At the request of March directly, I will be offering advice. Anyone who disagrees, and thinks that March should stagnate at the exact same level of drawing that he is at and never improve, because he's already "fantastic", is objectively wrong and needs to re-evaluate themselves. I in no way apologize about this, aside from everyone who isn't this stupid, having to read this rather nasty comment. Now that that's out of the way! As I told you in chat. Proper proportions, and gesture go a long way, as I'm sure you've started realizing. You could still probably work on both, but for now we won't focus in on it specifically. Just remember to keep it in mind, since it never stops being important, and gesture specifically is often considered one of the most important parts about drawing. So today, I have no goofy redlines, and I have hacked off none of Sarah's limbs (But if I did have a goofy redline, She would now just be staring at her arm stumps and lack of hands, no doubt very upset about the situation). Today we are going to focus on REFERENCE, which I've no doubt brought up in every single big post to date. What do we have here? A variety of images lazily picked off of google images! How shocking! So, this is... an incredibly small reference image page. Six images usually won't cut it, but I put this picture together to show you how I might actually source the references.So let's break it down, how I found any of this, and what it all means. So the first image is ANATOMICAL REFERENCE. Muscles are complicated things. But understanding the muscles helps us draw them. So understanding that the arms are not just a series of sausage links, and understanding how the muscles overlap will help us define them. So in your image for instance, Sarah is struggling as her deltoids are not properly connected to her humerus. So we will call the emergency room and schedule surgery immediately. Next, we have the lovely Ms. Ronda Rousey. whom I think is great reference for Sarah's general rough and tumble personality and physicality. I found these images by googling "Ronda Rousey" (Shocking I know). I picked these two specifically since... both of them have similar characteristics to Sarah's pose (Gasp). This reference is fairly direct, and since Rousey has decently defined musculature, we can see exactly how to apply our anatomical reference. In areas that are a little vague, such as Rousey's forearms for instance, perhaps reference another model that has more defined physique in a similar pose, and compare it to your anatomical reference (Yes, reference your reference to your reference, I'm serious). Next up is hair. Hair gives a lot of up and comers trouble because its this weird stringy material growing off your head. You can break its form down by examining the various locks of hair, where they originate from, and where they are going. So basically you need to begin breaking down the forms of hair. Sarah in all depictions and sprite has a mixture between wavy hair, and an undercut, so I found this particular image by googling "undercut for women". Spend time examining the structure, and take the time to figure this out in your line work. Next up are two general body references (I believe I looked up "Women abs"). Spend time defining the musculature, and then softening it out (Since ladies are soft, even when they're hard). On top of that, you'll notice something consistent between all three of my muscular lady references (durr durr, they're muscular). They all have minimal fat! Unless Sarah has a bit of a "strongfat" thing going on, I suggest cutting back her breasts a bit. She's wearing a bra, and it looks a bit like a sports bra at that (Reference bras), so her breasts would be tighter to her body, more pushed up, and in general more flattened. Lotta great tutorials out there on how to draw boobs (Yes, I'm serious), so I suggest maybe looking some up. Because if you fix her boobs, you'll probably end up fixing a lot of the surrounding area as well. Anyway, start grabbing reference. Its useful shit.
I started editing it again! Much, much harder to get it right than I thought; the abdomen and the arms are absoleutely dreadful, and I dunno if I want to make the hair more wavy at this point. We'll see! EDIT: There just seems to be something WRONG with the body. Maybe it's just not artsy, too simple? Or is there something, like, ACTUALLY wrong with it? I can't tell.
I also stole some inspiration from Node, and tried to go with a black and white drawing. I was practicing face proportions and I think I've gotten a bunch better.
Okay done. No more. It's finished. JESUS. It's not perfect, but it's a perfect representation of Sarah. Now I can move onto other shit and practice with skills I've learned while doing this drawing.
Using a lot of what I learned from my previous piece of art, I have redrawn Sarah's character and it looks a hundred times better. Less cartoony, and much more aggressive.
