Should I be Afraid of Drawing Glyphs?

What the glyph?

A glyph is a visual shortcut to communicate story information. Similar to hieroglyphics that have images for men, pharaohs, water  and more to help tell the story.

Glyphs take the form of stereotypes, caricatures, audience expectations and lazy drawing.

Stereotype examples

Caricatures

Expectations

There are some characteristics we associate with how an evil person can look, so we rely on glyphs to communicate that quickly to an audience.

The hero has the square firm jawline. The audience expects that, so when they see it, they think heroic character.

Lazy Drawing

This is an Asian man. 

This a lazy drawing of an Asian man, with exaggerated slanted eyes.

Drawing Crutch

An artist may also draw the same eyes and mouth all the time.The characters may be different, but the eyes, mouth and nose shapes will always be the same or similar. It’s a learned drawing crutch from mental or muscle memory.

This completes our look at the visual vocabulary used in comics, graphic novels and comic strips.

Next we start our look at anatomy. Oh, what fun we'll have!

read next - It's Not Grey's Anatomy
previous - How Much Should I Charge for My Art Services?

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