Diary of a Ranting Cat

peppersupreme:

needsmoarg4:

creshosk:

“The Artist needs to learn to accept criticism. “
“Their anatomy is bad!” 

I’ve noticed that there are people that whine about artists not acepting criticism when it’s pointed out that their anatomy is incorrect. Pictured above are four examples of characters with what one could say is “bad anatomy”. They have mishapen heads and eyes that bug out of their skulls. But would anybody really try to correct the artists that draw these characters? Or the artists that came up with these character’s designs? What would you think of someone who did try to correct the artists? What would you do if the artists of these characters ignored you? Would you complain about it? If not, then why do these characters get an exemption from being criticized? Is it because they’re famous? So only artists that are not famous should learn to accept criticism on their anatomy?

The characters above are Phineas Flynn who was created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh.
Homer Simpson who was created by Matt Groening.
Arnold who was created by Craig Bartlett.
Stewie Griffon who was created by Seth MacFarlane.

Nobody would correct the artists on the anatomy here because it’s obvious that it’s stylisation as opposed to a poor grasp of anatomy. All of these characters are for animation, so they obey a number of rules as to the way they are drawn. They are designed specifically to simplify motion and have a strong silhouette. Most importantly, all of them obviously have weight to their forms and, when moving, you can see this weight. You can see it shift around as they walk and run.

This is where you can draw the line between bad anatomy and stylisation. Bad anatomy and art doesn’t show a consistent understanding of how the characters look and work. Good stylisation does, even if it’s not a perfectly realistic depiction.

(You could also probably compound ‘Uncanny Valley’ into this. The more an artist shoots for realism or semi-realism, the more likely you are to find fault in it and lose sympathy for it.)

Bolded part I wanted to extent. You see it clearly when someone grasps the style. You see more freedom in angles, perspectice and most importantly: movement. Otherwise characters look stiff and have different proportion from a different angle, meaning they didn’t fully graps it. The best thing to do is to make yourself rules on those.

Why people care so much about artists trying out realism is because when one fully grasps and understand it, they will have less of a problem distorting it and understanding that distortion. You basically free yourself from rules when you follow them first.

That does not mean they don’t make mistakes within their style. You can easily see such faults. As easy as you see faults in realistic styles. 

Btw, three of these, especially Phineas and Ferb makes jokes about their character designs.