Hello Gang! Welcome back to the party that is Getting The Point. For those who who may not know I am your witty and brilliant host Mrfuzzynutz! Each week I try to bring you new ways to not only improve your art, but to look at things in different ways. But the one thing I hope to bring to the table each week is encouragement and provide a voice that says "Yes, You can do this".

So this lesson will be filled with then and now images of past work, and stories of my wasted youth. I display this for you, not to toot my horn, or show off, but to better illustrate the pitfalls of allowing your voices of doubt get the best of you.

As an artist, we are without a doubt are harshest and most brutal critics. We always look for the final detail that just doesn't sit right with us, ears a line over and over until we have a hole in the paper. Each and every piece we do sucks and it could have been better, yet we have fans and friends saying how amazing what we drew actually is.

We often fall into the trap of comparing our work next to "other" professionals, and get extremely disappointed when the final product does not match up to our liking. The online artist has the market corned on self loathing and second guessing their abilities like no other hobby/profession I have witnessed before.

Myself included, I used to hide my artwork for years. I would draw for hours and read just as many comics as I made drawing of my favorite heroes since my days of tracing and coloring from the pages of the UNOFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE. I would enter contests, drew my own comics, even was able to get accepted into PRATT INSTITUTE once upon a time. The passion was there, the love was clear to see. I just didn't let anyone see it.

Allow me to get a bit personal here, as I can honestly say, it was my self doubt and second guessing myself that led to me flunking out of art school the first year and packing my bags to go home and sent me into a 15 year tailspin of giving up and never trying to better then I was. The specter of "Oh I'm not that good" hung over my head for years. I was like Hal Jordan when he was infected with Paralax, the fear was just eating away at me, preventing me from being the best I could be.

As the years progressed, I would still draw in my spare time, but as always got cold feet when someone actually seen my work, and that is if I showed them at all. "Why don't you get a job at this" "Man, Your good, you should make your own comic" I would hear many times, but I would let fear guide me and chicken out and never follow though.

I once designed cd covers for a upcoming hip hop company with big dreams,ALL DAY INC. I designed logos for entertainment companies BUBBLES, a softball team called the SUPERCATS, and did stuff for family members from designing t-shirts for family reunions, logos for WIDOWS MITE ministry, and a horse farm EVERY EQUINE.

Had offers to draw comics as well, was asked to draw comics for adult bbw model ARIESBBW, and was creating a comic with a fellow coworker, even had financial backing to draw adult themed comics.

I tell you this not to brag, but to describe how deep my fear trully was, with all these squandered opportunities I have in my background, all the chances I could have taken a different path to "do something" with my talents.

But let me tell you my friends, that changed 2 years ago.

I attended my first comicbook convention, HERO-CON in Charlotte,NC. And I was just floored to see all the different level of artist there and displaying their work, and talking with their fans and trying to make new ones.

A dude who made buttons, with a sharpie and a machine was rubbing elbows with George Perez, and MarK Bagley. I seen guys hustling to make a few bucks doing sketches and original art, and I would look at it and say.."I could do better then that"

But what sealed the deal for me was when I seen artist that I knew from DEVIANTART.com. In essence these where artist no different then myself, not published, not making a living from a comic company, but scrapped enough money to get a table and sell prints of their work.

And then my wife said something that changed the way I seen myself as a artist" The only difference between them and you, they are there, you are here. You want to get a table, you got 1 year to make it happen."

BOOM

Fear turned into determination and self loathing turned into self critiquing. I knew my level of skill was weak as I learned bad habits, and frankly never tried to learn correctly. So I set out to become a better artist. I drew, I drew I drew and drew some more. I sucked and I knew it, but that was ok, I was seeking to improve.

Each submission to deviant was meant to get feedback to help create my next image. I owned my suckiness and was on a path to improve and no longer let fear guide me.

I tried new sites to post my work, now wanting to show it off to anyone who would look, COMICSPACE.com, WWEOC.COM, HENTAIFOUNDRY.com among others. It was Hentaifoundry's submission process that really jumpstarted my desire for improvement as they have a rejection process you must pass before they submit your art.

10 rejections in a row before I was able to get my first image approved! and till this day I may go through multiple rejections before a successful submissions. But in the past I would give up trying and accept that I was not good enough and move on. But now I know I need to do things differently and accurately each and every time and there are no shortcuts in creating good work.

I was improving, having some success however the fear in me said...I'm just not ready yet..Not quite there yet. I missed this years Hero-con as a result.

But then a few months back I seen a youtube video by zefrank1 , ( video is at the end of the lesson) and in the video he laid out some very profound words that hit me in my soul and mind, BUT one line just hit me like a bolt of lightning...

"THERE IS NO NEED TO SHARPEN MY PENCILS ANYMORE, EVEN MY DULL ONES WILL LEAVE A MARK"

So this brings us to today lessons everyone. YOU DO SUCK, YOUR ART DOES NEED TO IMPROVE. and yes Your stuff does NOT look like Ivan Reis or Stuart Immonen. But that's ok!

You will get there. you just need to practice and practice and get out there and take advantage of your opportunities when you have them.

What is Intelligence? What is Talent? To me, their just fancy words for experience and repetition.

Let me ask you this, do you think you are good at walking? Are you good at tying your shoes? taking a shower?

Sounds silly doesn't it, but in essence you learned these things, and no they are so ingrained in you, you hardly think of it as anything more then common daily routine.

And this is what the essence of learning how to draw. It's no magic formula, there isn't a special pencil that does it. "Talent" is just the by product of practice, skill is just the off spring of dedication and effort. no more and no less.

Just like building muscle, you need to left weights, so do you need to draw to improve your artwork.

So if I can give you any tips to help you improve, it would be this:

I CAN, I WILL, I AM!

I CAN draw! That is what you should tell yourself. I can write my own comic one day, or draw my own books or strips. With a medium that is simple as a pencil and a paper to create with the only thing holding you back...is YOU!

I WILL draw 50 hands today, I will take a online course in drawing, I will learn anatomy, I will draw in my sketchbook. not once a month, or once a week....EVERYDAY...EVERY SINGLE CHANCE YOU GET. I will improve

I AM capable of doing this. I am going to accomplish this. I am an...ARTIST!

I

I hope each and everyone who views this, takes something away from this. Maybe I will be the spark to light that fire of passion? But know this...before viewing zefrank1's video, I would never have had the nerve to start accepting commissions and trying to make the turn to freelance artist, or more importantly, feel I had anything worthy to offer in the way of actually 'teaching" anyone anything.

And thus, Getting The Point would never have been born.

I hope to see some new faces in the Artist Showdown's as these are perfect chances for you to sharpen your pencils and skills and just get out there and make something happen. I would love to see what you guys that are hidding out there can do.

If you like, drop me a IM and I can look over your stuff and give you some pointers 1 on 1 if you like :)

Until Next Week ARTISTS

I am Mrfuzzynutz, and no this is not a mask, I really am this handsome

GUESS WHOSE BACK, BACK AGAIN.FUZZY'S BACK, TELL A FRIEND:

Gooooood Evening 'Viners!! It is I, Mrfuzzynutz broadcasting at 1.21 gigawatts live from the Command Center, Charlotte,North Carolina! First, Allow me to apologies for missing last week's edition as I just had to much on my plate at once and didn't plan properly to compensate for it. Also apologies for this edition for being so late, no wifi for most of the day, However we made some tweaks to the schedule and we are back better then ever.

So when we last spoke we talked about the different ways you can go about creating your work. I have noticed that we seem to be a group based in traditional methods looking to jump into digital work down the road. I will try to talior these episodes with the pencil and paper point of view in mind and see how that goes.

It is no secret you can find tons of info on how to draw things and from more accomplished and talented intrsuctors then myself, I make no claims to being an expert, just trying to give you another point of view to tackle the basics of drawing and creating your work. The real work will be up to you to actually do the drawings, but in the practice and finding a method that works for you.

I have mashed up various different methods to my work that I can't even begin to tell you what it would be called lol but I seem to lean towards the ANDREW LOOMIS style of sketching or at least how to construct figures and forms.

SOMETIMES A EYEBALL IS JUST AN EYEBALL:

And that is where we will begin todays topic. DRAWING HUMAN EYES. I tend to go for a realistic/cartoony vibe to my eyes. Which means, I follow the 'rules' of anatomy but I am not a slave to the exact details of details. In regards to eyes, I don't draw every single eye lash, but I do try to apply my lines where the eye lashes are supposed to be.

Artist vary on how they create eyes, some use a simple oval shape, others have a diamond shaped look, and others use a rectangular style. The placement of the eyes however are non negotiable and this need to stay consistent. When your eyes are drawn incorrectly, or placed incorrectly on the head, your viewer immediately recognizes something is off, even if they are not what is the error.

If you could break the head into sepreate parts, you would have 3 main sections to work with. Forehead to Eyes, Eyes to Nose, and Nose to Chin. Using the Loomis method as a guide, your eyes can easily be placed in the right spot every time.

You also want to be sure to remember the eye balls and spheres that fit inside the eye socket of the skull. A great source to see how the eyes and eye socket work is to find some references of the classic "Mars Attacks" images, and really check out the Aliens eyes. In essence their human eyes without their eyelides. I would even go so far as to say that it is a human skull and eyes essentially.

Or if you like your hideous monsters a bit cuter, Mike Wazowski of Monsters Inc fame, is a good source to see how the eyeball works as well. So when you have a shape, that is basically 3 circles of various sizes stacked up on each other, why does drawing the eyes seem to give us such a issue?

I like to think that as rookie artist, we forget the form and skip straight to the finsihed product of trying to draw the whites of the eyes right out the gate, That and watching too many DRAGON BALL Z cartoons. Does the image below look familar when you want to learn how to draw eyes?

Like we said earlier your eyeball is a sphere, covered by your eye lids. Your eye lids are nothing more then a very thin fold of skin that does nothing else then to protect your eyes. And it is this skin that give your eyes there "shape". Some folks may have larger rounder eyes, some of us my have a look of narrow eyes. But your eye balls and eye lids are two sepreate parts that give us the look that we call "eyes".

If this was a medical class I would explain how the eyeball has numerous parts to it that we never see. But for our purposes as an artist we care about these parts;

1. Caruncula Lacrimalis- The Pink 'dot' found in the corners closest to the nose. Which by the way I thought was the tear duct...not the case actually lol
2. Tunica Conjunctiva- Made famous by William Prescott's Battle of Bunker Hill quote. "Don't Fire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes!" for those who are familiar with American History.
3. The IRIS- This is what gives your eyes their colors. Which don't have any color at all, but merely reflect light based on how much melanin present on your cells ( yeah, I friggin Googled that one lol)
4. The PUPIL- The Black Circle of your eye, this lil' guy is where light enters your retina, and is black because it is absorbing the light rays as it enters. ( Move over Bill Nye!)

As artist we surely would go mad if we had to draw every single piece of the eyeball, but we don't need to thankfully.The light bulb didn't go off to me on how to draw eyes until I seen this DAREDEVIL bust. You can really see how the eye ball sits inside of the eye lids and isn't just simply a rectangle on your face, it curves, it has depth and it is wet which in turn gives us the reflective 'dots' when we look at them.

So speaking from my own experience, once I understood I am drawing a simple circle and not some weird oval rectangle shape, my eyes looked much more believable. And while you will see numerous tutorials showing how to draw the eye with the oval shape method, I just couldn't get it right until I realized it was the skin folds of the eye lid, and even the eye brows that gave you your expressions and emotion on the faces.

Below I break down how I see the eyes. 3 circles of various of sizes overlapping each other.

ANd then you have examples of what it looks like when you manipulate the eye lid and eyebrows and you can see how you can easily change the tone of your character by changing the eye lid direction…not the eye ball itself.

I have been a bit long winded today,with a bunch of images too, so I will wrap this up with mentioning the eye lashes and eye brows.

In regards to the eye lashes. Any woman will tell you that the longer and thicker they are they better they are. As an artist you really don't want to get caught up with these details if you don't need to. Simple follow the line you made with the eye lid, and keep in mind the eye lashes are darker and thicker on the tod eye lid and thinner and more spread out on the bottom portion.

Depending on what you are drawing, you may omit the bottom lashes in your drawing, and just make yourself a thicker Bruce Timm-like line for the top portions.

Eyebrows on the other hand can range from big and bushy, to thin and thick. The really isn't a right style or method, you will need to play with which style of look works best for your character and what you feel comfortable with drawing. But do keep in mind that when you introduce different sizes and widhts to your eyebrows your able to really give your characters the right emotion and looks to make some pretty cool images.

So there we have it. More information about drawing the eyeball you have seen in sometime I would wager lol. But as a takeaway, just remember it is called a eyeBALL for a reason. Don't be afraid to draw some circles and work your way up from there.

You counted on your fingers once upon a time to get to 10 ( some of you sitll might..?) It goes back to one of my mottos, It is all about the finished product, not how you get there. SO feel free to draw the circles and erase them once you get your shapes right.

Can't draw a circle, or a curved line? Your local art store, or hobby shop have really useful and cheap templates you can pick up.

Until Next Time,

Just like Dory from 'Finding Nemo' says …Just Keep Swimming!

I am Mrfuzzynutz, and I only do the Harlem Shake, when I am freezing cold…and I am in Harlem. Which adds up to ….never!

Check Out Andrew Loomis's line of books here

Once again PROKO's video demonstrate the method in a really cool way, hope you check out his videos.

Check me out on: Deviant Art

Like me on FACEBOOK

until next time…EXSELSIOR!

Good Afternoon everyone! I apologize for the delay, but I ran into a roadblock trying to upload the video that you can view at the end of this session. But it was a good learning experience, and I am on track now.

So let's get into it today. Every artist will have different methods of working, just as they have different methods of creating their art. Who likes to cross hatch for texture, others use heavy blacks in their inks, or even who uses charcoal vs graphite.

The same can be said in the media they choose to create their work, but which is best? Traditional methods have been around for centuries. While Digital media has gathered steam in the past decade and shows no signs of slowing down.

As such artist find themselves having to choose sides which media they want to work in. In some cases Digital is the standard for certain employers, while others still choose to be 100% traditional.

I find that artist should work in what makes them comfortable and what produces the best work for them. I also would say you should try everything and see if it something you could benefit from as well.

So let's take a quick look at traditional tools;

PENCILS- The type of pencils you use really is based on personal taste, and the type of work your doing. If your letting someone else ink your work, you may want to have a darker lead so your lines show more. Otherwise, feel free to experiment which will work for you, and no need to focus on having just one either.

• WOODEN- From the classic no. 2 we rocked as kid's to the picking up a set of pencils that have leads of various darkness. H leads are the hardest and lightest, and B's being the softer and darker, so a pencil of 4h is very light, while a 4b is pretty dark.
• MECHANICAL- Also come in various sizes like wooden, but these always stay sharp. Same rules apply with wooden pencils, but with a few "click-clacks" with your thumb, they are always ready to roll, no need to sharpen these guys.

ERASERS- Don't be surprised not all erasers are built the same, or meant for the same tasks

• RUBBER-The Pink ones, A Classic,but if your working with darker pencils, these can leave smudge marks
• VINYL- Normally the white ones, work best with lighter pencil lines
• GUM- The yellowish color eraser that tends to crumble when used
• KNEADED- This is my favorite, as it works well with all line weights and you can form it to fit into tight spots

PAPER- Just because it is White, doesn't mean it is the best choice for your project

• "Ply" is the term to look for with paper, 1ply is thin, 2ply is the industry standard for comic pages and boards, and then you have 3ply
• If your the type of artist who uses a light box, you do not want anything thicker then 2ply
• If your using inks, paints, or watercolors you will want to use a 3ply

You also would want to get a good set of TEMPLATES. These would be your rulers,french curves,t-squares and oval templates. Yeah, you can draw your lines without them, but they will look much cleaner using a template.

Experiement with diffrent tools and see which one works best for you. The good thing about tradional media it is pretty affordable to pick up a set of materials at your local hobby shop, or art store.

You can choice to work in digital media, which is pretty awesome and does have a few advantages to "Pencil and Paper" methods. Cleaner lines and files, editing as much as you like without smudges, and you can create custom templates for future work. But the downside is clearly the costs of the programs and hardware. And its the cost that some artist have a hard time justifying the expense.

Some things to know about Digital Work

• COMPUTERS- Cant do digital work without it. A Laptop and Desktop will be needed.The more RAM the better
• EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE- You want to back up your work and be able to free up the space on your computer, and with the storage sizes hitting terabytes these days, it is just a good idea to pick up if you do do digital work
• SCANNER and PRINTER- For those like myself who still want to work in Tradional methods but also take adavantage of the digital advantages, you need to get your work in, and get it out.
• A DRAWING TABLET- Drawing digitally with a mouse is near impossible to get crisp lines and different line weights. Tablets are fantastic for this. You may have heard artist mentioning a CINTIQ, which is combining the best of a tablet with your monitor.
• ART PROGRAM OF YOUR CHOICE- From the workhorse that is PHOTOSHOP, and the rest of the ADOBE products, COREL paint, GIMP, or even MANGA STUDIO. These all do the job very well, some do a specific job better then others. Experiment with different programs and see which works best for you.

There you have a quick rundown of the different tools you can choose to create your artwork. But the big take away is, how you decide to create your work or how long it takes to complete it matters less the final result, as this is what your viewers will be seeing.

You can choose to show your step by step videos, or explain what you used, but you don't get credit for what you use, but what you did with it.

So which is better? it comes down to what you feel works best for you. Some artists work totally in traditional while others are all digital and make no apologies about doing so. Personally I use a mixture of both.

I included a few examples of the stages of how I go about my workflow. Typically I do my sketches and pencils with paper. I feel I get better control and detail on paper. I then go ahead and scan my images in at 300 dpi or higher to starting inking digitally with MANGA STUDIO. I then finish the colors off in PHOTOSHOP.

In future G.T.P'S I will go in further detail on how I use these programs, but for know this is a quick example of what I do. This is my first screen capture video, so I apologize for the choppiness and audio issues.

I think these lessons will be better with video examples in the future so we will see how that goes. Fell free to share how your workflow is. Do you work in traditional methods, or are you all digital? a combination of both like myself?

And before we wrap this up, If you have any topics you want to see me cover in the following weeks, feel free to drop me a IM or leave a comment. I have a general knowledge on a good range of topics, so it doesn't hurt to ask and see what I can do for you.

So enjoy the video, and until next week

I am Mrfuzzynutz, and I don't double dip my chips!

And there we have it. This is just how I do it, your style may be more efficient and may involve more steps, but what matters is that your comfortable with it, but your also open to try new things to make it easier.

Remember feel free to leave comments on how to improve these lessons. If you you have a question that needs answering, or if you would like to see a topic covered in the future.

Until Next Week!

Welcome back fellow 'Viners and welcome to second installment of Learning Anatomy. I am as always your humble, and incredibly handsome host Mrfuzzynutz and this is GETTING THE POINT.

So let's jump right into it. Last time we introduced the idea of the importance of anatomy and the various muscle groups of the body, also learning to establish landmarks on the human form and creating a visual conversation for your viewers.

But before we go any further, Look at this image to the right...take a really good look as well will visit it again later.

If your like me, a fan of Cape and Mask style of comics, where characters have amazing abilities and amazing bodies to go with them. From the Mighty Thor, to Doomsday it is all about muscles. And if your going to draw those jaw dropping images of heroes and villains moving planets with a single punch...you need to flex some muscle!

Clearly comics and the way they drew muscles are not what they used to be, from the classic pages of Jerry Ordway and Carmine Infantino to current artist like David Finch or Ed Benes hyper detailed styles. Despite the differences in styles, the basic rule of identifying major muscle groups has remained the same.

The Major Muscle Groups are as follows:

1. TRAPEZIUS MUSCLE
2. DELTOIDS (shoulders)
3. PECTORALIS (chest)
4. BICEPS ( The free admission to the GUN SHOW!)
5. ABDOMEN ( The Baby Maker Muscles)
6. LEGS- QUADS ( front) HAMSTRINGS ( rear)
7. GLUTEUS MAXIMUS ( Talking about 'dat badonkadonk y'all!)

nce you have identified the muscles, you need to figure out what they look like and what they do. Let's look at the Traps.

A large muscles that streches from the base of the skull to the middle of the back. It helps move the shoulder blades and helps move the neck. But here is the fun factoid, the Traps are actually on your back and are not part of your neck. I didn't realize this until 5 months ago, and as a result my drawings were always off and I never knew why. So if your looking at the body from the front, you can see the traps, but in essence they are covering the neck not unlike a cobra's hood.

So when I go to draw them, I think of them as a diamond shaped turtle shell lol.

I use the same approach for the rest of the muscles, I try to simply the form as much as possible.

• The Pecs, they remind me of the big square shapes you see on G1 versions of Optimus Prime
• Deltoids, bring to mind the shoulder pads you would find football players using, as they perform the same way
• the ABS? No more then 2 squares stacked on top of a elongated rectangle.
• Your quads are a huge muscle that stretches from your hip to kneecap, imagine a tear drop shape on a angle.

Imagine each muscle as a piece of a puzzle, and each piece as a basic shape. Mix this with your gestures and developing dynamic tension in your figure, placing the muscles in the right spot is alot easier to manage.

The sketching phase is where you can make mistakes and build your forms with trial and error. I use a light graphite 4h ( I will talk about materials in the future) and i use the eraser often. Perfection isn't the goal in this stage, but we want to build forms that look strong and make sense to the viewers eyes.

I know I went over a few areas in these past episodes, but I think we were able to break it down to simple methods and gain a new way of looking at building are sketches into cool images.

But before we go...Hey, do you remember that pile of scribbly lines in that first image..No? Well go look..I'll wait.....Look closely at it again. Would you believe that those lines aren't lines, but basic shapes that took me 5 seconds to make, that make up framework of a Male Body? Look again..

Does that make sense? I know..you don't believe me...Here check it out.

Simple Curves and shapes are how I begin my sketches, and don't be afraid to make a mistake, that is why we have erasers, but the true crime is not recognizing the mistakes, but not doing anything about the one you do see in the sketching phase. But the work into the sketches, and the rest is easy and fun.

So I will live you with this pretty cool resource from Anatomy Zone on youtube, a bit heavy on the technical terms but pretty good at explaining where everything is and how they move.

So that's a wrap for this episode join me next time as I show you how I apply what I talked to you about in my work featuring EMMA FROST!

Until Next Week, I am Mrfuzzynutz, and yes, I do know who let the dogs out!

p.s.

Please feel free to leave comments and questions about what you've read. Also if you have any suggestions for future episodes or tips on the format. I check the site every day so I will be around to answer what you leave.

p.s.s or p.p.s or whatever the heck it is supposed to be ( what does p.s stand for anyway)

I am open for business!! I am available for commissions and will be selling original artwork as well

Like me on FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/MrfuzzynutzArt

I can also be found on Deviantart.com as well http://mrfuzzynutz.deviantart.com

Helllooooo Fellow 'Viners!

Welcome back to the only source on Comicvine.com dedicated to helping my fellow aspiring artist and part time hobbyist get better at what we love to do. namely, drawing dudes in capes and tights beating the crap out of each other! This is GETTING THE POINT, and I am your humble host, MRFUZZYNUTZ.

Last episode we touched on GESTURE DRAWINGS, and how they allow us to really get the flow and tension going in your figure drawings. Also learning the importance of starting simple to build into something looks to be very complex.

This week will be a two part lesson focusing on a area of drawing that even professional artist have issues with. We will discuss ANATOMY and learning why it is important and also how to use it in our drawings.

So has this happened to you before, You spent a few hours drawing Captain America standing in a wicked bad ass pose, but you take a step back and you think to yourself, 'This doesn't look right'? Happens more often then you know actually, your brain is having a hard time understanding what the eyes are seeing. It is aware it is looking at a human form, and that it is Captain America, but just can't seem to understand that something is missing or not in the right spot.

Our brains know what it is supposed to see in this situation and it is just not seeing the proper placement where everything is supposed to be. Your Jawline my be a bit to narrow, or your shoulder doesn't connect to the chest properly, or any host of incorrect placement of body parts. Now if your an artist liked famed Rob Liefeld, you say "Fuck it, I am a rock star bitches" and your work looks jacked up, or your like Jim Lee and you say " Yeah but I own companies that you work for bitches"

When discussing anatomy you often come across the intense and precise work that goes into medical and physiology training. And let me tell you, that is NOT what we will focus on. To much damn Latin for me to remember lol

But what we will focus on is how the human body works. And for that we need to stop thinking in terms of "FACE","ARM" or "LEG" and start having the conversation of "MANDIBLE", "ABDOMEN", and "PELVIS"

The Human Body is one of the most amazing examples of design and function in the world. Not only do we have this advanced machine performing hundreds of functions every second the cool thing is it mass produced. My skeleton and muscle groups are the same as yours. My abdomen is located the same place as yours, it just might have a 'bit' more fatty tissue surrounding it, but it is there lol.

Simply put there is no guess work involved in the human body and as such there should be no guess work when drawing the human body. When you follow proper placement, your figures will start looking better and alot of other elements will improve as well. You can be the best colorist in the world, but if the form isn't correct, they way the light reflects it will be incorrect as well.

*BOOM* I just dropped some deep shit on you there, right?*

When I start my drawings, I dont obsess over every detail of the body, but I think of it as a visual checklist. I focus on being able to let the viewers eyes have a 'visual conversation" with the brain if you will, by saying "Ok, everything is in it's proper place".

Lets take a look at a recent drawing I did for a recent Comicvine.com Challenge. This is my drawing of Superboy and the reference I used to create the image. I highlighted the 4 main areas I tried to address in the drawing. And in doing so I was able to construct a youthful and heroic face a bit better then in past attempts.

"Sternocleido what?! Fuzzy what the hell is that?" You may be asking. The Sternocleidomastoid ( section 4 in the image ) is the tendon that connects the back of the skull to the Suprasternal Notch. What you have is a major muslce that allows us to flex and rotate our heads. It is very pronunced on the neck and it gives us that 'V' shape in muscular figures. take a look at the examples below. And how the different artist go about creating the visual conversation for that muscle group. J. Scott Cambell makes a small V-Shape at the base of the pit of the neck, simply implying the muscle is there letting our eyes fill in the gap, Mark Bagley for instance goes all in with his muscle with sharp lines a defined "V", while greg Capullo uses heavy shadow to show Sinestro, but take note at the sharp line in that shadow, acknowledging the muscle while still casting it in heavy shadows.

And where a artist may miss on how the muscle forms properly on the figure, we notice it in the form of that "Something is not right" feeling you get as a viewer. Seen in Rob Liefeld's Kid Flash, where there is a attempt to identify the muscle but does not connect to the pit of the neck properly, Humberto Ramos didn't quite lay down that V-shape, as it is a straight line in Emma's neck, and Todd Nauck's Dazzler's neck is a bit off as there really isn't any visible indicators of the muscle.

So we covered a lot of ground in this lesson,But here are a few key things;

1. We are looking for an understanding, not mastery of anatomy. Knowing where major bones and muscles are located and move on the body is more important then knowing the full latin name of it.
2. Do not guess! There is no deviation in terms of placement or structure in your body, from the skeleton to your muscles and tendons, mine are the same as yours. Complete the visual checklist for each part you are drawing
3. Develop that Visual conversation in your drawings, No matter your style, or level you can still convey the placement of the muscle structure in various ways.
4. Your eyes will tell you if you did it wrong, if not yours...someone else's will lol

And that is a wrap gang!

I will not be including a EXTRA CREDIT this week, but I would like you all to really apply some focus into your next drawing on using the proper anatomy. Don't just draw an arm, Draw the proper muscle groups that are located in a arm. Also keep the comments and input coming, help me to help you :)

This was a brief intro into seeing how knowing is truly half the battle and we will get down and dirty in the next episode showing how simple shapes can help create massive muscles!

Until Next Week. Here are some really excellent resources to help you flex some muscle with your work:

1) MARA3D- Mobile App that gives you awesome 3d Models for your reference needs. the Free option is more then adequate, but there is a pay option for those who may be inclined.

2) Draw With Jazza- I like his simple and easy to follow style in his videos. His Torso video is a great way to learn to develop your understanding of muscle groups.

Also use pick up a magazine or two. I normally like to grab a issue of MUSCLE and FITNESS, or FLEX MAGAZINE, and for the ladies AMERICAN CURVES, and OXYGEN

Simple google search for ZBRUSH Models will yield some solid results like these;

See you next episode, I am Mrfuzzynutz, and yes, I do think Peanut Butter and Chocolate taste great together.

Thanks for joining me on this episode. I am really excited to get into this and talk about something that has dramatically improved my drawings.

First thing to know about me is I think there is 3 main elements to designing a drawing. The Sketch,The Inking and The Color;

1) The Sketch- the Breakdown,Thumbnail, the overall 'feel and flow' of what your drawing.

2) The Inking- The part where you begin to devolp your shapes and forms and build your character and areas of your drawing

3) The Color- This where you bring the sizzle, the little areas of detail that make the image 'cool'

With that being said, we will dive into The Sketch, and I will present one of the most important skills you could practice as a artist, the GESTURE.

A Gesture Drawing is simply a quick drawing that captures the movement and tone of what your drawing. Gestures help greatly in giving you really dynamic poses and helps your decide which poses would best work for your image. They are also excellent to brainstorm ideas on how you would want to plan a layout of your page.

From the Hulk lifting a tank over his head, to Silver Surfer speeding threw the cosmos, all of it starts with a simple gesture drawing.

So your thinking " Oh, I get it Fuzzy, you want me to draw some stick figures before I draw in some Kirby Krackle to my bad ass hero"

And I would respond with…NO. It is much more then that,yet just as simple.

When I hear stick figure, I think of stiff and rigid lines, and static movement. A gesture is meant to be loose and quick, the lines you put down do not to be perfect, but natural and capture the direction and flow of what your planning to draw

You want your wrists relaxed and loose and work in sweeping lines. You want to curves, and s-shaped lines, nothing straight or flat.

Let's take a look at some gestures I did. On the left are drawings from Adam Hughes, Eddy barrows, and the bottom two are from Jim Lee. On the right you have my gestures showing the movement of the figure.

As you see in the finished versions, You can feel the strength of Superman breaking the chains, the pain of Superboy getting blasted , and the tension with Batman and Joker. All of those dramatic elements were created and designed with a good solid gesture.

So now you know WHAT a gesture is? But HOW do you go about creating them. I have found success in focusing on a critical part of the human body. The Spine. The human spine is a amazing design, it bends, twists and is strong enough to support the human body, no spine, no movement. And this is how you should treat your gestures.

Learning to capture the movement of the spine in your gesture work, you will find your body will start to make more "sense" in regards to balance and weight, but here is where your dynamic poses start to take shape begin to pop.

And speaking of popping, above you have two images of how focusing on the spine can create that dynamic tension in your figures.

So that about wraps up this episode. I hope you were able to follow along and find some use for this very important method of drawing. Gestures are both essential to capturing movement and tension of a figure, but once you get more comfortable doing them, you can create on in 30 seconds!

EXTRA CREDIT

Now comes the fun part. your mission this week if you choose to accept it, is to work on your gesture drawings! I will say this often, The only way to improve is to work on improving. And to that end, I would like to see your gesture drawings! take 15 mins from your day, grab some paper, pen,paper or even go digital if you'd like and do a cluster of 30 second gestures and share them with everyone. I will provide feedback for those who do submit some of their drawings

Also please check out the video on gesture drawings from Prokio

Or you can simply take your favorite comic book images and practice on those as well. You can make a gesture out of any human form.

So there we have it. the first episode is in the books. I hope this was easy to follow and informative. GETTINNG THE POINT is meant to be a learning tool for artist of all levels, so help me to help you by leaving some comments and feedback. Topics you may want to see covered, or maybe I can explain things a bit differently. Until Next Week True Believers, I am Mrfuzzynutz

Happy Drawing Everyone!

Greetings and Salutations fellow 'Viners!

Welcome to the first edition of what I hope becomes a useful tool for the more creative individuals of the Comicvine.com Universe. Each week I will be presenting to you with a different perspectives on methods of drawing, how to improve as an artist and also to help motivate and encourage growth no matter what your 'talent' level is.

So some of you may have seen me in various forum debates, or heard a question or two answered by G-man, in his 'Ask and Ye Shall Receive' videos, but mostly I am know for participating in the various weekly Art Forum Challenges here on the Vine. ( see images below for examples of my earlier work.)

"Wow, Fuzzy, That is great you know how to hit the 'Submit" button a bunch of times" but what makes me an authority to write a blog on teaching how to draw. The answer is simple...I am not. In fact I will never claim to be immensely 'talented' or accomplished in my work.

But what I am is a 39 yr old, Black Male father of 3, born in Freehold,Nj, and as of 2 years ago, call Charlotte, NC my home. I have been reading comics since the 1980's and as most fans, did doodles and drawings of my favorite characters growing up. Was a decent athlete in my youth, and this served me well enough to enroll in Upsala College, in 1993, however due to budget issues the school closed in one year. And it was then I decided to take my meager skills I developed drawing in my bedroom various comics and took my portfolio to Brooklyn, Ny to the steps of Pratt Institute. I was accepted in the fall of 94, I dropped out the following year, but more on that at another time.

This is the extent of my career. Never been published, never worked as a intern at a comic company,never got paid to draw anything. EVER.

I am just like you guys out there, but I have over a decade of knowledge of being a 'self taught artist' I read books, took college course, and hundreds of You Tube videos all in the effort to learn and get better. And what I can provide is being a different voice to explain what basically everyone has already said. If you want to get better as an artist, you need to draw, or write, or sing or what ever your creative outlet my be. From Nike's "JUST DO IT", every sports cliche "Practice makes perfect" or even your mothers words of "Try,Try and Try again". The keys to success have been there the entire time, I will just show you which keys match which locks.

So I hope you will join me in this journey. The main goal is to provide and explain the tips and techniques used in art in a simple drama free way. I will start from the ground up, and try to cover the subjects that can help the most. For example we will focus on gestures, anatomy and sketching right out the gate, but I may briefly touch on how to sell your work later down the road.

New episodes will be released on Tuesdays with a lesson, and some homework which will be no more then some exercises beases on that weeks topic that can be submitted for me to review.

I am excited about this, this should be fun

See ya soon

FUZZY

p.s so for those who are still not convinced, or not sure I can help, check out the progression in my work. Still not 'perfect' but you can see the difference your hard work will yield in time.

Hi gang! 
I am putting together  drawing project over at my Deviantart gallery called simply...TOP 10.. 
I know the name isn't original but it is meant to get me to draw more and different things this year 
  
So with that said I decided to focus on the bad guys for 2011 
and then in conceiving this list I discovered that when discussing top 10 list often it is the makes that dominate the lists 
and rightfully so, with heavyweights such as Darkseid,Joker and the Dr Doom's of the world. 
 
But where does the likes of Killer Frost, or Titania fit in? 
So I was at a loss to come up with the "definitive list", a list you can argue the placement of the entries but 
there is no doubt they belong in he discussion. 
 so I decided to take it to the people and get some input 
 
So theses are the ladies I am going to bat with 
What do you think? 
10) Talia al Ghul
9) Madam Masque 
8) Poison Ivy 
7) Star Sapphire 
6) Spiral 
5) Titania 
4) Malice 
3) Enchntress 
2) Moonstone 
1) Mystique
 
I am not in love with Sapphire at 7, she is their because she is almost a icon in the GL universe and hard not to have a discussion about villians with out Carol 
Batman has Selina, Hal as Sapphire, but is she top 10 worthy?  
Same goes for Whitney at 9 to be honest I was brainstorming this list so she might not make the final cut 
 
Lady shiva and Deathstrike were considered as well s Deathbird and Circi so we will see who makes the final list

I have been a comic fan and reader for close to 3 decades and thankfully I have seen my fair share of events and milestones. "Deaths" and story lines that when concluded will "Never Be The Same", reboots and other elements to create a good story. 
 
I have always been curious what the mindset is when trying to create change in comics. I can't think of one hero that has not received a tweak to their powers or a wardrobe change in the sake of creating excitement in he character or the book. But ultimately the creators go back to basics stating " The Classics element of the character is what I loved the best and I wanted to see him as I remembered him growing up. 
 
CHANGE 
Daredevil succumbs to the darkside 
Dick Grayson is The Batman and Bruce Wayne's Son is The New Robin 
The Teen Titans are on the JLA 
The Inhumans and Shi'ar at War 
 
All these changes depict a natural evolution of stories and characters, But why is it these things do not have lasting effects? When does a change become a Gimmick? 
 
GIMMICKS 
BRAND NEW DAY 
Red and Blue Superman 
Knightfall 
 The Clone Saga 
 
It seems the more iconic the character the bigger the gimmick and the backlash. Power Girl was de powered,The Flash used to run at half the speed he does now, and had to eat to maintain his energy. Firestorm had Cancer, Aquaman had a hook for a hand. Hl Jordan was once DC's greatest Villain, the Spirit of Vengeance and the greatest GL that ever lived. 
 
All of these events happened and had various degrees of success. But I though the reason for change is to make progress, not to merely try something for the sake of trying it. The one side of me says...If your going to do it, go big or go home. It makes for more interesting story telling and creativity if done correctly. 
 
But the other side says..Dang it..I miss the Scarlet Witch..Dang it..Simon should be an Avenger right now.Dang it...When is Beast Boy going to grow up and leave the TiTans?? 
 
I do believe their should be changes made for every character. But I believe these changes should be to advance the characters history not reduce them to sweep weeks headlines.  
 
What do you think? Change is good? or leave my comics alone and just tell better stories? 

Over the years there has been so many good ones that bite the dust often to satisfy the shock factor of a certain storyline. 
Bu which characters do you wish really really REALLY was removed from the land of the living? 
 
My vote would be The Black Knight. Former Avenger with a decen fan following so it wouldn't be a complete useless death. and with him gone makes way for a updated version. Perhaps as a Villian to take advantage of the Ebony Blade effectively.. 
 
Or on the DC side, I would not mind one bit if Huntress catches a ticker to R.I.P land. She just seems lost in the mix. 
 
What do you guys think?