And last, but not least, our final guest strip.
This one comes from Boum, a professional, Montréal-based webcartoonist and graphic novel artist I really love. I’ve known Boum for a while, and I feel extremely lucky to have her taking some precious time away from her busy drawing schedule and parenting duties to draw me a little something. Especially since she just launched a new webcomic and all…
I guess the abundance of eyewear was too much for her, though.
Boum too is indirectly responsible for Frivolesque. She asked people for guest strips back in 2013, just like I’m doing now, and I ended up submitting this rough thing to her. I did enjoy the experience tremendously, and thought I could try to make something ongoing too.
Anyway, go check out Boum’s webcomics, her long running Boumeries (available in both english and french!) and her new one, A Small Revolution.
Are glasses really so tricky to draw??
They cover facial features so it can be hard to draw them in detail without compromising the expression. A common mistake is drawing the glasses and face at the same time. You should typically draw the face first then the glasses on top. Of course everyone has their own methods. I applaud Dez for avoiding the fog glasses style to avoid drawing the eyes.
Many manga artists draw them with missing upper rims, or simply parts that magically vanish anytime they’d obscure part of an eye… That really annoys me somehow, so I’ll never do that.
Then there’s the people who draw the glasses way down so the character looks over them. Not something you’ll see me do either.
But my most hated “glasses trope” are the “expressive glasses” that change shape in order to follow their wearer’s expression. Usually seen in silly cartoons, but some webcomics too. Ugh.
The “fog glasses style” can be cute or funny sometimes. I did draw some of the girls with opaque glasses a few times in the strip, usually during shocked expressions, or the lilke. They might also show up permanently on someone with very thick glasses… Like an upcoming Frivolesque character that you might have seen if you check my DeviantArt or Tumblr…
And yes, I always draw the glasses after the face is done. Much easier to do in Photoshop with layers I guess.
The “fog” style (or “gleam,” as I’ve heard someone else call it) is used to signify so many different character traits and different emotions that it’s almost impossible to describe to anyone who doesn’t immediately understand it (which probably requires an unordinary level of interest in such matters). There doesn’t seem to be any rules about when it should or shouldn’t be used, but it absolutely changes a character’s expression and how we interpret anything they’re doing or saying.
The only “glasses trope” I don’t care for are “swirl glasses,” which I’ve only seen a few times and seem to signify an unusual level of intellectualism and a certain kind of stereotypical nerdy-ness. Not my style, I guess.
The glasses trope I absolutely hate (mostly because I wear glasses) are the incredibly thin just a line and circles frames. I’ve never in my life seen an actual pair of glasses with frames that thin. It makes it seem like the glasses were an afterthought.
But those are the ones that seem to appear the most in artwork. XD
I’m not a big fan either. I’m like, if you don’t want her to wear glasses, why bother drawing them in the first place?
A friend of mine has frameless glasses and quick web & image searches suggest that he might not be the only one. Nonetheless, you are still free to complain about the unrealistic high prevalence.* But it might be hard reading fiction at all, if your disbelieve is so hard to suspend, that you can’t take that more people prefer this type of glasses.
*Yes, I am that generous, allowing strangers to complain about preapproved topics. (=
Frameless glasses do exist. Smaller, wireframed glasses too, having been constantly falling in and out of fashion since the dawn of time. (or at least, the dawn of eyewear)… I’m not denying that.
But they still got more details than being just “two circles and a horizontal bar”. Especially when everything else in the drawing is super detailed for some reason.
But hey, this is just a little nitpick of mine.
I have seen people wearing frameless glasses and because there are no frames, the glasses distort the face for no apparent reason, but then again I am legally blind so I’m biased.
I’d consider a vast difference in attention to detail indeed a problem. But if that was the complaint, I have not understood it (even rereading it now). In this case, I apologise for the misunderstanding.
If the complaint was actually about “I dislike frameless glasses, because realism.”, my complaint still stands.
@ Plasma Mongoose
I’m really bad at noticing such stuff (I couldn’t tell you the haircolour of many people I meet five days a week), so he’s the only one I’m aware of wearing those and they look good on him. I guess they distort relatively few and it kinda fits his reserved personality, I think.
But imagining other peoples glasses without frames, yeah, I can see how it could be really weird. I’ll definitely try to picture this for the next few glasses wearers I meet, should be fun. (=
But cute anime girls with swirl glasses are so cute. T_T
Mimi was actually supposed to have them at first, but I realized most people disliked them. PEOPLE LIKE YOU.
So I changed her design a bit.
Delphine will me my first real attempt as a “nerd glasses girl” in Frivo. Can’t wait to introduce her.
It’s funny how I feel that way, but it really is a night-and-day level of preference.
This may be due to the fact that I’ve never watched or read anything in which the swirl glasses-girls are ever developed into interesting or important characters. Maybe they’re out there but I just haven’t found them yet.
I suppose I feel the same way about male characters. Go ahead and guess which one of these two is my favorite.
http://i.imgur.com/amSsYZs.png
I find fog glasses-girls very endearing, which seems strange to me because I figure that the eyes are usually the focal point of a character and probably the single most important thing for an artist to get right if they want to create characters that people will like or feel any sense of empathy for (speaking strictly from the appearance of a character, not related to any way in which they’re developed through story, dialog, etc.). You’d think that eliminating that point of expression would handicap how viewers/readers would be able to find any connection to them, but more often than not, I think it forces artists to find new ways of communicating their feelings, intentions, personality, etc., anything that people talk about when they talk about “character development.” Or something like that.
I love nerdy girls but you probably already knew that.
“swirly” nerd glasses are almost never used on a likeable character. Except sometimes in anime aimed at kids for some reason. Unless the glasses are part of a disguise. Like Saori in Oreimo.
But yeah, audiences might not get into a (female) character without visible eyes… I’m pretty sure Liliane is my least popular character for that reason. :P
I love nerdy girls too. How could you tell?
Probably because you’re a man of excellent taste.
I kinda like characters with hidden eyes :) And as “seasons” said I value the artist that can sort out that handicap in the character expresion.
“Swirly” glasses are real, it’s how severe miopie correction crystals looks like (*). I have met a couple persons with that problem.
When I see a character with them, I always take it as they have severe sight impairing :)
(*)BTW DEZ, actually it’s a more realistic way of draw thick glasses than the “foggy” style, yet less appealing indeed. Thick glasses are foggy only from the side (obviously otherwise the person would not be able to see :P )
I find the “expressive glasses” funny :) as well as other “expressive accessories” that are depicted mainly in female characters.
I certainly am looking forward for Delphine to show up, she looks to me as very pasional :)
I adopted the ‘disappearing’ glasses upper a few years back after ten years of drawing Allison with rather thick, trickier to do rims. The new thinner glasses were quicker to draw and I liked the appearance just as much.
Not keen on the other tropes though except the fogged lenses for dramatic effect on rare occasion.
Apparently, they are. They are what people always complain about when they draw the Frivolesque girls. Among my guest artists, Boum, David and Kimoco mentioned it.
I always thought they were easy to draw (and a great way to make a crappy face design look less crappy), but… I guess it’s just because I have a thing for them.
Like I said, Dez, drawing Frivolesque girls compels me to draw the glasses to a certain level of excellence. Achieving that is what takes me the longest to finish
But you really didn’t have to. XD
I’m glad, however, that you went the extra mile.
Me thinks a how to draw glasses tutorial from Dez is needed.
In fact, you aren’t the first one to say something to that effect…
Personally, I can’t draw glasses for the life of me… Heck, I couldn’t save my life drawing DIFFERENT types of glasses even with a photo in front of me… that’s how untalented I am at drawing these little $%?&ers… That must be why my current project features next to no people wearing glasses… and if they do, it’ll look like there’s only one place to buy them, and only one brand XD
I just don’t understand, considering you’re usually very good when it come to drawing stuff based on something.
Like portraits that actually look like the real person. But the glasses are different. Like that Stan Lee example. ^^
Yeah, gotta admit, Daniel the Human & I can’t draw glasses for s#!^. Then again, neither of us can draw full stop, so that’s going against us too… ::P
Back to the main story next time then? :)
Yup!
If there is such a thing as a “main story”.
Glasses ARE hard to draw, that’s why I sometimes don’t draw them on paper, but only add them during colouring on comp
I didn’t even know you still drew on paper.
Aren’t you working with Illustrator? So you do vector stuff over a base sketch?
Yeah, I do a sketch and then scan it basically draw vector stuff over it (technically under it, with the bitmap being mostly transparent). For backgrounds, though, I usually just it on the computer.
Ha, well played :) you drew about how hard is writing, she drew about how hard is drawing, and the both of you got off the hook ;)
You guys are made for each other :P
You’re the second person to make the connection.
I didn’t even notice it first, but yeah, we pretty much did the same thing in a way. :)
I have rimless glasses :)
And I somehow didn’t notice this submission until seeing the newest Monday post ^^