[AKIRA_x]

Does anyone else experience this.

I am having GREAT problems with drawing women, and I know why...I havent tried that much. But from the get go, I have always been comfortable with drawing men. Is this because I am a man? Does women have it easier to draw women, and men easier to draw men..or is it just down to practise.

Cause I also remeber my sister drawing when she was younger....she always made women in pretty dresses..never men..and when she tried..they looked very feminin.

So..is this something you have experienced..if your a guy..do you strugle with the female form..and if your a girl..do you strugle with the male form?

AKIRA

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Whos ya dady!!

[Freddio]

No no

girls allowed

[Nex]

I have exactly the same problem..

I guess there is no shortcut, just watch 1000's of episodes of baywatch and draw what you see

I drew this yesterday and I its my best yet, so thats quite sad actually--
well.. gotta practice more.

[iska]

Such a serious person that I am... I definately would like to strugle with some female forms right now! This windows system reinstalling makes me ill

I'm not too experienced drawing either of them, but when I occasionally start drawing a female (usually the head part), I almost everytime end up with a male face. I'm at the moment reading the marvellous book Drawing on the right side of the brain (eetu, thanks for lending it to me ). I'm soon on the excersice part so probably you're going to see my *mad* face painting skills he-he

--iska

[AKIRA_x]

quote:

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Originally posted by Freddio:
No no

girls allowed

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Wanna clarify that a bit???

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Whos ya dady!!

[SPike.CoM]

Don't despair... drawing women and men are two completely different things to do. Their anatomy ARE different.

Of course I don't have all day to rant and draw piccies on what everything I know but there are some stuff you might wanna know:

Their curves are different. While drawing the woman with soft ones and a man with hard ones only qualifies half of the way. Comparing both reveals that the woman hip is a bit higher up than the man's. Plus you can always do what people do to make women more attractive... draw longer legs.

The face is tricky to explain. But try more stronger refined cheek and mouth on a woman and ditto to the man's chins and nose. Since people seem to overlook this. If that doesn't work... read a book about it.

"Drawing on the right side of the brain" is one of the best books I've read so far about drawing techniques.

[This message has been edited by SPike.CoM (edited October 26, 2000).]

[gseegert]

try a more oval face, rounder eyes, softer chin, and smaller mouth. see what happens then.

and then write a five page report on it.

[Matt Elder]

yeah I've always found that problem but I think it is for two reasons:

1) I've drawn way more males (probably 10:1 ratio) and thus feel that I have a better understanding. I've found with females, it is just a matter of sitting down and practicing.

2) Less is more on females. When drawing (at least fine art) you have very few lines to work with so they have to be more accurate, curvy and shaply. On a male, if something doesn't look right, I find you can keep adding lines until you get it 'right', sort of like painting in that you can build it up in 'layers' by adding more strokes.

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See ya on da flip side
Matt
http://www.mattelder.com

[Chate Noire]

When I was a beginner, all I could draw was women. My men (ooh) came out extremely distorted and quite alien-like. I tend to believe that guys find it easier to draw males and girls - females, because everyone subconciously draws more or less what they look like (or at least want to look like). I've looked at many of my friends' drawings and the resemblance between the artist and the drawing is amazing. I suppose we all have a mental picture of ourselves in mind, and when we draw freely (as in, not trying to make is look like anything specific) it tends to look a lot like how we see ourselves.

That's my theory, anyway.

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May the force of Mitzy be with you.

Aviv

[Shaded]

Not a theory. Truth.

[AKIRA_x]

quote:

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Originally posted by Chate Noire:
I've looked at many of my friends' drawings and the resemblance between the artist and the drawing is amazing.

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I dont think you have that theory alone. I think its actually a stated fact. I kinda stumbeld over it myself when I looke dat my....*sigh*... Ex-girl friends drawings....of women faces..they all had the left eyebrow a bit more pointy..and up..then the right..and as I turned at admi..looked at my girlfriend...I noticed she had that to....she had infact drawn the mirror image of herself..without thinking about it.

Could be a cool assignment:
"draw a picture of a person with the same sex as you, but with no intention as to who it is..and ad a picture of yourself next to it."

Then we could see if there where any resemblens....I have a theory that more experienced artist will have less similarity then new ones. They have a broader specter of "shapes" to draw from within theire mind.

AKIRA

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Whos ya dady!!

[Flexible Elf]

I find I can draw men a lot faster because I just don't care about their physical attractiveness as much as the women. Also it seems one tiny line in the wrong place on a woman is the difference between distorted/ugly and good looking. It's wierd, but I have to fuss over my women

-Flexible Elf

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http://www.geocities.com/flexible_elf/Main.html

[Lukias]

I find that if you've got the male muscle groups resonably down then you can get away with mistakes relitively easily. Though a slight mishap with the female form results in a really ugly chick, their subtle curves and bumps if placed incorrectly will end up making her look like a very ugly lady.

Its a real bitch

[SPike.CoM]

Not kidding but you can learn a lot "anatomy" by drawing of a softcore magazine. Playboy, playgirl are good examples... You won't need to find own models.

Poxen... you will end up jerking instead of drawing when you read that magazine.

[CyberArtist]

One thing that most peole completely over look that can be a BIG change how a figure looks when drawn is the fact that the possition of the hips of men and women are different. A woman's hips lean forward, so their back is more arched and their belly sticks out further, making that area much rounder than a man. A man's hips are nearly straight, and the spine is much less curved in general, making for the flat stomach.

On a side note, this explains a couple things about the difference between men and women in the abdominal region. Ever notice how women can't "suck in" their gut as much. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they can't flatten their spine back as far as men can. This also explains a little why women often think they look fat. Men: relax your back and stick your gut out as far as you can ... this is how women always are... notice how fat you look now?



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-CyberA(rtist) aka Ben Golus

Cyber...

[shahar2k]

totaly agree, why not try and get either Fred or Spooge to fork over a tutorial on gender diffrences? I'm not too great, here's my latest female (quite old)
this is after a serious fixup session with a close female friend.... so, it looks... semi ok

[aNoah]

I had the same problem, still do in essense. The only way around it is taking photo reference. In the case of women it can be found on www.ditto.com.
If you are still running into problems, try to concentrate on the FORMS. Don't think of her as a woman or body parts, think of her as forms and shapes. Turning the photo reference upside down also helps.

Here is a pic that I did just recently: PUTRY.JPG

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-aNoah
My Gallery

[Visigoth]

I have no problems drawing women, but my men come out looking very feminine. But then again, that usually works for my subject matter anyway...haha

Women are inherently harder to draw than men, because they're much smoother. Men tend to have their body fat centralized more towards the belly area, but women get it distrubuted more evenly throughout their body, with the focust being on the hips and legs. This makes for a very smooth figure, with very few surface forms visible, unlike men. This small genetic difference, adds to the complexity of drawing women, because you have less hard shapes to work with and are forced to draw smooth curves (not always a bad thing!) But often times it's quite hard to get it to look right.

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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[aNoah]

Hey, Visigoth...
wanna show us the work in progress on that girl masturbating with a crucifix?

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-aNoah
My Gallery

[Visigoth]

LOL
Nope; I'm waiting until I have it down right...hehe

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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[aNoah]

Dang... it sounds rather intriguing you know.

[Brue]

I have the exact same problem. Just opposite. I can draw women but not men. Us gals are just easier to draw it seems.
And if some of you guys are having problems drawing us women try it with their clothes on. I know alot of you want to skip that step but it makes it easier
i dunno, its just weird

[Visigoth]

Actually, drawing fully clothed people first is a bad way to start off, because you don't learn the form of the human body. Drawing naked people helps greatly, because you learn the way muscles move, the way they contract, the way joints move, and you are better able to understand how those movements will affect the drapery of the clothes on the individual later.

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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[Shadowman]

Myself I handle both genders completely different. When I draw men I just go for it if the guy is ugly it's cooler. When I draw women I am way to conscious about making them good looking. I guess the world needs ugly girls to.

[Rob M]

I really must get an anatomy book for use in drawing. I have exactly the same problem as you guys, I just can't draw a proper female figure.

[shahar2k]

here's the biggest deal though, if you draw females usually without reference, you start developing Symbols for the female form, things like breasts and face, and hands, are all stored in your muscle memory to some degree, this is because you learn to draw a CERTAIN way...
however if you work from models, and reference, you will learn more about the variances, and changes a real human can have from the Ideal form, that is why it might be easier to draw females for somone who draws them a lot even though he may not use as many real life models for females as he would for males...
it's MUCH better to just draw naked people, from real naked people, gives you a firm handle on the variations in the human body, and helps you establish your actual ability to draw as opposed to your ability to pull up your standard female form.
I've still got a lot of symbols to purge, many of the eyes I draw look the same, facial features follow similar paths, and I just have not learned to draw what IS there , and not what I'm thinking is there.
this is where art class has helped me the most (that and landing a GREAT teacher, and some awesome classmates)
anyways that's my spiel.

[Transcendence]

hm...so does the fact that I'm male, and am more relaxed drawing females make me a freak or something? I also usually have the same facial structure going..it usually has enough insignificant changes to make it look different. Another thing I that I don't know why...but I can usually get femlinine lookin faces from a direct view, but if it's side..it always has more masculine characteristics.

[shahar2k]

well that was mostly a personal theory, supported by things I know

thing is, I personally draw completely diffrently if I'm looking at something than if I'm drawing something from my head, and I think it shouldn't be this way, I think you should have a good enough understanding of a subject that you can visualize the subject (male of female) and understand it well enough to not have to resort to learned symbols, and shorthand drawing. some people can do it, some people can't. some people just don't need to.
whether it's bad, or good that you use symbols in your drawing is for you to judge, because in the end it's your product, you created it, and if it meets your requierments, for a drawing than it's good enough. usually, nothing meets a person's requirement for their own drawing, but hey, that's life, the persuit of perfection

[ZakatH]

HAHAHAHAH... Aktuell Rapport.. LOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAHAHAH

[poxen]

yea..
Paiting guys are no problem...
We guys have ourself to study..so just fix a mirror and show it what you got!!

I have big problems drawing a woman do...
So i have started to study the woman body, in the swedish magasin "aktuell rabort"..
very good reading to! =D

/poxen