InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "A lady to see ya'"

born to trouble as the sparks fly upward (amilliondays) wrote,
@ 2007-08-11 00:15:00

IBARW: Follow-through 2
Nothing really to add beyond the images, so here they are.

This turned out surprisingly enjoyable to draw. I may have to draw the Wall again; I liked this, but it's not all I want to do with her. Maybe someday.

This I am unhappy with, mostly because I ended up doing way too much anatomy work on this before I actually "inked" it, and ended up covering it all with her cape. And a few other design problems wrt costuming. But I still like it okay.

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yuuo
2007-08-11 10:07 am UTC (link)

Your first html tag is borked, by the way- you need a space between 'img' and 'src'.

I love your artwork- you're very very good at it. ♥ Even if I don't always know the subject it's based on, I still admire it.

(And omg, voicemail. ;_; I hadn't programmed any numbers into the phone yet, so yours came up as a number I didn't recognize in my sleepy state of mind (I usually sleep during the day, remember) so I didn't answer it, and I'm terrified to check voicemail sometimes, 'cause half the time, it's a debt collector. XD; ;_; But omg. ♥ ILU. Thank you so much- even the fact that you called at all means a lot. ♥)

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	amilliondays 2007-08-11 01:00 pm UTC (link)
	Fixed! And thank you! :D :D :D (It's okay! I'm glad you got the message, regardless. ♥ Aaaack, debt collectors, aaaack. hugs) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	yuuo 2007-08-11 01:26 pm UTC (link)
	::eyes the first picture:: Man, there's a gal I don't wanna run into in a dark alley. (I did, and I got it at just the right time. ;_; ♥ Thank you. ::added your number to her address book::) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	amilliondays 2007-08-11 01:31 pm UTC (link)
	If you ran into Amanda Waller in a dark alley, there's a reasonable chance you'd wake up the next day with an explosive collar 'round your neck and sent out on a mission you'd likely die completing. (I have chores to do right now, but I'll be calling up again sometime today, if I get the chance, okay? ♥ I'm glad I could help somehow.) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	yuuo 2007-08-11 04:29 pm UTC (link)
	... Charming. (This evening, some time? I'm about to go to bed here shortly... if you wake me up, it's not a big deal, I can catch a nap afterwards. ♥ Would 8 or so Central time work okay? I'm good either way- I have the day off, so I can go back to sleep easily enough. XD;) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	reshelved 2007-08-12 03:33 am UTC (link)
	Wow, these two are amazing. This Batgirl is my favourite of anything I've ever seen you post. I can definitely tell how much work you put into her pose. Amanda Waller is almost as scary, and very cool. I love how she's a fat woman, when so many artists draw fat people kinda sexless. (Reply to this) (Thread)

amilliondays
2007-08-12 01:11 pm UTC (link)

*blushes* Thank you!

I love how she's a fat woman, when so many artists draw fat people kinda sexless.

And they're really not. It's a thing I try to work on in my own art; we have an intricate physical recognition system in our brains to tell us what gender someone is that most of us are barely conscious of even using, but that, as far as cisgendered persons are concerned, is almost impossible to fool - and I spend a lot of time trying to pick that subconscious process apart and identify what it is about other people that it picks up on so I can incorporate what I learn into my mental arsenal of physical features/motions so I can better represent my characters' gender(s) in my art.

And . . . I got rambly about the brain stuff behind the pretty pictures there for a second. Whups.

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	reshelved 2007-08-12 06:30 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, definitely not! I wouldn't say that it's almost impossible to fool, but fatter people have some of the most interesting and gendered bodies out there. :D, don't worry about rambling when you're replying to me. I like to know all about the process behind the art. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

amilliondays
2007-08-13 02:01 am UTC (link)

Not impossible; but unless someone is actively attempting to confuse it, it generally lines slot A up with tab B and gets "male" or "female" and most people are so culturally-inoculated for portraying their gender along those lines that it's just going to be right.

We're programmed (bad word for it, but I'm pressed for time and can't think of a better one) from an early age on what constitutes "male" and "female" and regardless of how stupid those categories are (no, really, everyone thinks they're stupid, they just can't admit it), the majority (less than society wants the majority to think) swallows this hook, line, and sinker, which means they look for those things in the people surrounding them and they present themselves to those people in ways that show those traits to the people surrounding them. Even as they know those traits don't really fit them as well as they "ought" to fit.

Imagine it like a hill, and your brain is a ball on top of the hill. The ball naturally rolls down the hill and makes a groove behind itself without any guidance. Culture is like a whole bunch of other balls that were sent down the hill before your ball ever got there and made their own grooves and often reinforced other grooves to make one big groove, and the constant traversing of that groove has made it incredibly inviting for your ball to follow. You don't have to follow it, and it may not be a good idea to follow it, but you have to put some distance between yourself and the groove, or else it'll be a bit tricky extricating yourself from it. And making your own groove's a bit harder than following the path already laid out for you, y'know? And you never quite forget where that big groove is or what paths can get you to it in a heartbeat, either.

In short: we are taught to display and recognize specific physical context clues on the human body that signify our gender. What are those things? How do they work? Why do they work? What makes them not work? Do they still work if part of that is removed or a part of something else is added?

I have come to my own conclusions about a lot of those questions, as they relate to me, personally, and how I view people. That doesn't mean I am any less fascinated with exploring them in pictures; in fact, just the opposite. There's no good way to teach this without learning to spot the way it works, and then finding ways to illustrate it. Someday I'm going to have to explain this sort of thing to kids - mine, or someone else's, I can't begin to say - and I'd like to have found an answer I can be happy to give them.

Anyway, what really fascinates me about this is that we are taught how to identify the genders of people outside the "normal" weight category, yet when it comes time to pictorially depict their form, we invariably draw them as if there is no difference beyond the face and the clothes - but there is a difference, and what is that difference and how can it be drawn without falling back on prejudiced, arrogant exaggeration?

Because it can be done, if an artist would just take the time to learn how.

I . . . have no idea if any of this qualifies as "process" behind the art as opposed to thinking way too much about the implications of what I draw without making too much sense, but it felt good to get it out of my system?

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