comic book beauties then...
Artist Gray Morrow, who is renowned for his illustrations of beautiful women, shares his point of view on the origins of and latest developments in designing and drawing female comic
book characters. "In comics as well as in film and other forms of fiction, the femme fatales generally fall into a few stereotypical categories. The provocative good/bad or all-out bad girl in comic books has been with us for quite a while.
SOME HEARTHROBS OF EARLIER TIMES. SEXY? WELL, GRAMPS THOUGHT SO. NOTE THE BLACK LIPSTICK, A DEVICE LARGELY DISCARDED TODAY.
...and now
“Certainly not the first, but perhaps one of the earliest to make an indelible impression, was Milton Caniff's 'Dragon Lady.' She remains to this day a model for
that eternally mysterious and fascinating example of an independent, self-reliant, and sometimes amoral, if not immoral, female, scornful of all males, except, of course, the 'Good Guy' hero. She and her clones, while somewhat varied, had many similarities."
femme fatales yesterday...
“T heda Bara, 'the Vamp' of silent films, raised our grandfathers' blood pressures several notches and inspired a number of look-alikes, though she was somewhat
toned down in the realm of printed matter. The 'Dragon Lady' type has, in our modern lexicon, become synonymous with the 'vamp.' So how do we recreate her?
theda bara, the original film vamp that inspired countless clones. for the ladies it was “The sheik”, valentino, and for the men it was theda, the “sheba”.
pulchritude plus poundage
...and today
he femme fatale must have an exquisite form. “T In today's more permissive media, we can get nearly as explicit as anyone would want. She should be slinky, catlike in her movements, arched eyebrows, slitted eyes, always posturing, and—even today— smoking! She doesn't give a damn about the 'big C’ or the environment. She can be big-breasted or streamlined, or even very muscular-and therefore doubly dangerous. She just might possibly be a match for the hapless hero. Her costuming should be exotic, alluring, daring, and even alien or offbeat."
even with “superwomen”, excessive muscular definition is not desirable. such delineation gives a flayed or ‘ripped’ look distinctly unfeminine.
try to “feel” the form and strive for proportions that suggest power without having a figure that looks like an anatomical diagram.
the provocative stance, insolent or baleful stare, arch or aloof expression all server to denote her
antisocial (a gun helps) personality.
study your favorite sultry screen sirens to learn more from their “bag of tricks.”