Oh yeah, I've had you on my list for a year or two now, I think, since shortly after I first met you at GenCon. (I'm actually in Grand Rapids, now, going to Kendall.) (You never noticed me on your friends/friends-of list?)
I can agree on the limited use, although I'd say I get more good ref out of studying the structure, and being able to combine the shapes on paper over my own pose's bones.
For actual appearances sake, it'll sound kinda wierd, but look up videos of muscle guys on youtube. Some of them go a *little* off from where I would prefer to see (watch out for unexpected porn), but because they're generally moving around, and because these guys are amatuers rather than pros, you see a lot more casual poses and less 'ripped' guys.
My style started with animation, then went into comics as the obvious available angle. I tried anime, but while I can do it pretty well, I don't get as much out of it as the other styles, though I often have my characters hairstyles pegged as anime-inspired.. (Is it my fault any kind of front-bangs with body are considered anime?)
I've been styicting with an animation-inspired style of late, lots of strong shapes and angles. (that's been true for a long time, tho. My early material that I can honestly repect was multi-angle-shots, so I developed a strong sense of 3-dimensional space early.) The muscles part has been evolved from that, in that mostly, I'm figuring out how to break a bodypart into major constituent muscle groups, which I can then illustrate or ignore as required by the detail of the subject, and wrap them around the bonestructure of the character.
Two really good books on the subject I've recently found are Simplified Anatomy for the Comic Book Artist, by Chris Hart, and Action! Cartooning, by Ben Caldwell. (You might also like his second book, Fantasy Cartooning. In the later author's case, he give really good reference, but the principles as he applies them stick with you in a more mature fashion.
I recently found another book that I thought was his, very similar style, but not in the art section of Barnes&Noble, but rather, in the film section! Creating Characters with Personality, by Tom Bancroft. It's this whole book on principles of character design, and while it's using Animation as a source-reference, the whole thing is so.. maturely written, it can apply almost anywhere, art-wise. (If I was ever teaching a class on animation, these two books would be, if not required, major suggested sources, just because they articulate so much character design ethic.)
Maybe I'm blowing these books out of proportion, but for me, they've just hit the perfect spots to really push my personal art style forward.
I can agree on the limited use, although I'd say I get more good ref out of studying the structure, and being able to combine the shapes on paper over my own pose's bones.
For actual appearances sake, it'll sound kinda wierd, but look up videos of muscle guys on youtube. Some of them go a *little* off from where I would prefer to see (watch out for unexpected porn), but because they're generally moving around, and because these guys are amatuers rather than pros, you see a lot more casual poses and less 'ripped' guys.
My style started with animation, then went into comics as the obvious available angle. I tried anime, but while I can do it pretty well, I don't get as much out of it as the other styles, though I often have my characters hairstyles pegged as anime-inspired.. (Is it my fault any kind of front-bangs with body are considered anime?)
I've been styicting with an animation-inspired style of late, lots of strong shapes and angles. (that's been true for a long time, tho. My early material that I can honestly repect was multi-angle-shots, so I developed a strong sense of 3-dimensional space early.) The muscles part has been evolved from that, in that mostly, I'm figuring out how to break a bodypart into major constituent muscle groups, which I can then illustrate or ignore as required by the detail of the subject, and wrap them around the bonestructure of the character.
Two really good books on the subject I've recently found are Simplified Anatomy for the Comic Book Artist, by Chris Hart, and Action! Cartooning, by Ben Caldwell. (You might also like his second book, Fantasy Cartooning. In the later author's case, he give really good reference, but the principles as he applies them stick with you in a more mature fashion.
I recently found another book that I thought was his, very similar style, but not in the art section of Barnes&Noble, but rather, in the film section! Creating Characters with Personality, by Tom Bancroft. It's this whole book on principles of character design, and while it's using Animation as a source-reference, the whole thing is so.. maturely written, it can apply almost anywhere, art-wise. (If I was ever teaching a class on animation, these two books would be, if not required, major suggested sources, just because they articulate so much character design ethic.)
Maybe I'm blowing these books out of proportion, but for me, they've just hit the perfect spots to really push my personal art style forward.
Anyhoo..
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