#anatomy and proportions my enemy...

[liebelesbe]

Batman on his Bat-board 🏄

[ID: A simple pixel drawing of Batman surfing in the ocean. His surfboard is yellow with a batsymbol on it. End ID]

[enilehtnorevol]

do you have any recommendations to help improve anatomy skills? i wanna improve but i legit haven’t improved for years and anatomy is my worst enemy 😭 i like art like yours and others and somehow the anatomy always seems so good so i was just wondering if you had any suggestions

i'm trying to figure out how to answer those types of asks for ages because most of my 'anatomy skills' come from observation and there's not much of what i've been actually actively learning i'm sorry 😭

doing studies works great but if you never tried and are not sure where to start find some artists who do them or better artists who explain how to. i wanted to suggest tb choi but she seems to delete everything at least from public access. found cosmic spectrum art on yt, a lot of great stuff, just the kind i'm talking about, but of course you can look for someone else yourself

a book on the topic i would certainly recommend is 'taco - point character drawing' thought everyone most likely know this one already. looks simple and doesn't overwhelm with walls of text and half of the book being dedicated to each separate bone and muscle, but actually very informative (nonetheless having a general understanding of how skeleton looks and works will always be helpful). i can recommend something more advanced if you're interested

and if anyone wants i could probably make some little tutorials like the one with face proportions but i need more specific requests for this

[signanothername]

Perspective practice, and I think it’s clear I’m failing miserably

I think the greatest advantage of me never learning correct anatomy (and it shows) is the fact when I practice perspective my brain doesn’t immediately go “404 exe. Not found” when the proportions go wack

Fun fact! Body proportions get completely fucked up in extreme perspectives! What’s usually a certain length or how a limb looks when you look at it in normal one point perspective goes “hahaha you thought???” In 3 points perspective

That’s why so many artists suffer when they try to draw extreme perspectives for characters for the first time, it’s usually cause they’re super used to keeping certain anatomy rules in mind when drawing characters so when perspective comes into play it just goes “fuck anatomy rules”

Fuck 3 points perspective it’s my greatest enemy yet I can’t help but love it so 😔

Anyway, used my own future DonDon for this experiment cause he’s my beloved fr

[deep-space-lines]

hiii I'm an anon who's a beginner artist and i would love your explanations to drawig gabriel :3c

Ok so.. I do want to help but I'm not sure how much specific advice I can offer bc I don't really have like a consistent Process? Been debating how to answer this because I don't really know how I draw him I kinda just do my best until something works

Gabriel in my brain while I'm drawing him is like 90% just A Guy. And I can't really give much advice on how to draw A Guy apart from use references (I like Adorkastock quite a bit; figure drawing sites like Quickposes and Line Of Action help a lot with practicing proportions/anatomy and getting more fluid and dynamic poses; and there's an app called MagicPoser I use on my iPad if I want to do something like more dramatic perspective and want to make sure I have everything in roughly the right place; etc)

...And for the remaining 10% that isn't just A Guy (helmet, breastplate, wings)- I'm ngl the answer is still 'when in doubt, use references' though with the caveat that 'if drawing him slightly inaccurately looks cooler then do that'. I've drawn him enough that I can usually get him down from memory at this point, but staring at his stupid little model for a few hours is the only way to get there. I don't know shit about fuck about how to get 3d models out of the game, but if you spawn Gabe in sandbox and turn on 'enemies ignore player' you can get a screenshot of him from whatever angle you need. Ngl the body pillow is the most detailed reference for his armor we have, so like half the drawings I've done of him I've probably also had that open off to the side lol. For his wings I generally use the same shapes I do for bird wings, and when I'm not feeling lazy I sneak a peek at photos of real plate armor

the only drawing of gabe i’ve got the process recorded for is an unfinished sketch, i’m not sure how helpful that’ll be but I guess it can’t hurt

[cptjh-arts]

Seven Kisses - A Kiss To Get What You Want

@connor-sent-by-cyberlife reactivated this challenge from 2022 and this time I didn't miss it!

Anatomy is still my enemy but this is my favorite so far, because the proportions and anatomy aren't looking that off (like in the one before). And I love Gavin's jeans and his socks hahaha. Please do not share without credit, no reupload or claiming as your own art and no commercial use!

[cinnabar-circus]

4 and 8 for the ask game~?

4. what's your least favourite part of the body to draw, if any?

hhhfffff torsos give me trouble even when the character is fully clothed. getting the proportions right, so the arms and legs don’t look too long and the head doesn’t look too big or too small, is a fucking ordeal every time, figuring out how it’s supposed to bend in any given position takes more brain cells than i have to spare and sometimes i just fucking forget that ribcages aren’t flat.

naked torsos are my worst enemy. i always end up looking up anatomy models and christian bale in the machinist for reference, even when i’m not drawing his particular body type, because it just gives me a good idea of where specific bones and muscles are supposed to be. otherwise i just cannot figure out where the ribs end and the stomach begins. lord fucking knows where the tiddies go. don’t even get your hopes up for the nipples, if they’re within a 5-mile radius of where they’re supposed to be, it’s good enough.

8. how would you describe your art style?

“mistakes were made”

oof… that is a tough question… i can’t think of a particularly poetic way to describe it, but the word that comes to mind when i look at my art is “heavy”.

[reiguns]

may we see the rito oc?

Omg yes!! So far I have a sketch where I got so frustrated trying to figure out the Rito anatomy that I ended up just tracing over the generic model and tried to make my pigeon boi lol. I’m not super happy with his look, I think I’m gonna fix his silhouette to be a little beefier, but I understand the proportions better now at least!

His name is Aseli, I made him for Linktober Quest’s 2021 prompts that I one day hope to finish drawing stuff for!! He’s based off a Mindanao bleeding heart dove, he’s a performer and a dramatic bitch lmao

I made a Zora OC too! His name is Mijen, he’s a prince of his domain, and he’s based off an orca whale. He’s also a character I wrote for LQ2021, and I liked him so much I put him in my LQ2022 story hehe. He’s protective of his people and kinda reckless, he gets hurt every time he shows up lol. Also, he’s a total mama’s boy

I wrote so much lore about my Hylian OC and Ganondorf for these Linktober Quest prompts lmao it’s so self-indulgent 🥴 My 2022 answers had them go from childhood friends to besties to lovers to enemies

Thank you for asking btw!! I’m shy about sharing my OCs 👉👈 Sorry I ended up info dumping about my Linktober Quest sketches 😅

[hypnofantasma-asks-and-doodles]

Ayo, why do you keep drawing renders of "skinny fat" characters? I know you intend on drawing them chubby because I see you comment they are and then proceed to draw them in future sketches as heavyset, but renders of these characters pre brandshock will be really thin with ribs showing but have random stomach pudge and fat rolls that shouldn't exist if a character is thin enough to have ribs showing. It's honestly kinda fatphobic, sincerely a fat person.

this do be a little wacky tho ....... i can very easily explain things as

1) my older renders are simply Lower Quality and im not gonna magically draw perfect anatomy all the time because i also draw wackass limbs a lot. i'm redoing a lot of renders because i aint happy with the bodies of the old ones

2) theyre simply aliens and animals/monsters aren't going to have human proportions ? like that's not a cop-out that's a genuine fact like theyre all wildly different animalistic aliens who gain fat in different ways than us

3) there ARE also other fat folks with bones showing because fat can form in different ways due to different situations/bodies, and it's a LITTLE wacky to assume all fat people look the same as you and not take different body types and health situations into account

4) ..those are usually musculatures on my newer renders and not bones because, again, i am not a Perfect Artist

i usually reference ANIMAL fat for my aliens because they physically aren't human, and with like. cats for example i typically see a pronounced difference between the chest and abdominal sections even with chubbier cats? a bit?

again though, my art aint perfect and i'm always trying to improve.... automatically just accusing someone of being fatphobic for example because their art is inconsistent is a REAL easy way to make unneeded enemies instead of inspiring true growth and improvement in other artists. honestly, i'd just try to take a chill pill and try to teach others rather than be on the attack 24/7 yknow? i see so much negativity and kneejerk vitriol for situations that could so easily be solved with a level conversation

[evelyn-art-05]

What is the hardest thing for you to draw, the easiest and your favorite?

And any tip, for someone that is starting to draw more seriously. ❤️

hardest thing?? EASILY feet and jaw shapes,, my enemies,, I haven't learned how to draw them consistently and they confuse me

easiest?? noses and hair! specifically wider/round noses and noses with larger bumps (although I haven't drawn them much lately)!! I love putting the blush on them and little highlights

and fluffy hair!! or any hair!! I like just letting the brush go wild which makes the hair look more loose and flow-y,, and textures!! I love putting textures on hair, especially with curls- dense or loose alike!

for tips?? use references galore! and don't be afraid to go back over an older drawing and adjust things after, and definitely don't get angry at yourself for making mistakes- they will always happen! always draw lightly at first if you're doing traditional with pencil so that you can erase easily without leaving marks, and your lines are less stiff and have more movement! if you use pens, doing a sketch with highlighter first! it adds color and allows you to have a base to work off of while still not having to erase! USE SHAPES IN EVERYTHING! especially in anatomy! triangles, rectangles, boxes, etc- think about how they fit in your spaces and the characters body. it will help you with proportions ! (this was a lot of writing oops lol)

[relationshipnotfound]

My art challenge over the summer!

Day one: Men (I can't draw them without making them look like women😔) [It's not a bad thing but it is inconvenient].

Day 2: Expressions.

Day 3: Eyes (different eye shapes).

Day 4: Lips (different shapes and sizes).

Day 5: Hybrids.

Day 6: Piercings.

Day 7: Experimenting.

Day 8: Ears (different shapes and sizes).

Day 9: Noses (different shapes and sizes).

Day 10: Faces (different shapes).

Day 11: Hands (every artists worst enemy 😭).

Day 12: Wounds and Blood (MY FAVOURITE 😍).

Day 13: Body/ Anatomy (different sizes and proportions).

Day 14: Poses. Day 15: Hair (different textures and lengths).

Day 16: Colouring (anything really).

Day 17: Grayscale colouring.

Day 18: Shading (anything tbh).

Day 19: Backgrounds (outside).

Day 20: Backgrounds (inside).

Day 21: Tears.

Day 22: Water.

Day 23: Props/ Furniture.

Day 24: Shading (backgrounds).

Day 25: Shading (Furniture/ Props).

Day 26: Babies (DRAWING THEM IS A NIGHTMARE).

Day 27: Kids (different body shapes).

Day 28: Teenagers (different body shapes).

Day 29: Adults/ Elderly(different body shapes).

Day 30: Mermaids/ Sirens (different tails and body shapes).

Day 31: Monsters/ Mythical creatures.

Day 32: Everday objects (drawing).

Day 33: Everyday objects (shading).

Day 34: Studying art styles.

Day 35: Choose a fandom to make fanart for (idk which one to draw for yet-).

Day 36: Draw stuffed animals.

Day 37: Clothes (different kinds of styles).

Day 38: Drawing (Characters with makeup on).

Day 39: Facepaint and animals (R.I.P me).

Day 40: Draw favourite character (from any fandom).

Day 41: Draw least favourite character.

Day 42: Draw a group of people together.

Day 43: Lighting and lightning.

Day 44: Fire and plants.

[strijdi]

It Was the Best of Art, It Was the Worst of Art!

Decided to do a little look at my past four years of ArtFight, and picked out what I thought were my best and worst attacks each year, in hopes of seeing if both categories got better over the years. Worst will always be on the left/top, best will always be on the right/bottom.

ArtFight 2021 (Team Cyberpunk):

Left belonged to NexusCryptid | Right belonged to Fayesephone Commentary: My first year, I definitely made strides between the worst piece and the best piece ^^''' This was back in my 'color all the linework except the outer lines' phase. Both of the backgrounds could use some work, but overall I'm happy with posing/movement in both! Unfortunately, the face and proportions of the worst piece are what landed it in last.

ArtFight 2022 (Team Wither)

Left belongs to Flat-san | Right belonged to photinus Commentary: Second year, still making similar mistakes and making similar strides! For reference, the worst piece you're seeing here was after an initial correction. I was also at the time having trouble with coloring lineart due to some issues with my workflow. Also baggy pants will forever be my enemy. As for the best piece, I loved the way I used color and posing, and it had a decent background! Was still doing the 'black outlines on the outside' thing.

ArtFight 2023 (Team Vampire)

Left belongs to PeterPandora | Right belongs to eryxerite Commentary: I would say things definitely got better this year! Finally moved on to coloring all the lineart, and the fact that the left is my worst piece I think is a significant improvement (suit pants continue to be an enemy, but the derpiness of the face and the anatomy of the right hand... oy.) The best piece, in comparison, went through multiple revisions until I was finally happy with it, and I was so proud of it that I downloaded it to my phone and looked at it multiple times a day for like. A while. The shading really works, and I love what I did with the tears, fabric, and crystal hair!

ArtFight 2024 (Team Seafoam)

Top belongs to GhostKiwi | Bottom belong to Lunarah Commentary: This year was my favorite year of ArtFight so far -- I did less attacks than any previous year but still got a higher point total than any previous year! This was also the first year that I consistently also shaded the colored lineart (which was just copy/pasting the shading from the base colors onto the colored lineart lol). With the worst piece, I was happy with the background, but I think the scaling of the character to the background was off, the face was wonky, and I was largely unhappy with the way I did the hair crystal reflection onto the skin. I also could've chosen a better pose, I think, when taking the background into account. As for my best piece, this piece (originally three separate attacks) certainly takes the cake as my most elaborate and time-consuming attacks ever! The shading, hair, posing, and lighting all fucked HARD. My only regret is that I couldn't get a consistent style across all five characters, since each individual character was drawn separately from the others and then combined. Overall takeaway: I think I need to get better at being consistent with style. And, glaringly, side angled faces are my biggest weakness. I need to bone up on that before next year, methinks. And I still think I have a ways to go with improving on clothing folds. Nevertheless, I'm very happy with my growth over the past four years, and I hope to grow more next July!!

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read my little self-reflective musings. Also, if you noticed anything else in these pieces that you think could use some work, I would welcome constructive criticism! No assholery obvi please.

[flockofcrowsinaturtleshell]

Sketch of an OC. Crappy proportions, my old enemy.

Toby is a crow yokai with the ability to see ghosts.

Note: Combining human + bird anatomy is actually hard to do when you want your hybrid to have more bird features than just wings.

[doing-some-crime]

it's my ocs!! (floating in the void)

[bifacialler]

This is maybe weird question, but. I'm strugling with drawing faces. My problem is, that any method of admeasuring face can't help me .Is there anything you can recommend me to do it better?

…this is a first art ask I ever got, this is exciting! =))

You wanted an essay. Here is an essay.

Let me start with a preface:

Faces are complicated. They are formed not only by bone and muscle, aka the ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE, but the also exist as parts of HEADS, that are parts of BODIES, and out bodies are basically objects like any other that exist within the multi-dimentional space of perceived reality, aka SPACIAL POSITIONING.

Sounds terrifying, I know.

Good thing about it is - we all are unique, therefore all faces are unique! Before starting with anatomy and such, I think it is important to welcome this idea that this Uniqueness IS Beauty. Therefore every face, no matter the proportion, racial features, anything else, is BY DEFAULT beautiful.

Basically, when drawing a face, the artist’s job (especially if this artist is of academic school, or focused on realism) is to detach from personal perception of aesthetical, and focus on studying the beauty of nature’s design. There will be time for personal taste and creative decisions.

To break the rules you need to know what rules there are.

How to Draw a HEAD

(Mostly because you can draw a disambullated head with some of that shoulder action and get away with it. When you draw just a face - it’s… well it can serve a purpose, but there will be questions. It’s generally better to think of a face as part of a head, it makes life a lot easier.)

As it is customary, the process of drawing an object starts with understanding two basic concepts:

The base shape: if you simplify the object to it’s most basic 3-dimentional shape, what shape would it be (a box, and elongated box, a sphere, a pyramid and so on.) Out of which comes the next one-

Where that object exists in relation to you, aka the Artist, since you are the one who will be drawing it. You have the power. The Power of Perspective.

A head is an object like any other. And a head, as an object, is A BOX.

The basic proportions of the box - and I’m talking the commonly art teacher accepted medium - are:

4 units tall : 2 units wide : 3 units deep

What is a unit, you ask? Will come to that, when talking about points and proportions.

So we have a box, and it’s something like this. 

(Picture belongs to Stan Prokopenko, who is a remarkable artist of anatomical drawing, and generally a professional art teacher. I suggest watch everything he ever made, he has ton of stuff on anatomy. http://www.stanprokopenko.com/)

The grey line in the middle signifies the line of symmetry of the face. It’s on the front plane of box, in the middle. The box is much easier understand that a head with a face. 

What we do with the box? We rotate it in any possible we can come up with, while keeping in mind the proportions. It’s important to always keep those proportions in the back of your mind. 

Why we do this? Because this box will tell us about about the lines of perspective that will interact with our portrait’s features. As you can see on Stan’s picture, the yellow lines indicate which way perspective goes.

(Perspective is a whole another topic altogether that would require a separate tl;dr post, so I’m going to step over it in this essay.)

I took the liberty to use one of your pictures to illustrate, especially since you asked for some feedback. 

Overall this is a good drawing, but see how the orange lines start to stray away from the perspective the box exists in? By sticking to the directions the box helps us with, we can get rid of that feeling of something being crooked - becasue all the facial features will exist in the same architecture as the rest of the head.

Second reason why the box is our friend is becasue on the box we can clearly understand: okay, this side is facing the light, and this is the side is in the shadow. This is the break line between the planes of the object. 

But Ler, you may say, the face is curvier than a box.  

Yes, young padavan. Here is a trade secret: first we tackle the overall, and then we go into details. (then we come back to overall, then back to details, and so on, until you can’t find anything sticking out of the unity of the piece, and you can decide that your job here is done. [it is never done, but perfect is an enemy of good, and sometimes good is “good enough” and “as good as I can do at the moment which is still good”)

This may sound familiar, because it is - it’s a lot like the Loomis method, which is, in it’s essence, your good old illustrative version of academic portrait, but without the hassle of learning all skull bones and facial muscles and crying yourself to sleep.

See how he clearly identifies here the border between the frontal planes of the faces and the side ones? Look how is is not afraid of laying that tone on the sides? This is what I’m talking about. He got it from The Box. 

(I would suggest reading Loomis’s books in general, and especially “Drawing the Head and Hands”, where the illustration above is from. His method of drawing heads is quite good, and he explains it in a very approachable way.)

Now that we sorta figured out the head in space, and the box the head truly is, lets figure out 

Where Do We Put The FACIAL FEATURES

There are a few different school of thought on “where the features are” and “what are the proportions”, so I’m going to share with you how I work around them.

My personal approach is a mix of different methods, and years of life studies - as I explained in the beginning every face is unique and has different proportions, and the more “cartoony” and “caricaturistic” (is this a word?) the style is, the more those proportions are exaggerated. 

My approach to placement of features goes like this [unless I got a life model before me, then I measure with my pencil, old school style.] It’s pretty math intense, so buckle up.

1) [Purple] Cranium is a SPHERE. The axis of the sphere is your friend. Cut it in 3 equal parts. Add one part down - hey presto, this is the height of your head. [Remember the thing about the proportions of the box? These are the units I was talking about. It’s all coming together now.] 

2) [Purple] Eyes exist in the middle of the axis. 

3) [Orange] The protrusion of the face is *design* and may vary. Rule of the thumb: make it an arc, similar to what I did. The lower jaw corner falls into the same cathegory, but I prefer it to be on the same level as the corners of the mouth.

4) [Magenta] Mark 1/7th of the height from the top - that’s your hairline. 

5) [Red] After you mark the hairline, divide the remaining part of the height in 3 equal parts. Lower part is chin to root of the nose, the middle one is root of the nose to eyebrows (actually to the glabella, but let’s call it eyebrows), the upper - from eyebrow to hairline. this is the Rule of Thirds. In reality nothing is perfect.

6) [Yellow] This is the tricky part. This is where I personally mark the border between the frontal facial planes and the side ones. There is a general guideline on how it’s done, but it does require understanding the skull and the subplanes of the frontal plane of the face. In layman’s terms, go from the hills of the forehead down to the middle of the brow, around the eye socket, over the cheek bone, through the middle of the cheek (preferably on an arc) to the chin bone, not foregetting the chind also has upper plane and lower plain and yes, there is a break between them, rounded as it is. 

7) [Dark green] Back to eyes. They are also spheres. In the drawing above I marked them as “width of 1 eye = 1/5th of the face’s width”. This is my design (and also the “fashion portrait design”, but don’t get me started) . What is not my design is that the distance between eyes is about the width of one eye, very convenient. The distance between the ear and the outer corner of the eye is 1 third of the rule of thirds. (see point 5) Don’t forget: eyelids cover the eyeball like peel covers the orange. It has thickness.

8) [bright blue] EAR! Love ears. Their traditional space is snuggly in the middle third. Also their angle usually follows the angle of the nose. 

9) [light green] Nose and Mouth. 

Nose.Take your middle third. Divide it by three (approximately). The top part is where the dip of the nose is. For reference is about the same level as the eyes, maybe a bit higher. The nose itself is a trapezoid. The general width of it - the space between the eyes. There is a shadow under it, in most cases. When drawing from reference, pay attention is the root of the nose goes lower than the edges of the nostrils. It’s important. That’s where character hides.

Mouth. Take your lower third. Divide it by two. That’s - no, it’s not the slit of the mouth. That’s the dip under the lower lip. Take the distance between the eyebrows and the eyes, measure it, and apply from the root of the nose down. That’s where the upper edge of the upper lip is. The width of the mouth is very different, but I prefer somewhere between the irises. 

Oof, that’s about it.

If you are looking into indepth anatomy, I’m going to recommend the bible of all anatomy artists, Mr Gottfried Bammes, and “The Complete guide to human anatomy for artists and illustrators”. No better book was ever assembled. I wouldn’t suggest “reading” it, it’s dry as stale bread, but it has hundreds of illustrations that are pretty self-explanatory.

How to combine this whole knowledge together?

By drawing. Honestly, the rest comes with practice. Lots and lot’s of it. 

I would personally suggest downloading a million photos of faces, plugging them into photoshop and studying then step by step as per process above. 

Second, I would suggest making studies of separate parts of the face: mouth, ear, eye and nose. Break them down into basic shapes. Look at what covers what. There things do in, where they come out. 

Third. After you do your studies on photos, draw the faces you studied. But don’t draw them to minute details. Be as constructive as possible. Basic shape - ok. Hairline - ok. Thirds in proper perspective! - ok. Border of light and dark sides - ok. And so on. 

First hundred many look like crap. It’s okay. You are learning. Then things will get better. The more you draw - the better it goes. The more your drawing chakras open. 

I hope this was helpful. Have fun. Do art. Post art. 

[theyuseifan]

when u marry an eidolon with the waifu base personality

this was inspired by a conversation with  @theflowerfield , where i was taking a jab at the prayer where serena thinks you give away her key fragments, despite them being non-tradable

also @pump-o-lantern‘s basketball head bc nara made me do it

[arthkael]

Anime Saturday: Saint Seiya - Part 1

“Athena Saints fight for their Goddess. They fight until the ultimate sacrifice!”

What? An Anime Saturday post more or less on schedule? Yes.

Saint Seiya is another anime that had a big impact on my imagination. The mix of Greek mithology, fights for the greater good and fantasy suits of armor was such an incredibly cool concept that I’m still a fan of this show, and I still make art for it even after almost 30 years passed since I’ve seen it for the first time.

And although the story has its flaws, it’s full of themes like friendship, brotherly love and the importance of self-growth. Sometimes the main characters meet in battle people who are as noble and brave as them, and they are forced by circumstances to fight warriors who they would have been more than happy to call friends, if the situation would have been different.

And, oh, in this show men cry. They cry without shame. They cry when they are sad, they cry when they are moved, they cry when they are happy, they cry when a brave enemy dies. It’s all very wholesome.

Also,  the main characters weren’t a group of childish teens (or at least it’s what I believed then. I’ll talk about it in a while).

The art was spectacular, and the directors made a very good job with the budget they had. Even now, Saint Seiya shows a lot of creativity with framing, montage and lightning, and the soundtrack still has a couple of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard in a OST:

So, let’s talk about it.

The Manga: it run from 1986 to 1990 on Weekly Shonen Jump. It was subsequently published in 28 volumes. Fairly recently it had a “Perfect edition” where color pages had beein reintegrated inside the story. Is it a worth read? Well, the manga is sort of a sore spot to me. IMHO Masami Kurumada had a great idea, but he didn’t develop it in the best way. The story is full of plotholes (plotholes that the anime wll inherit), the battles aren’t as long and epic as they will be in the anime, and the art is...well...like this:

Proportions and anatomy: Did Not Report. Kurumada slowly evolves during his work on Saint Seiya, but while the armor design will become more sophisticated (the Specters armors are a joy to look at), he will never completely solve his issues with anatomy (below: the evolution of Seiya’s armor in the manga and, incidentally, the evolution of Kurumada’s style).

Years ago I read an article, on an Italian magazine specialized in anime and manga, where the author described the arrival of the manga in Italy during the 90s as a terrible disappointment. It just couldn’t be compared to the anime. “We didn’t want this little, shallow manga for children, that was even badly drawn. We wanted blood and dreams”.

While this kind of comment might seem harsh, it’s partly understandable because we were expecting this:

or this:

and we had this instead:

The first two illustrations are by the anime character designers Michi Himeno (still active), and Shingo Araki (RIP, sensei). They both worked on Versailles no Bara (I talked about it here), while Araki made the character design for a very successful sport anime called Ashita no Joe. Talking about Saint Seiya, Araki would confess that he tried to fuse VnB grace and elegance with AnJ violence and energy.

Technical notes: aired from 1987 to 1990 on Tv Asahi, 114 episodes, directed by Kozo Morishita (first half) and Kazuito Kikuchi (second half); character design by Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno; music by Seiji Yokoyama; written by Takao Koyama and Yoshiyuki Suga; produced by Toei Animation. There are also 4 OAVs that are considered part of the series.

Reception: reception has been excellent. Saint Seiya won the prestigious Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1987, and it’s considered one of the great anime successes of the ‘80s.

The show has been sold, with a lot of success, in Indonesia, Malaysia, France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, China and Italy.

The Italian adaptation has been... peculiar, and it was one of the factors that contributed to the anime success. Years ago, for SS 25th Italian anniversary, video interviews were made to celebrate the series and the Italian voice actors, and one of the authors of the Italian dialogues explained the choices that were made for the dub.

The Italian dub is... very lyrical. The characters speak with elaborate, poetic, epic-sounding words, and generally they sound older than in the original series. Why did they do this? Well, in the eighties, Italian networks imported a ton of anime, and I'm talking about hundreds of series in the span of less than ten years (we had been very lucky kids on that front...anime for free), but those new animated series immediately made parents associations worry. They said anime were too 'violent and educationally harmful', because people thought about animated series as products for children and they couldn't accept that anime could be made for teenagers/young adults/adults too.

So, when SS had to air in Italy for the first time in 1990 (I feel so old...) the translators and the dubbing team already knew that they had to 'sweeten' if not to outright censor the scenes and the dialogues because, in the words of the dialogues author Stefano Cerioni "[the characters] told each other very...violent things, not pleasant at all, and we knew that it would have been difficult for people to accept that, even though the series had an amazing potential".

They didn't do only that, but, just like Marco Balzarotti (Shiryu's voice actor) said "we completely rebuilt the characters' attitude. In the original dub the characters were more childish and I think that if we hadn't done this kind of job, probably the series wouldn't have had the success it had".

In fact, one of the first things you notice when you listen the Italian dub is that the characters sound older and more mature, they don't seem teenagers at all; probably because the translators thought that it would have been difficult for the Italian audience accept the fact that the heroes were basically children.

But this huge job of translation, adaptation and acting left space for mistakes and negligence, because the series had to be adapted and dubbed very quickly, ans also because the scripts they worked with were incomplete. Also, the work on the characters' attitude and background lead the adaptators to make up a lot of details, sometimes creating hilarious situations.

Themes: self growth, friendship, sacrifice, brotherly love, fight for the greater good.

Controversial points: while the female characters have very important roles inside the plot, there’s sexism, of course (it’s an 80s anime for boys). Women can become Saints, but they have to wear a mask as a sign they abandoned their femininity. No man can see their faces, when it happens they have to kill him, or love him. This unreasonable point will be destroyed in the sequel, Saint Seiya Omega, but we’ll never see the face of Marin, Seiya’s instructor.

The saints are trained since childhood, and the training is back-breaking. It doesn’t matter how much their instructor (usually a Saint) is kind and understanding, children who are trying to become Saints can easily die even before adoloscence. The protagonist, Seiya, risked his life several times because of the dangerous and extenuating exercises Marin subjected him to, and even the other main characters had their share of pain and difficulties.

Summary: more or less every 300 years Athena, goddess of Justice, reincarnates herself into a human girl to fight a Holy War against Hades. She is protected by her Saints, warriors who don mystical armors tied to the constellations. Since the goddess hates weapons, her warriors fight only with their cosmos, the energy that burns in every living being.

The story of Saint Seiya begins when Seiya becomes the Pegasus Saint. He trained in Athens, in the Athena’s Sanctuary, and now he only wants to go home in Japan and see his sister Seika, because he hasn’t heard from her since he arrived in Greece six years earlier. When he leaves, Athena's High Priest admonishes him to not use the armor for his personal gain and tells him to be ready because, if the need will arise, the Sanctuary will call him back.

When Seiya arrives in Japan, he discovers that his sister disappeared six years earlier, when he was taken from the orphanage were he lived in and sent to Athens to become a Saint. A japanese businessman, Mitsumasa Kido, knew about the Athena Saints and took 100 kids from the orphanages that Kido's charity funded, in order to make them train to become Saints.

Seiya also learns that Kido is dead and his Foundation is run by his niece, the cold and calculating Saori. Saori is organizing a martial arts tournament where all the orphans who managed to become Saints will fight against each other. Seiya isn't convinced and he doesn't want to fight. Saori tells him that if he wins her Foundation will use its power and money to find Seika. Seiya isn't interested into fighting for Athena (he was forced to become a Saint, after all) and the only thing he cares about is seeing Seika again, so he accepts. This tournament (called 'Galaxian Wars') unleashes a chain of events that will change forever Seiya's life and will make him learn that Saori and Athena's High Priest aren't who they tell they are.

Triggers: violence, blood, ch1ld@bus3, death, su1c1d3

                                                    Characters:

(Don’t start saying that the informations here are incomplete/wrong. I’m trying to avoid spoilers)

Saori Kido: Mitsumasa Kido’s niece. When she was a child she used to tyrannize the future saints (who were more or less her age), treating them like garbage. Because of this a few of them are reluctant to follow her. She appears very cold and controlled, but this is just a way to hide her fears about her role. During the show, we’ll see her grow up from a spoiled kid, to an insecure girl who is struggling to win the loyalty of the Saints, to a determined but compassionate leader confident in her authority.

Seiya: Bronze Saint of Pegasus, he trained in Greece, at the Sanctuary. He obtained his armor winning a tournament that put him against very powerlful foes. His victory caused turmoil at the Sanctuary, because a lot of people thought that the Pegasus armor should have gone to a Greek warrior, not a Japanese one. Seiya is stubborn, reckless and has the kind of bravery that can border on foolishness. His strengths in battle are his incredible resilience and his absolute refusal to give up. It doesn’t matter how much his enemies mangled him, he always gets up. He gets up and fights until he wins. His attacks are light-based: his favorite technique, the Pegasus Meteor Fist, creates hundred of meteors made of light that hit his enemies. Even though he can be very impulsive, during the series he shows that he can think strategically and beat his adversaries exploiting their weak spots.

Shiryu: Bronze Saint of Dragon. He trained in Goro-Ho, China, where he obtained his armor. The Dragon armor was hidden under a huge waterfall in Goro-Ho and he retrieved it by reversing the course of the waters using his cosmos, exposing the armor hiding place. Since the Dragon armor spent centuries under the mystical waterfall, it became as hard as a diamond, and its shield is the strongest among the 88 armors. Shiryu is calm, reflective and cultured, he often acts as the voice of reason, tempering his friends’ impetuosity. He likes kids and he’s very patient with them. He developed a strong friendship with Seiya, who is the closest to him among the other Saints. His techniques are water-based, he generates dragons made of water to hit his enemies. When he burns his cosmos to the limit, he can obliterate his foes and himself.

Hyoga: Bronze Saint of Cygnus. He trained in Siberia and he is the only one of the core group who isn’t completely Japanese, since his mother is Russian. His techniques are ice-based: he can create tornadoes, storms, walls of ice, ice rings that can paralyze his foes and mirrors that reflect the enemy’s attacks. He is able to freeze things to almost the absolute zero. His armor was trapped into a glacier, and to retrieve it he had to destroy the wall of ice with his bare hands. Cold and detached, he became a Saint because he wanted to become strong enough to break the ice that prevented him to visit his mother’s tomb, a ship sunken in the Siberian sea. His constant obsession with his mother makes him more frail than he seems at first sight, but with time he will learn to overcome his pain and to trust his friends.

Shun: Bronze Saint of Andromeda, Ikki’s brother. He is the first one in centuries to wear the Andromeda armour, that  can be obtained only passing the Trial of Andromeda: the wannabe saint is bound to a reef with the armor chains, and can wear the armor only if he/she manages to break them. Kind, sweet and compassionate, he prefers to use his chains when it comes to fight, since they can incapacitate his adversaries without hurting them too much. He developed a lot of techniques to stop his enemies, and he can use the chains to create cages, webs, nets, cocoons and defence fields. His cosmos-based technique, the Nebula Storm, is simply too strong for him to control, so he uses it only in life-or-death situations. In the first part of the story he is in constant conflict with his desire for peace and his duty as an Athena Saint.

Ikki: Bronze Saint of Phoenix, Shun’s brother. He is the first one to wear the Phoenix armor since its creation, because until Ikki’s arrival, nobody has been strong enough to endure the training needed to obtain it. All the armors can self-repair minimal damages, but the Phoenix armor is the only one able to regenerate itself even though it has been completely destroyed, as long as a minimal part of it survived. Ikki is a loner, he tends to spend time far for the group, usually coming back when his friends need his help. He’s also very tough, he doesn’t tolerate weakness, in other people or himself. When he fights he is relentless, he never shows any signs of fear or hesitancy. His powers are fire-based, his attacks can create storms of fire, but he’s also skilled at mental manipulation, he can make his enemies relive their worst nightmares.

Marin: Silver Saint of Aquila and Seiya’s teacher. While caring a lot for her student, she trained him relentlessly, risking to kill him in several occasions. Apparently, Seiya has been entrusted to Marin because she’s Japanese like him. Seiya is very fond of her, respects her as a warrior and as a mentor, and it happened that he reached to her when he needed advices and answers. She constantly reminds Seiya his duties as an Athena Saint, and she tries to help her former student several times, often at her own detriment. Her techniques are wind-based.

Shaina: Silver Saint of Ophiucus, she resents Seiya because he beat her apprentice, Cassios, winning the Pegasus armor, and because he broke her mask, seeing her face. At the beginning of the series she is depicted as a tough, merciless warrior, a very dangerous foe because of her strength and agility. Her attacks are lightining-based, she can electrocute her enemies with hits that reach several thousands of volts.

Aiolos of Sagittarius: Gold Saint, The Traitor of the Sanctuary. He has been subjected to a damnatio memoriae inside the Sanctuary because, years before the events of the series, he kidnapped and killed the newborn Athena. At the beginning of the series his whereabouts are still unknown (although most of the Sanctuary inhabitants believe him dead) and the High Priest is interested into recovering his armor, that disappeared the night he left the Sanctuary (the armors are holy and belong to Athena, Saints can use them as long as they fight in her name). His spirit and his memory haunt his brother and the Bronze Saints.

Aiolia of Leo: Gold Saint, Aiolos’ brother. He was just a child when Aiolos kidnapped Athena, and while the Sanctuary didn’t punish or exile him, he has been bullied and mistreated by the other Saints and soldiers because he “has the same blood of the traitor”. He lived for years with this burden, and while this was a source of costant pain he grew up noble, brave and devoted to justice. Seiya admires him and considers him a role model.

Mitsumasa Kido: Japanese businessman and Saori’s grandfather. He died when Saori was still a child, leaving her the responsibility to manage the Graude Foundation, following the development of its scientific research and continuing the activities of its numerous charities. He knew about the Saints and he sent a few kids from his orphanages to training camps so they could become Saints.

The High Priest: the highest authority of the Sanctuary after Athena. His role compels him to wear a ceremonial helmet and to hide his face behind a mask. Usually, he is chosen among the Gold Saints by his predecessor. He gave Seiya the Pegasus armor and warned him about his duties toward Athena.

Trivia.

- Saint Seiya gave birth to a whole plethora of spinoffs, both manga and anime. The first manga was Episode G, a prequel with a young Aiolia as a main character (it’s my favorite and a worth read). Then there’s The Lost Canvas (a story focused on a precedent Holy War against Hades); Saintia Sho (a story that runs parallel to the events of the original manga), Next Dimension (’official’ sequel/prequel of the original manga) and Episode G Assassin, a sequel of episode G. In the anime cathegory we have: Soul of Gold (with the gold saints as main characters); Saintia Sho (anime version of the manga), The Lost Canvas (anime version of the manga), Saint Seiya Omega (it also had a manga version that ran for a few volumes), a Netflix series called “The Knights of the Zodiac” and a CGI movie titled The Legend of Sanctuary.

- The anime has a filler arc that takes place in Asgard. That arc didn’t interest the Japanese audience very much, but I assure you that fans outside Japan absolutely adore that part of the story.

- About preferences, Japanese fans apparently love the Gold Saints the most, while outside Japan fans tend to have more balanced preferences.

- The first run of the Saint Seiya anime covers the story until the fight against Poseidon. Only in 2002 the Hades Chapter was added to complete the series. Sadly, the Hades Chapter follows the manga continuity, so there are several discrepancies with the original series.

- In the Summer of 2019 Netflix aired a retelling of Saint Seiya, six episodes that cover the Galaxian Wars and the Black Knights arcs. In this new retelling Shun has been genderbent into a girl. Of course. He wears a pink armor and he’s a pacifist, of course he has to be the girl of the group. Seeing Ikki as a woman, that would have been interesting.

- Aaaannnnd...yeah. There’s a musical, of course. From what I can see the armors are accurate enough, but Shiryu’s one is...black?