Executioner (need anatomy help)

[Souly]

Alright so far all I have is a sketch.
I want to try and clear up some issues I'm having with the anatomy as well as the pose for the arms.
I was trying to put him in a menacing stance, but it seems to be to no prevail.
Anyone have any advice on what I need to do here?

[eqko]

needs more action in terms of pose Imo ...
also the arm on the right was way to short ... in general your elbow is just slightly above the hip with the hand extending to at least halfway the thigh

[baccaman21]

equinoxx is quite right in some respects, but his edit loses the balance of the piece.

By all means ignore these suggestions, as I can see yours is highly stylised, BUT (in my defence) regardless of that - some understanding of the underlying form is required - stylised or not... you asked for anatomical help so here goes...

You need to maintain balance - but not by leaning the character over (as illustrated by equinoxx [sorry dude]) :S, but by twisting it. I've done this (very) rough edit in a bid to demostrate what I'm trying to point out.



The shoulders and the hips counter each other, one leans one way whilst the other leans the opposite - the scapula in the back are in slightly different positions according to the weight distributon and tension caused by the heavy axe. Whilst the deltoids in the neck are more prounounced - thus lending more feeling of weight on the axe... I dunno why I changed the axe head I just thought it looks more brutal this way...

Generally I've enlongated the body to accomadate where the thoracic cavity would be as well as the pelvic girdle and section in between... I've also illustrated where the gluteus maximus would roughly appear (the arse muscles) as this seemed to be missing for you intial sketch.

I've tried to keep it kind stylised...

I'll be interested in seeing where you take it...

good luck
EDIT - I just noticed you were looking to make it menacing...

Try hunching the character further over (like a gorilla)

Here -

[eqko]

Bacca no probs, yours is everything mine is supposed to be, which is basically a bodytwist, with a slight lean to power up the swing of the heavy axe
in my defence though, it was a real quick edit

[Helm]

I'd suggest contraposto again. But the menacing thing bacca did is excellent too.

[Souly]

Thanks for the edits guys, I liked bacca's edit.
So I tried working one around it.



Helm, thank you for the anatomy correction.
I'll be sure to use it as a study tool while I'm doing this.

[Skull]

Superb.
The spine comes across as well defined, I'm looking forward to this piece.
Maybe a few muscle bulges in the colours?

[Souly]

Alright, well he traded his axe in for a chainsaw.

I have no clue what happened with the back.
It's obviously wrong in so many ways.

[gliding]

Souly, the new pic isn't working for me (the little red x thingy), but great so far ^^

[Souly]

How about now?
Tried using tinypic instead of ens' image hosting.

[gliding]

Much better


I like it but I'd take out some of the segmentation along the back. I might edit later

[Joseph]

all of the rolls kind of confuse me.  I can see a strong buff executioner, but not a fat one.  maybe taking out the left dark areas and possibly showing a bit more muscle to him?  looks good so far though.

[sharprm]

What happened to the axe? Bring the axe and stairs back please. And have a guy kneeling above to be beheaded. 

The back needs work. You should do a light line next to the dark one for the spine. At the end of the black line for the rolls of fat are these 't' things that you don't need. And executioners can be fat becuase they are losers who take one of the worst jobs and I saw a fat one in this:

http://www.pyrats.net/movie.html

[Rydin]

This is great.  I think you've already got the menacing feel with the outlines....but the chainsaw screams 'cliche'...I'd go back to the axe ("Careful with that ax, Eugene").  I see major problems with the shading...there seems to be no real light source, as it'd be sorta impossible for light to be above and under a fold of fat......unless each spot of highlight had its own light.....maybe add some shading in more liberally, too.  I also feel that you could clean up the lines a little better, a lot of messiness seems to be sticking out.

But yeah, the chainsaw, your creative decision in the end, but I think it was a turn for the worse.  Either way, I can't wait to see this thing done.