(Eli)
In terms of drawing people, I primarily learned from copying images out of comic books. Not comic strips, like Dagwood or Beetle Bailey, but comic books like Spiderman and Superman. The figures in comic books are, for all practical purposes, nude figures that have lines drawn in to make it appear that they are wearing impossibly skin tight uniforms. Not only are these figures basically nude, they are usually the ultimate example, the highest pinnacle of human anatomical specimens. Every muscle and every curve is on display.
For a budding artist, the easiest thing to draw was the male figures. The angular muscles and the lack of curves made learning the figure easier, so that's what I've been focusing on for most of my drawing life. Women are more subtle and you have to get their curves placed accuratly or their figures are noticably distorted.
I have started a new project however, which features a college age girl in it, and so I must overcome my hesitations in dealing with the female figure and learn to draw it properly. For the last month and a half I've been working almost exclusively toward this end and have now done several figures that I'm not completely ashamed to show the world. There is not really anything important or super interesting about these two figures except that I should point out that I have no idea why the second one is holding a purse...she needed to be holding something and I thought 'You never see superheroines holding their purses!'. Now we know why...
