Escher Girls

summerotaku submitted: Jirni #1 by Aspen Comics Jirni, the...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:01:00 -0400

Jirni #1 by Aspen Comics

Jirni, the warrior princess trained in a number of fatal yet sexy martial arts.

Contest ideas?

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:02:05 -0400

So, it’s about that time that Escher Girls is going to have another contest! (Complete with an art prize!)

But I was wondering, did people want to do the usual caption contest (where I post a picture and people caption what they think is going on/what the character is saying) or something a little different, where I put a picture and people can graphically alter it, adding a word bubble, or changing the background, etc, but not altering the main characters’ poses or facial expressions, to create the context of what they think is going on?

That would be a little more involved and interesting, but also take more work and not be as easily accessible to everybody (but be more interesting for an audience to look at, maybe.)

What do people think? Which would be more fun for you, and what would you like to do? Are there any other ideas people might have for a similar kind of contest?

soozarts: karenhealey: bisexual candycorn: thoughts on...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:01:18 -0400

soozarts:

karenhealey:

bisexual candycorn: thoughts on skintones

princessneeshydoomcuddles:

mulattafury:

people ask me a lot about drawing poc, more specifically “how” to do it. my kneejerk reaction is to get frustrated by it, because the answer is “just like you’d draw anything else.” it’s like the main excuse artists and writers use to not include poc in their art and in their worlds — they “don’t know how,” implying that we somehow operate by a separate set of rules, that while white characters don’t require a special set of considerations to be varied and textured and interesting, non-white characters are just an elusive series of step-by-step instructions that most creators just can’t be assed to learn or to include

i still feel that way

but

i guess i can understand that most instructive media focuses specifically on white aesthetics, proportions, skintones, and features, so there really is a need for more instructive material that is more inclusive

i can dig it

that said, there is a lot that i don’t know and am not good at and i don’t really feel comfortable trying to instruct other artists, but i’m fine with taking you through my thought processes a little

SO here’s some stuff about skintones. it’s not perfect, and there will never be a better teacher than the world around you for showing you what things look like and how to express them

first off, if you’ve ever seen me stream you know i don’t usually block in my shading with hard lines like this. i like to paint and sample colors as i go, but i’m trying to communicate my ideas about color a little better

but i’ve always used the same basic process for coloring skintones, any skintones, forever and always:

this is going to change up a little bit with directional lighting, colored lighting, environmental lighting, shit like that, but this is your basic procedure. the biggest mistake i think artists make is using skintone+black for shadows and skintone + white for highlights, and that results in pretty dull looking skintones

in the former image, i only varied the value of the main skin color, but in the latter i also varied the hue and saturation. doing so gives you more of an opportunity to add warmth and depth to your colors, as well as bring in environmental colors if you need to

you want to sample around the palette, use reds and purples and oranges, don’t just stay within the range of your base tone!

this applies for all colors, not just skin, but especially skin! you want skin to look alive, not plastic and dull

these same rules apply for most skintones

though it’s always going to be incredibly helpful to just look at references of the skintone you’re trying to draw, for little details like (for example), very dark skin, because there is a more extreme light/dark variation, will often look much more reflective than very light skin under the same lighting conditions

like so

because of this, you’ll want to work on using light more than shadow to describe form on dark skin

again, this is true of all colors, but especially skin, because you don’t want skin to look flat and lifeless!

the same rules can apply to fantasy skin tones. start with a base tone, then use warm, saturated colors to add light and shadow. sampling around the palette becomes really important for fantasy skintones if you are trying to make them look realistic/believable

this is especially true if, for whatever reason, you wanted to make a character with grey skin that looks alive and believable

OKAY THAT’S THE END OF OUR SHOW

LOOK AT THIS GOOD ASS RESOURCE MOTHERFUCKERS

Another helpful note is that darker skin tends to be shinier, which is especially easy to see on the super-dark people in the pics above. My rule of thumb is to use larger swaths of highlights on light skin, and more focused, smaller ones on darker skin.

(Though this is no more a hard-and-fast rule than anything else in art, but it’s a decent shortcut.)

Sharing another drawing tutorial for any interested. :)

ami-angelwings: eschergirls: I think Vampirella is still...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 02:23:00 -0400

ami-angelwings:

eschergirls:

I think Vampirella is still recovering from her fight with a giant crab.

I was using this picture as an example for a post on Escher Girls of the straight (cis) male gaze influencing panel construction and how we are forced to view a character from a certain perspective in a scene, and I finally realized what was going on here.

I’ve never really looked at it carefully, I just always thought she was changing or just posing or something. I only now realized she’s supposed to be morphing her clothes and destroying the house. But, because it’s just like butt shot, butt shot, butt shot, butt shot, I never picked up on what was going on because the panel focus is so much on her butt and that one shot of her body that it’s hard to know what exactly is going on, especially since she’s barely moving, it’s just static butt shots (and the same one copy pasted 3 times at the end). The main focus was to give us butt shots & a full body shot featuring her boobs and crotch.

Not just can it be distracting to constantly have this kind of perspective, but sometimes it can really detract from your immersion and understanding of a scene if you feel like the “camera” is just so focused on looking at women’s butts and breasts that the other, often important, storytelling elements are being ignored.

Just a follow up/example on the last post with the video about the concept of the “male gaze” in film

the-dangers-of-ingesting-mercury: good-idea-poorly-executed: lo...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 23:01:00 -0400

the-dangers-of-ingesting-mercury:

good-idea-poorly-executed:

lostwiginity:

Interesting.

This is actually really interesting.

This is legitimately not jut about boobs,just watch it,youll learn something about modern cinema

A video about the straight cis male gaze in cinema (and video games), examples of it, and talking about how even when men are sexualized on screen, it’s still as active agents and not as a collection of body parts where the camera zooms in and cuts to various secondary sex characteristics. Not a new concept, but the video is still interesting, even as just food for thought.

I also think having it deconstructed visually like he does, helps one pay a little more attention to how the world around us is constructed via the media we consume, in even small subtle ways, like where the camera focuses, pans, and zooms in on, and the difference between cuts that show pieces of the body versus full face & body shots. (This is, of course, also applicable to stuff like comics, such as this Vampirella page where several panels are dedicated to her bu tt, or Ed Benes’ penchant for drawing “looking up at her butt” angles in panels with women in them.)

Sometimes it’s a conscious decision, and the artist wants to do it that way, or has been told to by higher ups, or it’s a goal of the company/marketing department, and sometimes, I think, it’s not necessarily conscious, but just how we’ve grown used to seeing scenes/panels with women constructed and having grown up with this media, we do it ourselves without thinking (i.e. “just what you do” as discussed in a previous post.)

Also, this doesn’t mean it’s NEVER a thing to do, sometimes it can be used very effectively, and increases the understanding of a scene (like the Austin Powers example where we are supposed to be seeing her through his eyes), but it’s when it becomes the norm of depicting women in all situations, that it can be a barrier to some of the audience in their enjoyment of the media, or their feeling of immersion, and send a message of “this is not for you.”

It can also hurt what you want people to get out of a scene. If every character is being treated to the “wow look at that hottie” camera angles and framing, then what do you do if you actually have a character that’s supposed to have that conveyed? Kind of like if every heroine must be in high heels and revealing clothing, it can make it difficult to distinguish the characters where that choice of clothing is supposed to inform the viewer about their personality.

As I said, just something to think about once you’re aware of it. :)

That looks like the most painful wedgie ever.

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:01:30 -0400

That looks like the most painful wedgie ever.

Her never-ending pelvis makes it look like they’re...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:02:00 -0400

Her never-ending pelvis makes it look like they’re tackling some sort of rock formation.

Cixi redesign

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 07:45:00 -0400

Alda Rana submitted:

Hello! And congratulations on your blog, I’ve been a fan for a long time and I’ve always wanted to submit something. It happens I had an idea, so here it is.

I’m French, and where Americans have superhero comics and Japanese people have manga as their main source of Escher Girls and ridiculous outfits, here we have heroic fantasy comics from Soleil. One of the classics is Cixi from the Lanfeust series, pictured here on the left (sorry I couldn’t find a bigger picture that showed her whole outfit)

She was obviously designed to be Ms Fanservice to the main tween boy demographic - a scantily clad, sexually aggressive young woman who very much enjoys flaunting her assets at the guys. But when I first read the comic as a 14-year-old girl, I didn’t mind that, because she was funny and brave and mostly smart and beautiful, and therefore my favourite character in the comic. However, I was very much chagrined by the impractical and nonsensical war bikini thing she wore, and also her wearing high-heeled shoes and nothing else to cover her legs when she spent months traipsing around the wild countryside in a world where there are things that’ll literally eat your legs off if you come close.

So, thinking back about her and teenage me, I decided to give her a redesign. Here it is:

I kept her clothes short and sexy because that’s who she is and her sexuality is a big part of her character; I just tried to make them a bit more practical to go adventuring and running after bad guys. I thought a short skirt would be fine, after all, ancient Greeks went to war wearing them… But the high-heeled pumps had to go. I hope you like it!

Love, Alda (alda-rana.deviantart.com)

I like your re-design and trying to capture the spirit of a character that really inspired you as a kid. :) I think you did a good job of making a fan-servicey but adventuring character, and I like the decorative belt at the top because it matches the look and makes the outfit more interesting. Incorporating the cross pattern of her strappy heels into her boots was also an inspired choice.

I also like the expression on her face, sorta coy and confident. :)

It’s clear the character means a lot to you, and you wanted to keep the overall “feeling” and style elements, and her personality and sexuality, while changing up the costume to be more adventurer-ish, and I really like what you came up with. :]

Submitted by apeculiarpersonage, Kishi, electric-furret,...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:01:00 -0400

Submitted by apeculiarpersonage, Kishi, electric-furret, ceciliavonjoy, albino-ottsel, Kenny, and random-lee-writing

(Apologies if I missed anybody in my inbox, I got a bunch of submissions for this ad at once. I love how the second a new MMO shows up doing Evony style advertising, everybody immediately thinks “omg Escher Girls needs to see this” :D)

That doesn’t look like it’d provide very much support, or anything else. At least this ad actually seems like an accurate representation of the game.

No wonder she’s so good at surviving, as a turret girl she...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:01:35 -0400

No wonder she’s so good at surviving, as a turret girl she can run away from the zombies at full speed while swiveling around to shoot at them.

repair-her-armor: That doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, of...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 12:02:02 -0400

repair-her-armor:

That doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, of course not.

So that’s why everybody romps around fighting naked in this world. Nobody actually follows that advice to stroke and be intimate with your weapons because they’re all like “o_O ew what?”, so nobody’s weapons are actually a threat, so nobody needs any armor… or clothes.

yondamoegi submitted: Redraw of this picture...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 06:01:00 -0400

yondamoegi submitted:

Redraw of this picture http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/52952485315/annnd-isis-is-back-this-time-in-boobs-and-butt

Well, it’s not a “redraw” per se, but more a “how I’d draw this”. I know almost nothing about ancient egyptians’ clothes, but I googled it :I I hope it looks fine.

You know what I disliked so much about the original picture? I disliked how they slapped a sexy babe on the top of the background and fucked up a great opportunity to make a great and beautiful character with a great and beautiful story ~~(and by “make” I mean “make in this cover” I haven’t read the comics so I dunno about her character, maybe it’s really good but I doubt it)~~. I don’t mind sexy babes, sexy babes are great. But at least they could put her into a storytelling environment, not a boob and butt pose.

So, I wanted to draw Isis at that moment when she was teleported into modern world: “What the?-” kind of face, a little bit twisted body like something is pulling her, and sparkles! sparkles everywhere! Also I gave her wings. Because WINGS! And the sun disc.

I hope you like it.

This is a really nice redraw. I like what you did with it, and how you re-interpreted her (and you gave her dark skin!). :) Also, the idea that she’s in a state of transition matches up well with the two different backgrounds that indicate ancient Egypt and modern day America, and makes the cover look much more dynamic.

At The Movies, The Women Are Gone : NPR

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:03:00 -0400

At The Movies, The Women Are Gone : NPR:

dresdencodak:

eschergirls:

With theaters â particularly larger theaters â chock full of men’s stories, where did the women go?

An interesting piece on NPR about this writer noting that the vast majority of movies out right now are about men or ensembles of men with women in a supporting role.

I also thought this was of note:

They put up Bridesmaids, we went. They put up Pitch Perfect, we went. They put up The Devil Wears Prada, which was in two-thousand-meryl-streeping-oh-six, and we went (and by “we,” I do not just mean women; I mean we, the humans), and all of it has led right here, right to this place. Right to the land of zippedy-doo-dah. You can apparently make an endless collection of high-priced action flops and everybody says “win some, lose some” and nobody decides that They Are Poison, but it feels like every “surprise success” about women is an anomaly and every failure is an abject lesson about how we really ought to just leave it all to The Rock.

Part of the problem with the “they’re just doing what sells” argument is the assumption that comics/movie/gaming industries are all made of purely objective beings of energy and thought rather than human beings who come with their own biases, and who can also tend to prefer the safe status quo that are affected by those biases. If a Catwoman or Elektra flops, it’s chalked up to people not wanting to watch movies with women in them, but if a Jonah Hex or Green Lantern do poorly, that’s not assumed to be the fault of those movies having male leads. As the piece says for men, a movie failing can be seen as the cost of doing business, rather than an indictment of the movie having a lead of a certain gender. If the “common knowledge” in Hollywood is that movies with women don’t sell, it can lead to confirmation bias, where ones that do are flukes (or not about having a female lead), and ones that don’t are proof that people don’t want to see women in lead roles (and not about the promotion of the movie, or the writing, or the acting, or etc).

Anyway, I wanted to share this because I thought some people might find it of interest. :)

A couple years ago I was in talks to option a Dresden Codak film, and was politely told that “female leads are a hard sell,” and asked how married I was to the fact that my protagonist is a woman. Suffice it to say, I ended up not wanting to make a Dresden Codak film.

What bugs me about “women don’t sell” is that not only is demonstrably not true, even if it were true, that’s not a valid excuse! If filmmakers discovered that the best selling movie concept was just 90 minutes of a puppy being beaten, I’d hope they’d at least give a pause.

Once again, women are subjected to a double-standard. If a male-led film fails, it’s because the film is bad. If a female-led film fails, it’s because “women don’t sell.”

In short, screw you, Hollywood, my lady-hero comic is successful, and it’s hardly the only one!

Sharing this too because I didn’t know this happened and it’s an actual example of somebody being told “female leads don’t sell.”

At The Movies, The Women Are Gone : NPR

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:29:00 -0400

At The Movies, The Women Are Gone : NPR:

With theaters â particularly larger theaters â chock full of men’s stories, where did the women go?

An interesting piece on NPR about this writer noting that the vast majority of movies out right now are about men or ensembles of men with women in a supporting role.

I also thought this was of note:

They put up Bridesmaids, we went. They put up Pitch Perfect, we went. They put up The Devil Wears Prada, which was in two-thousand-meryl-streeping-oh-six, and we went (and by “we,” I do not just mean women; I mean we, the humans), and all of it has led right here, right to this place. Right to the land of zippedy-doo-dah. You can apparently make an endless collection of high-priced action flops and everybody says “win some, lose some” and nobody decides that They Are Poison, but it feels like every “surprise success” about women is an anomaly and every failure is an abject lesson about how we really ought to just leave it all to The Rock.

Part of the problem with the “they’re just doing what sells” argument is the assumption that comics/movie/gaming industries are all made of purely objective beings of energy and thought rather than human beings who come with their own biases, and who can also tend to prefer the safe status quo that are affected by those biases. (As can audiences be. I don’t think that audiences are immune to societal biases either, but neither are executives.)

When a Catwoman or Elektra flops, it’s chalked up to people not wanting to watch movies with women in them, but if a Jonah Hex or Green Lantern do poorly, that’s not assumed to be the fault of those movies having male leads. As the piece says for men, a movie failing can be seen as the cost of doing business, rather than an indictment of the movie having a lead of a certain gender. (In a similar way, the number of women who go to superhero movies are often dismissed as being just girlfriends of the “core” male audience, and so we don’t count.)

If the “common knowledge” in Hollywood is that movies with women don’t sell, it can lead to confirmation bias, where ones that do are flukes (or not about having a female lead), and ones that don’t are proof that people don’t want to see women in lead roles (and not about the promotion of the movie, or the writing, or the acting, or etc).

Anyway, I wanted to share this because I thought some people might find it of interest. :)

Edit: The creator of Dresdan Codak shares his experience of being told “women don’t sell” and the suggestion he change his lead.

Annnd… our beloved white-washed Isis is back! This time...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 12:01:00 -0400

Annnd… our beloved white-washed Isis is back! This time in boobs and butt flavor!

alittleheadache: ami-angelwings: eschergirls: I’ve been putting off writing this for a while...

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 06:49:00 -0400

alittleheadache:

ami-angelwings:

eschergirls:

I’ve been putting off writing this for a while because my personality is such that I get really scared people think I’m egotistical or that it’s really unfair for me to ask for stuff. :\

But basically I don’t really have a job anymore, and I’m having money issues because of it, so I’m just pointing out if you want to, and can afford it, and you like Escher Girls, that there’s a paypal donate button on the sidebar of Escher Girls, and I would really appreciate anything people could donate. :)

I’ve always had the donate button on the sidebar as a tip jar, but I never pointed it out because I don’t want people to think I expect to be paid for running EG or anything (obviously, I don’t), but just right now with everything going on w/ my life, I wanted to point it out just in case some people didn’t know, and that it would really help me out.

Thank you so much :)

Ami

Just putting this here too. Thank you to anybody who can offer anything, and thank you also even if you can’t. :)

I think this is worth re-reblogging for the evening (well, it’s evening in a lot of the continent I’m on, anyway) crowd. Ami is such a lovely person and so valuable in any community where she hangs her hat. Escher Girls is just one part of the wonderful work that she does. I know how modest she is so I’ll stop before this post makes her run and hide in a blanket fort. xoxo

O: Thank you so much! To everybody. Seriously. Thank you so so so much. I didn’t expect the response I got last night, from donations, or signal boosts, or people sending me well wishes in my inbox. :) I’m SO overwhelmed by the support, and I really appreciate it. You guys are so wonderful. :)

Thank you (again)

Ami

PS: My blanket fort is awesome, it has a cat in it. :3

(I hope people don’t mind I’m making another post about this, I just really wanted to thank everybody so much for your support. <3 )

lychnis submitted: Escher girl from a polish graphic novel...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:02:18 -0400

lychnis submitted:

Escher girl from a polish graphic novel (some topless pictures in the link). Well…

The global language of the boobs and butt pose.

marshy-tan submitted: I decided to redraw a thing for you...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 10:40:00 -0400

marshy-tan submitted:

I decided to redraw a thing for you guys (Love your blog, by the way!), since I couldn’t bare looking at http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/49180550809/hon-ii-submitted-i-dont-know-if-this-hasany longer, to be honest…

This ‘Avengelene’ snippet has such great potential as a very dramatic scene, yet it’s overly-spoiled by the amount of fanservice! D:

I’m not really a fan of fan-service-y things, anyhoo. Hahaha~ uwu

I hope you like it~ ^0^

This is adorable. Even in the cutesy SDed style, I think the dark haired woman has a lot more emotion in your version, and I like what you did with the costumes. :)

I’ve been putting off writing this for a while because my personality is such that I get...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 06:30:00 -0400

I’ve been putting off writing this for a while because my personality is such that I get really scared people think I’m egotistical or that it’s really unfair for me to ask for stuff. :\

But basically I don’t really have a job anymore, and I’m having money issues because of it, so I’m just pointing out if you want to, and can afford it, and you like Escher Girls, that there’s a paypal donate button on the sidebar of Escher Girls, and I would really appreciate anything people could donate. :)

I’ve always had the donate button on the sidebar as a tip jar, but I never pointed it out because I don’t want people to think I expect to be paid for running EG or anything (obviously, I don’t), but just right now with everything going on w/ my life, I wanted to point it out just in case some people didn’t know, and that it would really help me out.

Thank you so much :)

Ami

Anonymous submitted: This is an official art of...

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 16:02:06 -0400

Anonymous submitted:

This is an official art of Digimon’s trading game cards. It’s Mervamon.

I’m still trying to figure out what the heck is happening with her torso and boobs.

It seems like a bad idea to go into battle in a swimsuit much less rubbing your bare body against your sword.