’t smaller, but the costume’s neckline is more modest.
f) Her facial features match up surprisingly well. In the new, she has a parted-lip smile. It’s friendlier and the addition of white teeth adds interest. Otherwise, I think it looks better.
g) The lowered choker allows for more visible neck beneath her chin and better definition of her neck.
h) Her hair is fuller, and on her right side the more visible silhouette of her curls creates an interesting asymmetrical silhouette for the whole figure.
My use of the word “interest” and it’s derivatives, is all about making the viewer’s brain work a little, because given the opportunity, it will generalize information as if to categorize things with the tags “the same as”, “a bunch of” and “mirrored of”. Once the brain does that, gets bored and stops paying attention to what’s really there.
The first might be flawed, but it isn’t terrible. The second is better. And the next time I re-draw it, THAT one will be more better.
