Clobbering Time: Thing Tutorial Part 1

[Bruce Lee]

DRAWING THING'S HEAD

One of the most difficult superhero characters to draw is Ben Grimm, AKA the Thing. A lot of artists struggle with this character because Ben has so many distinct characteristics that make up his physical appearance. My goal with this multi-part tutorial is to shed some light on of the unique physical aspects that make up the form of Aunt Petunia's favorite superhero. Along the way, I hope that these brief tutorials will help you, the artist, draw a better looking Thing. Naturally there is always room for every artist to exercise their own voice when drawing any comic character, but I hope the instruction given in these tutorials prove beneficial to everyone who has struggled with this character in the past. So without further delay let's take a look at drawing Ben Grimm's lovable visage:

1.1: THE THING'S HEAD AT A GLANCE

I specialize in drawing a "classic" Thing, so I'm going to focus on two different head types. The "lightbulb" shaped head is reminiscent of the sort of head Jack Kirby drew back in the 1960s (my personal favorite), and the "mushroom" shaped head is more the style of Ben's head in the 1970s and early 1980s before John Byrne slightly modified and streamlined the look. Presented below are both head shapes that can be used as a foundation on which to build a nice looking Thing head. I have included several notes regarding Ben's facial features. These are points of observation that help Ben have the identifiable monstrous look that we are all familiar with today. While I refer to the head's I've drawn as being "classic", I believe that the facial characteristics I'm pointing out here are actually timeless to a large extent, and are valuable tags necessary to convey the familiar look of the character. Below the image is a link to a higher resolution version (150dpi) of the image that is more suitable for downloading and printing. You may or may not have to reduce the image down a smidgeon to fit your printer:

http://www.lostonwallace.com/thingheads100a.jpg

Print version: http://www.lostonwallace.com/thingheads150a.jpg

1.2: THINGS TO AVOID

Below is a sheet of Thing heads that depict things to avoid when drawing the head. Three of these deal with head shape, and the rest deal with common facial feature placement mistakes, poor proportion situations, or some other commonplace aspect where an artist might veering away from Ben's familiar, classic design.

http://www.lostonwallace.com/thingheads2100.jpg

Print Version: http://www.lostonwallace.com/thingheads2150.jpg

1.3: THREE-QUARTER HEADSHOT--STEP-BY-STEP

http://www.lostonwallace.com/thing3quarter100.jpg

Print Version: http://www.lostonwallace.com/thing3quarter150.jpg

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 2

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 3

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 4

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 5

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 6

[Bruce Lee]

Reserved space for tutorial 7

[Bruce Lee]

My apologies to all who posted in this thread before today.In an effort to make space for future updates for this tutorial, I accidentally deleted your comments while trying to reserve some space for the tut. You are welcome to repost them or post new ones.

Thanks for understanding.

Loston

[Ugga Bugga]

personally, I blame Ugga.

[Bruce Lee]

personally, I blame Ugga.

You were trying to help....:rolleyes:

[Smitty]

This should be interesting.

Personally, I don't draw the Thing. I draw the Hulk and ink him with a bad case of psoriasis. I think the reason so many struggle with Ben is they're too fixated on doing a bizarre character when, if you really look at the "classic" Thing or Hulk, they're just big round babies.

Everybody wants to do things their way. This is fine and, frankly necessary to forge an identity of your own. But, while some characters can be divorced from their creators with no harm (can we say Batman? sure we can) Others need to at least acknowledge the creator or you're doomed (pardon the pun) Ben is one of the latter.

I think your proportional observations on the head are spot on. FWIW, I'd say your brow is a bit ... formal ... rigid ... It could be quite malleable and free form in the old days. Perhaps a bit rock happy, too. I find Kirby/Sinnott averaged about 6-7 rocks wide.

Well done, lets see where this goes.

[Bruce Lee]

This should be interesting.

Personally, I don't draw the Thing. I draw the Hulk and ink him with a bad case of psoriasis. I think the reason so many struggle with Ben is they're too fixated on doing a bizarre character when, if you really look at the "classic" Thing or Hulk, they're just big round babies.

Everybody wants to do things their way. This is fine and, frankly necessary to forge an identity of your own. But, while some characters can be divorced from their creators with no harm (can we say Batman? sure we can) Others need to at least acknowledge the creator or you're doomed (pardon the pun) Ben is one of the latter.

I think your proportional observations on the head are spot on. FWIW, I'd say your brow is a bit ... formal ... rigid ... It could be quite malleable and free form in the old days. Perhaps a bit rock happy, too. I find Kirby/Sinnott averaged about 6-7 rocks wide.

Well done, lets see where this goes.

Thanks, Smitty! I appreciate you taking the time to offer comment here. :)

The Kirby/Sinnott brow often changed size and shape--clearly sometimes to enhance a particular facial expression or to help create a little extra depth to the head (depending on the POV, figure angle and other such things). The thing I recall about the Kirby/Sinnot brow was that it was often quite angular, and it widened and tapered dramatically in places--something that most certainly helped create extra emotion on Ben's face.

In part 1.4 of this tutorial I will include a "how-to" on drawing/constructing Ben's brow, and finally I will present some head shots depicting ways to use the brow to create expression in Ben's face.

Part 2 will focus on Ben's figure proportions and construction. One part of part two will take a look at drawing Ben's hands and feet, and there will naturally be a section on drawing Ben's rocky skin.

My chief goal in building this tutorial is to help anyone who has struggled drawing the character. My observations presented in this tutorial will be based on years studying the original Kirby/Sinnott version of the Thing, and of the many great artists privileged to draw the character afterwards. Without the Kirby version, we'd have never had a Byrne version of the character, or a Mike Ringo version, etc. So I'm going back to basics in this tutorial, serving up as much insight as I can to anyone who's interested.

I hope to clobber more of this tutorial just as soon as I'm finished inking some Super Friends, folks. Hang in there. :)

http://www.lostonwallace.com/ben.jpg

[Smitty]

My chief goal in building this tutorial is to help anyone who has struggled drawing the character.

So, to re-cap, that would be everyone in the world except Kirby and BWS. lol.

Byrne and Ringo are probably the two best examples of non Kirby Things and proof we don't have to mimic the past but, I'm with you in that Kirby/Sinnott is the place to start. Learn to draw the actual character first and work out from there.

I feel the two of the biggest problems folks have are: making him a giant and using 8-9-10 head proportions. Assuming he stands straight up, he's 6 feet tall and about 5 heads high but, he rarely if ever stands straight up, leaving him under 6 feet and 4-4 1/2 heads tall. As I mentioned earlier, under it all, he's just a big baby.

While I was never a fan, I feel it should be said that "classic" Ben was actually first brought to us by George "Inky" Rousseau, aka George Bell. While we get glimpses of future Thing on the covers of #11 and #13, he's not really there yet (and truth to tell, 11 seems like a Diverse Hands job of inking so who knows who to blame.) It's the cover of #18 where Ben first ceases to be made of soft, lumpy mud and becomes geometric, hardened rock. The next few years are a bit of a see saw, Stone and Ayers remain lumpy while Rousseau, Giacoia and Colletta go rocky.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/4407/hulkthing.gif (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/hulkthing.gif/)

[Bruce Lee]

So, to re-cap, that would be everyone in the world except Kirby and BWS. lol.

Isn't that just about the truth. Heh. I have always considered you as being one of the better Thing artists out there, Paul. When you've drawn the FANTASTIC FOUR in the past, I've always felt like you were an artist who was right for the job. Clearly you understand the importance of not going overboard with detail when drawing Ben. Unfortunately, I think many artists who set out to draw the character seem more concerned with giving each individual rock texture than about making the character work on the whole as a dimensional and decipherable form. The complexity of his rocky flesh alone seems to serve up intimidation for many artists.

Over the years talking with artists both amateur and pro, I've repeatedly heard similar comments regarding the difficulty of getting the rocks just right. In my mind the key to that seems to be to keep the rocks on Ben's head and face as simple as possible. The fewer the better. If there is too much line work and details on Ben's face, there will be greater risk of losing his facial features amidst all that extraneous detail. Things like keeping the outlines around the facial rocks thin and simple in shape are the sort of invaluable tips that I hope to pass along via this tutorial. I think the K.I.S.S. rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) that I first heard of while attending the Kubert School really needs to come into play when drawing the Thing. Less is more, most of the time, if not always.


Byrne and Ringo are probably the two best examples of non Kirby Things and proof we don't have to mimic the past but, I'm with you in that Kirby/Sinnott is the place to start. Learn to draw the actual character first and work out from there.

Exactly! I figure that an artist who wants to do their own thing all the time probably isn't going to want to listen to what I have to say in this tutorial anyway, but I'm very much interested in taking the character back to basics--back to his classic Kirby-era roots. While guys like Byrne and Ringo did their own thing with Ben, I think it's also pretty clear that they were still following many of the basic physical characteristics of Kirby's Thing. The prominent brow, beady and round eyes spaced widely apart, the thin wide nose set closer to the eyes, and the large, wide mouth were still present in their renditions of Ben. Both artists understood the character very well.


I feel the two of the biggest problems folks have are: making him a giant and using 8-9-10 head proportions. Assuming he stands straight up, he's 6 feet tall and about 5 heads high but, he rarely if ever stands straight up, leaving him under 6 feet and 4-4 1/2 heads tall. As I mentioned earlier, under it all, he's just a big baby.

Yep.


While I was never a fan, I feel it should be said that "classic" Ben was actually first brought to us by George "Inky" Rousseau, aka George Bell. While we get glimpses of future Thing on the covers of #11 and #13, he's not really there yet (and truth to tell, 11 seems like a Diverse Hands job of inking so who knows who to blame.) It's the cover of #18 where Ben first ceases to be made of soft, lumpy mud and becomes geometric, hardened rock. The next few years are a bit of a see saw, Stone and Ayers remain lumpy while Rousseau, Giacoia and Colletta go rocky.

I remember seeing that a Kirby/Ayers an image of an original FF page in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR that was from the era where Ben was still looking a bit lumpy with the less polished rock shapes that we associate with the Kirby/Sinnott era Thing. On that page a paste-up panel had fallen away, and beneath it was a panel that Kirby had pencilled. What was sort of shocking was that Ben's rocky flesh looked much different than the way Ayers had been inking it. It looked much closer to the Thing we would see emerge later when Sinnott appeared on the scene.

Thanks again for commenting, Paul. I appreciate your insights.

[kae_ae]

phew, makes me feel better knowing even pros struggle to get that shingle effect. i draw architectural illustrations so i'm like, eh, its just shingle should be a cinch, then i'm like omg these are irregular and wrap around a human form how the eff do i do this argh its clobberin time!

[Bruce Lee]

phew, makes me feel better knowing even pros struggle to get that shingle effect. i draw architectural illustrations so i'm like, eh, its just shingle should be a cinch, then i'm like omg these are irregular and wrap around a human form how the eff do i do this argh its clobberin time!

Well, I hope by the time this tutorial is completed, it will be easier for you, man. :)

Loston

[spidey976]

This tutorial MAKES me want to draw good old Ben, and I have been avoiding him for YEARS. I look forward to the next installments.

[Bruce Lee]

This tutorial MAKES me want to draw good old Ben, and I have been avoiding him for YEARS. I look forward to the next installments.

Glad they inspire you, man. That's nice to know. :)

[spidey976]

Sigh ... I need the WHOLE body tutorial now ... lol. Yes you did inspire me ... I have a piece with the ever lovin blue eyed Thing ... sitting on my table right now. :D

[Bruce Lee]

Sigh ... I need the WHOLE body tutorial now ... lol. Yes you did inspire me ... I have a piece with the ever lovin blue eyed Thing ... sitting on my table right now. :D

I've put off finishing up this tutorial for a little while. I hope to get back to this in the Spring.

[spidey976]

I've put off finishing up this tutorial for a little while. I hope to get back to this in the Spring.

Well your tutorials are AWESOME ... and I used them on this months PUMMEL piece. I have it up in my sketchblog if you are interested in taking a peak. Thanks again for all of your work Loston.

[Eric Henson]

Great tutorial! Helped clear up a few things for me!

[Bruce Lee]

Great tutorial! Helped clear up a few things for me!

Cool! Glad this helped. I hope to do a revised and complete Thing tutorial in the Spring, Eric.

[Eric Henson]

Cool! Glad this helped. I hope to do a revised and complete Thing tutorial in the Spring, Eric.

I'll be looking out for it!