It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing...part I

[telophase]

Back in one of my shoujo art posts a week or so ago, prettyism volunteered her art for comparison purposes of amateur vs. pro work. This isn't a post about layout, however, it's about art. prettyism asked about her work in her LJ, and I answered a few things there, and then started thinking about poses and flow and anatomy, and that kinda exploded into this.

This is actually a very long version of the sort of crit I occasionally do over on Deviantart. And prettyism knows I'm doing it. :D I also want to point out that this chick has drawn several hundred pages of her stories, which shows far more stick-to-itiveness than 99% of the wannabe artists out there, and we should all give her a round of applause for that, as well as having the guts to let me do this in public. XD *golf claps*

I am using Kazuya Minekura's work in comparison, because she has excellent examples of the sort of thing I'm talking about. Minekura's work is drawn from traditional figure-drawing techniques, and although her anatomy is exaggerated, it's exaggerated in such a way that it makes it easier to see the muscles and bones beneath the skin, and she has movement and flow in her images, even when the figures are standing still.



Here's prettyism's page I'm picking on using:



You've got two guys here having a bit of conversation. They're interacting with the environment, which is good. However, it seems a bit more of an awkward moment than the dialogue says, because they're not looking at each other, and the guy on the left (hereafter known as Left Guy) has his arms and shoulders sort of tight, and is rubbing his neck. This is because there's no movement in the figures, and their arms and legs are drawn close in. There's also some anatomy problems.

Here's an outline of Left Guy and Right Guy that makes it a bit more obvious:



I'm going to address the overall pose first and get to the anatomy in a bit. Both of these guys are standing stick-straight, and humans just don't do that normally. Soldiers at attention stand like that, and people who are really self-conscious and uncomfortable do so. Here's the basic lines of the pose:



Now here's an edit of those, improving the lines to something a bit more natural:



The biggest difference here is the tilt of the shoulders and hips. Brian Stelfreeze, the comic artst, explains it to me as - you're adding the sexy. Straight across isn't sexy. Tilting is sexy. Tilt the hips and the shoulders just a little bit and all of a sudden your drawing comes to life and you get the sexy.

Also, think about gravity and balance. People rarely stand with their weight equally on both legs - it's usually one or the other. The hips respond to this, because the leg that all your weight is on is usually (there are rare exceptions) straighter, closer to your center of gravity, and the hip on that side is higher - your pelvis is sort of hanging from the thighbone. Your spine responds to this by curving to one side. Your shoulders respond to this by tilting, usually in the opposite direction - if the right hip is higher, the left shoulder is higher. Your head then tilts to one side or the other. If your head hangs forward, then all of a sudden, your spine tilts backwards to account for the weight hanging off of your neck in front, and your pelvis moves forward to maintain your center of gravity. Your body is a system, and every part responds to every other part. (Man, I *totally* need Flash skills to animate a movie of that to explain how I see it in my head...)

So - the spine and the pelvis are the key to the whole pose. You want your spine to be curved from side to side or bent forward or back or something to add movement to the pose.

To relate this to the picture above, Left Guy is supporting his weight on his right leg, so his right hip should be higher. He's also supporting some weight on his left hand on the counter, so his left shoulder should be higher to account for that as well as his hip tilt. Right Guy is supporting his weight on his right leg, too, so that hip should be higher. His shoulders don't need to be tilted as much, since he's not using his arms to support any weight, but a wee tilt in one direction or another will add life.

Now I'm going to whip out Minekura's boyparts (oooooooooo! sounds kinky!).

Minekura is very, very good at adding life and movement to her basic poses. Not only that, she makes the poses so distinct that you can tell who the character is just by a basic outline. Witness (and yes, I cheated by making them all the same size. You'll still be able to name them if you're familiar with them):



Let's break this down:




Not a straight up-and-down line in the bunch. Bachelor Number One over there on the left is the stiffest of the bunch, as expressed in his shoulders. Which suits him well because, as you've guessed by now, he's Hakkai. Hakkai's the stiffest because he's got the most rigid self-control of the group. He's still got some swang to his thang, though - check out the hips. His weight is on the left leg. His shoulders are also tilted, but note that they're parallel with his hips. This is partly because Jeep's sitting on his shoulder and so he's holding that shoulder up to compensate for it, but because having the tilt parallel the hips makes him more controlled. The sexy is there, but it's under wraps. This is a more typical male posture - female posture has the hips and shoulders opposing each other, and it can really feminize a guy to have the shoulder and hips tilt opposite each other, if you're not careful.

Now we go to Bachelor Number Two. He's got his arm crossing in front of him, and his shoulders are rounded down. This, combined with the hunching of his back and the lowering of his head collapses his torso into a defensive posture. Which is eminently suitable for - you guessed it - Sanzo. His hips are - to put it into fitness-class terminology - closed, instead of open. His feet are pointed more towards the front than anyone else in the group, which means his legs are rotated so that his thighs are closer to the front than the side, which adds tension to his pose. He's got that wild tilt to his hips, but it's a deceptive tilt - his weight is solidly on his left leg, and his right leg is active instead of passive - you can see that it looks like any second now it's going to move to the front as he continues walking on. Hakkai, on the other hand, is much more relaxed his his lower body - his tension isn't about defense and escape, it's about self-restraint.

Bachelor Number Three is the hyper monkey Goku, natch. His shoulder are the closest to parallel of anyone, but that's offset by the extreme tilt of his head and the slight tilt of his hips. His feet are comfortably wide, and he's settled into his position. He's very open - his arms are in front of him because he's resting them on his bo staff, but you don't get the feeling that it's defensive, instead it's just something to do with his arms. He's in a very friendly, approachable position, unlike Sanzo, whose whole posture is calculated to say, "Stay the FUCK away!" Once you see the actual picture, you'll see that his hips really aren't tilted so much as thrust to one side to give a relaxed feel to this pose.

And last but certainly not least, we have everyone's favorite kappa, Gojyo. Gojyo's in a natural but not quite relaxed position. His shoulders tilt much like Sanzo's, but his shoulders are lifted instead of lowered, which is a more open position. He's got his arms and legs akimbo, to take up as much space as possible. Like Goku, his hips aren't quite as tilted as they look, because of perspective - you'll see once you see the real picture. He's also got the spine with the most pronounced S-curve of the lot. If you turn him so that you're looking at him from the side, you cna see that his upper back is tilted farther back and his lower back is tilted farther forward than anyone else. This is because Gojyo's typical pose says HERE IS MY CROTCH DON'T YOU LIKE IT? and presents his package front-and-center. This should surprise no one.

And finally, the picture. Look at this now now that you've read some about the poses:




To relate this back up to prettyism's page up top - there should be more flow and tilt in the figures and their poses should be distinctive. Right now, there's nothing to tell me the personalities of the two characters. I'm reading them both as really defensive and tight, because of the poses - Left Guy's hand on the conter and lifted right leg read as calculated, someone deliberately attempting to look casual. I have no idea if this is the case or not. And Right Guy is completely tight and controlled. I'm reading the nonverbal part of the situation as maybe they had a huge fight recently and they're delibereately avoiding that subject. Is this anywhere near the true reading of the page? If so -- good! You're getting there, and you need to put a bit more tilt and movement to the figures to make them look human. If not - well, you should probably reconsider the poses. Elbows tend to go out to the sides unless you're deliberately pulling them in, and people shift their weight and tilt their heads and fidget, so they're never really still or tight.



This got way long - I'm going to publish it to LJ now and do the anatomy in a separate entry.