‘Krash Course’ by: Greg Capullo & Todd McFarlane 1 the ideal head ‘Go lets lack at our first illustration. This is an ideally con- structed head. Ive used a set af guide lines to show you ‘how to set up a head of your owm. Notice in the frontal view, ‘if you divide the head in half horizontally you've found the ‘eye line. Five eye lengths is the width of the head. Take a lose look at the eyes-between them is the length of ane eye, and the distance fram each eye to the edge of each ear is ‘lao one eye length. Now, f we divide the space fram the eyes to the chin in half, lightly above that line would ba the base ofthe nase Dividing the space fromthe bottom af the nase to the chin in thirds wl shaw yo where the mouth goes Face it tthe base line on the frst third from the nose. ‘Note the front view of the vertical ines that Ive drawn. Thay demonstrate how the features relete to each other The sie view of the head fits roughly within a square. Notice thw the vertical in dropped from the inside corer of they ye is ogual tothe horizontal line thet runs from the out sit comer ofthe eye athe back ofthe ea. Use this uide- Jina to properly place the ear & eyehals aren’t round ‘Now let's take a look atthe indndual eatres beginning ‘with the eye. Ili bet you think the eyeball is perfectly ‘Found, right? WRONG! Let's try an experiment. Close your ‘ayes and place a finger on each of your lids. You'll be able to feel a slightly raised spot if you move your sys. round, What you're festing ste eye las. Soe hew eat avay a section of th eyeball ndcate bythe broken ine? ‘This is the lat spot where you plop the ans. The pup the blak dot of your eye) is located on that at area. That's ‘why the popl appears. san elipae when viewing the aye from any angle other than straight onhie 3. pac-man G The easiest way to understand the eyelid is to Gr BS {imagine a Pac Man remember that vdeo gars?) @ gobbling up an ayeball. Though the eyelid is shaped abit diferent the idea is the sana So > Ns study th contours ofthe lid and remember to Sa ive the lid thickness and youll be all set, 4, the nose.isia, piece oficake ‘The nose isa piece of cake. Ifyou can draw a triangle, you can dram’ a nose, Try to kaep the bridge ofthe nase fairly straight and note how it interlocks with ‘the ball of the nase. As you can see, aven in tho up-shot the triangle remains the dominant form. Simple or what? ass 5. can it! 2 =] ‘Now for the curvy thing called the mauth. Thare are two things to remem: a ay j ber when drawing tha mouth, Fist, make sure thatthe top ip doesn't pro- RS f trade too far past the lower Up. If you da this, your character wil lock 4e i geeky. The second thing to remember is that the mouth tall is built on a } curve. Remember that te face, unlike the top of you Kid sistas heads Se not flat Tho eartoan cans should help you understand what I mean. you | a | eh aCe =a ial =&nowheanthis, “Te er bit reir ts made of its feat lage that interac with each other, some laces eves hide behind others. Tha basic overall shape ‘that af a kidney, To help you understand the cam- ty ofthe ea (tan 0 tough once ya get the ang oi ry fakng your fngor wh looking at ‘my drawing and locating on your ovm oar what youre looking a (CAUTION! Be careful not to ‘andar to deopy in your ear because you wouldn't ant to get sticky brown ear wax all ever your brand new Wizard) That eanetudes our ook athe features. Hopefll, all you lightweights managed ta hang in thor withthe tough guys. SIMPUFIED SPIRAL PRTTERN Naw lt play ait guna Wel start with an ideal bead and move ‘he features around to sae what happans. Head #1 is propor- tioned correctly With Head #2 the nose hasbeen rise slight. (cn Head #3 the mouth was lowered slighly Notice how very dUfarnt all three faces look with only light changes being made You can also move the eyes caer together or farther apart, as wall as up oF down, In fat, move the features in any combina- tion and direction tat you like, In illustrations A and BI pro- portioned the features carroay, but altered the shape of the head Soe aguin how diferent the heads look? Just imagine how many ferent charecters you can get by altering head shapes and fea- ture placements together!8. stretch your skull Heres another nea wick for atring face fe ike De Frankenstein): | Draw a profile of face as Ihave dane magine that the front of the face has deavers on and that ‘on the front a these drawers ae the features. Natce haw radical ferent the faces lok ust by poling out the drawers! Heres were the real fun begins! Up til nav, we've been dealing wath tha when ‘ea had wth standard features. Maing that down, we're now ready to draw fom our imagiotion. a ieee ie eae OK, boys and girts-open your sketch pads and let's play! Start withthe genaral shape of tho hoad Any shape a al Now begin adding any type of features in any proportion you feel Lik, You can alter your charactors furthar by changing their hairstyles, adding lasses, beards, nose rings cr any other things thal you think belong ona faca Ive doo- dled afew characters of my ovm so I could have some fun, to!1 hs premised, we'll be dealing with a topic I know youl find exciting! Haw would I know what you'd find exciting, you ask? Because you're just like ‘me, you lave camics and you want te draw them. Well that's just what I happen to da for a living. Lot's face facts: One of the caolest things about drawing comics is that you got te draw massive, ‘igpod, musels-laden superheroes! Bursting at the seams, those hulging kiceps seem fe sing to us | whether they're helping to punch a hole right ‘through somcons's body ar attenspting to control the ‘muls-Hike kick of sams gigantic teckna-gun as it ‘Pumps ou! unreal amounts of bullots filling its vie~ ‘ims full of load and reducing their hodies to bro- ken, smoking heaps of Mfeloss blood and gore!!! So, withoul the use of diagrams or Mip charts, fm ‘going to shaw you haw to push your herees from passive fo massive! cerca REESE SSE Wile elas wom viene TeoL nice pipes ‘hore are three things you can da to push your finger over the top, regardless of muscle size. ‘Those things are; separation, stri- ‘ation and veination. (Hey, Moe! I just made up a word!) Before I demonstrate those things, 111 ‘asoume that all you tough guys out there already have a solid foundation in basic anatomy. If not, youl need to go out and get ‘yourself an anatamy book for artists. Ive got the Aulas of Human Anatomy for tho Artist by Stophen Peck, but there are plenty of other good ones out there, as well FIG.1 ae rrinology dovm by use of pictures. Figure 1 shows a muscular arm that would be capable of hurting you pretty bad if it ware to hit you. But lets push things a litho further till that same arm looks like one punch would kill you! 2. separation. Figure 2 shows saparation. Notice how all the individual mascle groups ‘are mare cléarly defined. Each one stands out by itsélf instead of being in agreed gag = Fi 3, striation Figure 3 shows striation. This is where the ‘actual bers that compose muscle can also ba ‘seen Now you're able to givd the appearance cof having even mare muscle than before! Mus- elo fibers ran in various directions depending on thé particular muscle you're drawitig. So refer to your anatomy book {if need be} till you've mamarized them. . ‘ &. veination ~ ‘Naw forthe coup de grice. venation’ ' (ey, ik this new word) Figure 4 | shove aw tous esto psh your ‘anatomy into the realm of vilous! ‘Now you've got it all. Bons, rmuscls, — smasce ontop of muscle and blood ‘pumping veins strapped together to forge tho aha] appendages your hare SEER punping pane \ 2 AND FRae!5. puzzled by muscles? ‘To get good separation you must achieve the appearence of interlocking. Pieces of ‘muscle fit together like some sort of jigsaw puzzle. Think of the museles af the body ‘as blocks of wood ar whatover. Tis will help give thom a feeling of dimension and ‘solidity. It helps ta think of the pieces as geometrical forms when trying to get that ‘interlocking feel. And even though Ive used the arm once again here, this method ‘could be used on any area of your hero's body. 7. shadows and lighting In order to have good veination you have to eros the line. A vain woul really standout oo moth it ran parallel with tho tines of your msl, woul? Nope. Instead, you have ta contrast your muscle ‘ines by running the veins across tham. By ting ths, thay wo asta shadow iin ‘the grooves of the muscle (see example Al, giving it its own solidity. EYOMAE A ‘Now watch this litle mind game: Look atthe tiny house (example By, and notice that most ofthe edges are not drawn. Yet your mind seas them as being there Decause ofthe tines that meet where the ‘edges should be. (Neat, huh?) This isthe rick fo successfully drawing veins. You dont need to draw the top of tho vei, only ‘the bottom linear side ofthe vein tha faces ‘away from the light cauree(axamle ia , | ietin, rack‘ rol 6. hammer time! ‘Striation is basically chiseling grooves into tha muscles. Tho degen to wich you do this inal p to you You can go for deep or barely visible striation As: longs thy goign hit ) “enue