How to draw superheroes

[ACEGUY]

Hi,

I was wondering can anyone recommend any good how to draw books featuring superheroes?

[Kirby101]

"How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" By John Buscema and Stan Lee.
"Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud.

[Goggindowner]

How to Draw the Marvel Way is full of great information about drawing to the genre.

However, my suggestion is to get a really good book on drawing human anatomy and start there. Learn to draw the human form before you start drawing superheroes. Don't incorporate that exaggeration into the foundation of your craft, it is almost impossible to remove.

[TroubleWithTrebles]

Also anatomy books by burne hogarth cited by Lee and Buscema, authors of the book mentioned above. the piece of sh!t kickstarter book from a little while back is merely a pathetic rip off of How to Draw the Marvel Way so you need not waste money on it.

[Kirby101]

Also anatomy books by burne hogarth cited by Lee and Buscema

I agree, you shouldn't learn art from comics. These are good sources to learn to tell stories in comics. But books like Hogarth's would be better for the art itself.

[MRP]

In addition to those mentioned...

Any of the books put out by the Joe Kubert School, in particular Joe Kubrt's Wonderful World of Comics: Superheroes.

Draw Comics with Dick Giordano.

The DC Guide to Pencilling COmics by Kalus Janson.

those Horarth books include Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing.

The McCloud book is great, but also check out his Making Comics and Reinventing Comics as well.

The standard for anatomy books is still Gray's Anatomy (not the ABC show), but also looking at some of Da Vinci's figure studies can be beneficial when figuring out the human antomy in an artistic sense.

The grandaddy of them all are the Eisner books-Comics and Sequential Art, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, and Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative.

-M

[TroubleWithTrebles]

I agree, you shouldn't learn art from comics. These are good sources to learn to tell stories in comics. But books like Hogarth's would be better for the art itself.

Yes, but we all know people who will ignore what the OP is asking and suggest books or sites by people who are primarily cartoonists. Words and suggestions from Marie Severin could help, but pages from Roberta Gregory would be flat-out useless. If the OP wanted to be respected for Fantagraphics opposite to Superhero work, Roberta would be great, and John Buscema would be useless.

[TroubleWithTrebles]

The Eisner book is platinum standard. But the OP wanted super heroes, not comics in general. McCloud is to superheroes what John Waters and David Lynch are to romance movies. Do their films have kissing? Yes. Buuuuuuuuuut....

[CrazyOldHermit]

You draw people and then you draw lines on them that look like a costume.

[TroubleWithTrebles]

You draw people and then you draw lines on them that look like a costume.

If that has worked for anyone who has been paid more than $75 per page of pencil art, then yes. If not, then no, and it only gets the OP to a place where he/she is just one more FB post or twatter-tweeter. I get the impression the OP wants more out of art than that.

[ACEGUY]

Thanks guys for the recommendations. The one thing is I can draw but, my work looks more like it would be from the golden age and I don't think that would help me any.

[TroubleWithTrebles]

For breaking in to publishers, no, but for successful kickstarter projects, you might score big depending on your talent. AND LAYOUT. Golden Age Simon and Kirby is great stuff. McCloud and Bagge and Ware riffs on it? No.

[CharlesM]

Thanks guys for the recommendations. The one thing is I can draw but, my work looks more like it would be from the golden age and I don't think that would help me any.

Don't jump to erroneous conclusions.

[ACEGUY]

Don't jump to erroneous conclusions.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I like to draw stuff from the golden age and a lot of my work is largely influenced by that time. I've thought about sending them to publishers as an all ages series of books but, I'm not too sure yet.

[TroubleWithTrebles]

Some editors love Golden age stuff and in fact there was a jam book with some big names doing public domain Golden Age characters.

But having been paid a page rate while working for more than a few editors at more than one company, something never changes:

You are unlikely to have a realistic estimation of yor own inking

Most unpublished inking sucks even when the pencils are good

This has cost talented people opportunities

The fact that early Superman and Batman inks doesn't mean that today's editors will allow that as an excuse

Therefore submit pencil samples, unless you are as talented with ink as Mike Kaluta or Tim Bradstreet