Chapter 1 | POWERHOUSES
You can also show off your muscles in a drawing. Use this lesson to redraw powerhouses or create your own.
Anatomical drawings of muscles, Le Dr. Paul Richer, 1910, Anatomie artistique).
A famous powerhouse is The Incredible Hulk from the Marvel comics, first appeared in 1962. His muscle bundles are drawn realistically, with shadows and small differences in color. The Hulk is actually a nuclear physicist in real life, but due to a failed experiment with radiation, something drastic has happened to his DNA: Confronted with severe injustice he gets furious with rage. His skin turns green and his muscles, hands and feet become so swollen that he tears out of his clothes. Only his pants remain more or less intact. His head remains small.
Exercise 1: I’m a dull model figure, please give me muscles like the Hulk and something very heavy to lift!
Many powerful characters in comics are deliberately disproportioned. Look at the good-natured Obelix‘s exaggerated belly and buttocks, and his short legs. When I was in elementary school, I loved drawing the also good-natured Jerommeke from Suske en Wiske. Typical is his enormous chest.
Perhaps the oldest and most famous example of a powerhouse in comics is Popeye The Sailorman by the cartoonist Elzie Segar (1894-1938). Unlike Jerommeke, Popeye has a narrow torso but enormous forearms, hands and lower legs. Popeye constantly finds herself in sticky situations. Just when you think Popeye will not survive, he eats an entire can of spinach in one bite and suddenly has super powers. Also note all the extra lines that indicate movement, exertion, and sound.
Exercise 2: Come up with your own powerhouse with a unique and strange physique. Don’t hesitate to exaggerate strange proportions!
Mythology also features powerful figures, such as the demigod Heracles (or Hercules) from Greek mythology and Samson from the Bible. A spectacular engraving depicts Hercules battling the Lernaean Hydra, a multi-headed monster. The way the entire scene is conjured up in nuances of light and dark with delicate hatching is incredibly virtuosic.
In an engraving of the biblical figure Samson about to slay a lion, the entire scene is conjured onto paper with fine hatching.
EXTRA: If possible, find more examples of these or other powerhouses in art (also comics, games etc.) to redraw and maybe build your own scene around it.