Traditionally, many artists can only draw the default angry, plain, happy, sad, shocked expressions with none of the subtleties in-between.
However, some artists excell in drawing facial expressions such as Will Eisner and Kevin Maguire.
Traditionally, many artists can only draw the default angry, plain, happy, sad, shocked expressions with none of the subtleties in-between.
However, some artists excell in drawing facial expressions such as Will Eisner and Kevin Maguire.
Personally, I thought Kieron Dwyer was great at capturing Cap's anguish (IMHO):
I'm going to throw Jaime Hernandez's name in here.
I’ll don the mask and wear the cape
If I am super, how can I wait?
EDIT Kevin Maguire already mentioned
Last edited by GOLGO 13; 01-28-2022 at 07:50 AM. Reason: Kevin Maguire already mentioned as a TOP face man.
What I like with David Cockrum is that the faces of his characters are always very animated, very lively… very far from these artists that prefer doing pretty but liveless faces…
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
Alan Davis deserves mention
Chuck Jones?
I tend to think the traditional artists were better at drawing facial expressions than nowadays’ artists:
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
Definitely, another personal favorite would be...
Mike Zeck
Last edited by K7P5V; 02-02-2022 at 12:15 AM. Reason: Made Adjustments.
Definitely, another personal favorite would be...
Jack "The King" Kirby
Last edited by K7P5V; 02-07-2022 at 11:08 PM. Reason: Made Adjustments.
I think it's better for artists who are not married to a quasi-realistic style. They can use all kinds of surreal tricks to convey emotion. The heroic style that's common for super-heroes is supposed to look realistic (but not really), so that limits what the artist can do to express the emotion on the face--they have to use other tricks.
Personally, I think the unrealistic style is more realistic--because we don't see in realistic terms. We are expressionistic in our thinking--and we heighten certain features in our mind. So the "cartoony" style expresses what we feel better than trying to be photo-realistic.
In reality, there are thousands of micro expressions, which we as humans are hard-wired to pick up, without even realizing we're doing it. It's impossible in a comic book to show all those fine details--and who would want that? The artist has to find another way, with very simple lines, to show the range of emotion.
And the heroic style makes everyone pretty--which is not true to life. The only folks in this style who don't get to look pretty are the monsters and the aliens.
However, as far as the heroic style goes, Curt Swan was very good at drawing facial expressions (he was just saddled with inkers who didn't always do his pencils justice).