First off, ‘How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way’ has been pretty insightful so far t(he perspective and gesture drawing chapters especially.)

I got around to trying the Marvel method of drawing faces, and Jesus Christ, I’m getting annoyed😂

To show why I’m frustrated, here are two parts from Chapter 8 to go along with the pictures I posted:

“…Also note that the eyes USUALLY come MIDWAY in the skull between the top of the dome and the bottom of the chin.”

(Fair enough, he says USUALLY instead of ALWAYS, but still.)

“…If you divide the skull into four EVEN quarters, from top to bottom, the nose will USUALLY be in the second quarter up from the chin- with the ears falling in about the same level.”

(Again, Stan says USUALLY, but I really wish he didn’t because drawing like Buscema with the EVEN quarters looked wonky AF for a female face I drew. The nose looked elongated and made everything look like an Uncanny Valley face.)

——

Another thing I noticed is that in some faces, when you add the even quarters, the eyes fall RIGHT UNDER the centerline.

Maybe I just need to read and practice this more, but I need to know; am I the ONLY ONE who struggled with this part? ‘Cuz Stan Lee’s words combined the John Buscema’s illustrations on more normal faces. 

Also, Buscema didn’t draw most of the guidelines on female faces in the book; they just assumed you’d apply the stuff from before, which made it even more confusing for me. Seems like it’s more intuitive rather than methodical.

Why are Stan Lee’s instructions kinda inconsistent with John Buscema’s measurements? (Or am I just stupid?)