Tag: Street-Level

Superheroine Strength: Marcio Takara’s Female Design Course

Marcio Takara: Female Character Design for Comics online course at Domestika

From Inspiration to Creation: Insights from Marcio Takara’s Female Design Class

I’m always looking for ways to better myself and my art. While on Facebook this week, I kept getting an ad for a figure class on Domestika taught by one of my favorite comic artists, Marcio Takara. I’ve been a fan of his for years, first discovering his artwork on Deviant Art and Tumbler. He’s drawn for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. I really like his approach to drawing the female super-heroine form. Both feminine and strong at the same time.

I decided yes; I want to take this online course by Marcio Takara. The class name is Female Character Design for Comics. What’s very cool is that Marcio will actually look at and evaluate your character designs. The comic art course is broken up into several sections, these include tutorial videos by Marcio Takara and character design assignments. We share our designs in a group forum.

I haven’t finished the online course yet, but here are a few of my initial female character designs. A hard-knocks street-level hero, a martial artist/psychic character, and an alien or underwater warrior. I’m both having fun and learning in this class.

Character Design: Sketching an Athletic Afro-Latinx Heroine

Afro-Latinx Heroine sketch by Ralph Contreras

Character Sketching: Creating a Street-Level Fighting Hero

Here’s a quick practice character drawing I did last night. I didn’t use any photo references for this drawing, just what I could imagine in my mind’s eye. I feel like the proportions are good. I wanted to draw an athletic female who is a street-level fighting hero.

I really wanted to draw her as Afro-Latinx like Rosario Dawson or Gina Torres. I also tried to add some emotion to her face. The drawing has my drawing style too. There is no character name yet, but I have some fun story ideas for her.