Friday, November 25, 2011

ANATOMY FOR CARTOONISTS: FEMALE PROFILES

WARNING: 'NOTHING OBSCENE HERE, BUT THIS POST IS NOT SCHOOL OR OFFICE SAFE!


WARNING: 'NOTHING OBSCENE HERE, BUT THIS POST IS NOT SCHOOL OR OFFICE SAFE!


WARNING: 'NOTHING OBSCENE HERE, BUT THIS POST IS NOT SCHOOL OR OFFICE SAFE!




Wow! Rubens would have loved this model (above)! I'm tempted to do a whole post about this one fascinating woman, but I'll restrain myself and simply point out that she's leaning forward on the profile shot. 


LOTS of women (above) lean forward like this. I'll hazard a guess that it has to do with the effects of standing straight after wearing high heels all day, but I could be wrong. Maybe a lot of men stand this way too, and I just never noticed. 

Anyway, thinking about this might change the way I caricature busty women. Maybe women like that need to lead with their chests, at least in a subtle way.  Either that or they have to compensate for the weighty front by arching their torso way back. Either way it's a nice, cartoony effect.


Here's (above) a fascinating bean-shaped model, who I assume is pregnant. I used to be a bit bean shaped myself but I seem to have morphed out of it. It's a great, cartoony look. "Blessed With the Bean," says Robert Crumb. 

Hmmmm, come to think of it, the upper legs on this model are still thrust forward. 



Here's (above) a modified bean. Or maybe you'd call it an "S" Curve. Notice how the body doesn't sit on top of the hips, rather it thrusts out and up on a 45 degree angle. George Bridgeman favored models like this. As the years go by I appreciate Bridgeman more and more. 


About 20% of all men and women (above) have bottoms that appear to be Scotch Taped upward.  Most people's butts feel the effect of gravity, and their weight causes them to flair out at the bottom like an up-side down pear.  Not so for taped-up people. Their bottoms have no weight. It's as if they were filled with helium. You wonder if people like that have to struggle to stay attached to the ground.  


I'll end with this interesting study (above) of a woman with a big chest compensating for the frontal weight in two different ways, one of them very cartoony. I notice the pose on the right includes a forward thrusting head. Fascinating!

11 comments:

  1. You should put the Pinocchio Macys balloon photo in with this post. It would complement it well.

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  2. Steve: Haw! Good idea! Gee, yours was the only comment I got on this post. I guess everybody's busy socializing over the holiday.

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  3. I think they're speechless at the Reubenesque embarassment of riches

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  4. Jorge Garrido2:04 PM

    Eddie, I would be remiss if I didn't share with you one of the best things I've seen in years about literature: Comedian Norm MacDonald's Book Club is magnificent. You would love it.

    https://twitter.com/#!/normsbookclub

    Right now they just finished a lengthy discussion on Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood," (Norm HATED it) that dovetailed into debates about faith and religion in art and what the best school of literary criticism is, and we're about to start a discussion on The Good Earth, followed by Anna Karenina in January.

    Some highlights of the feed so far include Norm explaining why Richard Pryor was the only comedian who was ever an artist, whereas all other comedians (like George Carlin) were merely journalists, and also a takedown of "reader-response criticism."

    Cool, huh?

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  5. the last model is a well known big bust model named merilyn sakova, shes russian and has appeared in several mens magazines.(yeah, im a fan!)its surprising to find her here not all glamoured up as usual, oviously she just loves posing nude, glamourous or not-good for her!

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  6. Jorge Garrido3:54 PM

    Scratch that, the address is here:

    http://nbcscrapbook.tumblr.com/

    There's a picture of Vincent Waller there!

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  7. The only thing I disagree with is your comment on the first one: she's way beyond Rubens! She's Ueber-Rubens! Jenseits von Rubens! Wow.

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  8. Jorge: Thanks for the links! The books (The Good Earth, Wise Blood, Anna Karenina) aren't really my kind of books. I haven't read any of these titles, but I read other things by two of these authors and I saw film versions of all these novels. I only half liked them.

    All the books on your list were among the first to build stories around issues that became widely popular in our own time. It's fine that the authors had a crystal ball in good working order, and were able to be the first to predict present social trends, but that's not what literature should be about.

    On the other hand, my hat's off to Norm for getting a reading group together. Good for him!

    About Vincent...he drew that portrait?

    Talking: You mean, she's famous!!?? I had no idea!

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  9. I think Flannery O'Connor was a genius. Wise Blood is one of the best depictions of the contradictions in Southern culture ever. It doesn't have a happy ending, however, and some people may be put off by that.

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  10. Which site had these photos of real women in all views ?

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  11. Acetate: I wish I knew. I'm not sure there is a site that contains them all. I got them one at a time over the span of a year.

    If you discover a site that has them all, let us know. They're useful for art reference.

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