otomemachine:

8bitmaximo:

sarahfu:

…dang, what?

I saw the above (official, as far as I know) art of Nami from One Piece and it kinda made me freeze up for a second. Initially it was her anatomy, but when I looked a little longer my mind went holy shit what is wrong with her FACE? The proportions are - to me anyway - incredibly disconcerting. I threw the image into photoshop and sketched over it, adjusting her proportions and face to a more, uh… human look while attempting to maintain the overall aesthetic.

It made me wonder why I noticed her anatomy errors before her facial ones, because I really think there’s more wrong with her face than her body. Is it just because the anime stylization is one I’m so accustomed to that my mind just glosses over strangely-arranged faces? Is this why people can draw in an “anime” style for years, depicting characters with enormous eyes that seem to be melting off of their face, without understanding or noticing that it’s unappealing or strange looking? 

I guess it really is just a matter of preference in the end, but I think there is a good degree of acclimation to this as well. I got so used to accepting the anime look for faces that recognizing errors and things that just shouldn’t look right took me longer than I’d like.

1. That’s not Oda,

2. There is no “anime style”

3. To imply all Japanese cartoons have the same construction is ignorant.

4. No need to go around correcting people’s art who never asked for your opinion.

5. Not everything has to be realistic proportions.

6. Even if I don’t like a style I welcome the fact there are varieties of styles.

7. I’m pretty tired of art kids obsessed on anatomy. They were taught anatomy was the most important, when it isn’t. It’s Humanity.

8. Oda has loads of humanity, his stories are interesting, touch your heart, and he still manages to draw amazing environments and character designs.

9. The reason it doesn’t look immediately “incorrect” is symbolism, it’s the same reason -> ” :) “  looks like a face to you, that’s how everyone’s brain works even though there’s no way that actually looks like a real face.

word life, maximo. i’m not even a one piece reader, and i’ve known for years what a badass cartoonist and draftsman oda is. (although i don’t think the OP is particularly shitting on oda as much they are on anime style)

anyway, i think i would have been more impressed if OP had actually attempted to nail her expression and the angle of her head a little better - her face is pointed down but she’s looking up. it doesn’t looked fixed - it just looks like the unimportant details of the character were shuffled into what OP considered to be “better looking” templates, while the gist of the drawing is totally lost. and real talk, like any art professor, editor, art director is going to look at that and say the end drawing isn’t also anime?  

but really i’m pretty tired of the postanime obsession with anatomy, and the idea that good anatomy is the be all and end all of good art, ESPECIALLY regarding cartooning. because of that we have this poopy boring yawnwave of technically apt young cartoonists and whatevers who draw proportionally sound poopy boring yawnart. you totally nailed the proportion of arm to leg length, but i’m fucking falling asleep.

of course proportions and anatomy are important to learn for any style - you need to understand these things to abstract them. idk, i just feel like somewhere along the line everyone got all in a shitfit about anatomy and forgot that they had to make their people look alive. 

it just reminds me of when i got an anon message about how ‘rebecca sugar doesn’t seem to understand anatomy’ as if it made her any less of a fucking beast at nailing form or… any less working on adventure time, really. oh fucking boo, she drew a forearm too long in sacrifice to get a gesture down while doing pen sketches!!!! REBECCA SUGAR DROPS 40 POINTS ON THE INTERNET ARTIST LEADERBOARD, P-P-P-P-P-WWWwwWWNAAaAAAAAAAAAAAGE

nothing personal to the OP, just, absolutism ain’t for cartoons. 

But there is an anime style. Its how we can tell anime from Western animation and is also why things like Avatar confuse everyone as to what it is really (anime? animation?). I think that most recognize the anime style as including more than just big eyes but there are definitely characteristics of the art in anime that are seen across the board. I think that the OP did make a point in that people who watch a lot of anime get sort of consumed by it and lose the ability to actively distinguish anime art from other art. By that I just mean that a lot of fan art have anime styles applied to western characters (the chibi for example is very popular). However, I don’t see the big deal. Unlike Western art, anime art has such unrealistic proportions that everyone recognizes it as unrealistic. Western art on the other hand, often have proportions that seem real or achievable when there not (Barbie anyone?) and that’s a problem because it influences people’s idea of beauty in real life. Anime on the other hand just remains a good entertaining art style that people can delve in because they love that sort of art.

Finally, human beings have structures in the brain that are really sensitive to face recognition, meaning that we see faces in everything (I believe that it all we really need are eye like apparitions for us to see a face but I may be wrong). Anatomy really isn’t important for us to appreciate a resemblance to the really thing and I think that’s important because it allows us to appreciate art that does exactly portray the world as it is which I think is the whole point.