Animation Source Forums

That had nothing to do with anything. I suggest you read before you talk.

"My goldfish died today! Pleeease!"

hahaha XD you make me laugh. And I agree with what you've said.

I agree on the character part, but I partly disagree on the anatomy part.

Anatomy is important, but style is too. There is almost no artist out there with perfect anatomy. I don't have it, and no offense, but you don't have it either. The entire rant comes off as condescending, pretty much saying "YOU'RE NOT A REAL ARTIST UNLESS YOU HAVE PERFECT ANATOMY."

Picasso is a great artist, did he have great anatomy? Far from it. Why? It was his style.

If someone is using a style as an excuse, that's weak. But if someone says "well... let's see if I can work this into my style." Then that's fine.

But who's the grand judge of good art? No one. We each have our own tastes. I prefer cartoon styles, some may prefer realism. So what you think is crap someone might like.

Anatomy is something to IMPROVE on. It takes years to master, but it doesn't take long to figure out that legs and arms are approximately the same size. Even *I* work that into a cartoon. If a cartoon can have proper anatomy, why shouldn't realism? People who "love" the big-bony wolf paw "gods" or whatever are all liking it for the wrong reasons: "lol its a wolf and its pretty."

Besides, even Pablo Picasso had pieces with WONDERFUL anatomy. (warning: mild nudity) http://visualarts.qld.gov.au/designyour ... _belle.jpg See? No deformity here. He knew when it was appropriate to deform figures.

Like Sora-Kun I agree w/ the bit about peoples' characters - especially your last point, being that fan characters that look like the official characters... are just the official characters w/ a name change. It's irritating to the max.. and quite similar is when you take a character, like, say Balto, and just change a color or two but keep the exact same markings/form/etc. - there's really no new creation there, just a boring ripoff char :/ I mean, I used to do it all the time when I was a kid, up to maybe the 4th grade - copy a Balto screenshot... change the colors and name it something PRIDDY like Windsong or Wolfheart or Mountainspiritchildriversoul |D ...but then I grew up, mentally & artistically, and realized it's much more fun to come up w/ your OWN characters & designs and such, w/o using Balto or Spirit or Simba or anyone else's art as a crutch.

However I have to disagree w/ the part about 'incorrect paw anatomy' equating to crappy artwork. It's your opinion and you're definitely entitled to it - heck, *I* don't much care for the giant-pawed-wolf-god(dess) art either - but it all chalks up to what the artist likes & finds visually pleasing. Saying "it's mah style" *is* a lame excuse if your art looks like this:
http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1228538/
^which clearly has a lot of issues all over... regardless of "style".
BUT I see nothing terribly wrong w/ art from people such as WildSpiritWolf or even PearlEden - who clearly know what they're doing and at least have enough of a grasp on anatomy to pull off the stylization well...
Something you seem to be ignoring from your own photo refs is the definition of each digit on the wolf/dog/whathaveyou's paw, which unlike Balto and Disney dogs' feet, do *not* lie flat in a circular 2D bundle. By this I mean paws like Jenna's, for example (http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a389/ ... /Jenna.jpg). Which, while cute and not visually UNpleasing, are naught but lil nuggets, devoid of any detail besides 3 lines for the toes
http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/22 ... 232147.jpg
^You can see clearly how each toe has its own delicate structure, and I think artists like the one's you mentioned are simply choosing to exaggerate that feature in their own stylizations... it doesn't necessarily look as bad as you imply, and clearly a lot of people like that look. I say, so what if it's not 100% realistic? Maybe they aren't even going for realism there.

...

I have to concur w/ you on one more point, though, and give you kudos for mentioning it:
WOLF/DOG ANATOMY =/= HORSE ANATOMY
No way around it, this can *not* be accounted for by style... they're just two completely different animals no matter which way you cut it... it's like drawing a stork and calling it a shark o.O
There are far too many 11 year olds using MS Paint who just completely bungle the two seemingly with every attempt... the references you posted were accurate & helpful, and hopefully anyone who's been having trouble in that regard can compare the two and improve themselves.

I'd also like to point a couple of helpful reference books to anyone in need or just plain interested in learning & improving:
"An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists" by W. Ellenberger
>>>This one's really nice cause it shows you a bunch of skeletal & muscle references for a bunch of common animals including horses, dogs, cats, cows, etc... It shows each animal from the side, directly in front & in back, an aerial view, & close up of paws, hooves and the like. It's very helpful in getting a grasp on the basic anatomy of the animals it shows; just how things are proportioned & put together, where the bones lie, etc.

"Animals in Motion" by Eadweard Muybridge
>>>Muybridge's famous photography of... yknow... animals in motion. Fun to look through even w/o any artistic intent. Was published ages ago (so the photos themselves may be in black & white, and a bit blurry/grainy) but the fact that it's still in print today is proof of its authority. Has loads of different animals in various different movements. Horses, dogs, cats, and animals you wouldn't normally think of drawing w/o first watching it star in a beloved cartoon - like sloths.
This one is cool cause it shows the animal subjects' exact range of movement and everything, in multiple gaits/motions - the horse alone is shown walking, trotting, pacing, cantering, galloping, rocking, rolling a barrel, and jumping.

I have both of these books in my own personal 'reference library' and find them extremely helpful. I mean, I'm still growing as an artist, myself - I'm far from perfect, and though i like to learn by trial & error and my own personal experimentation, it's always good to have an *accurate* reference or two at hand for when I need a reality check, or just to confirm I'm going about something alright.

By the by, those Draw 50 books do NOTHING for you I was the kid in elementary school that used to take them out of the library every week and try to copy every drawing, following every step exactly as the book said... it doesn't work. Even if you manage to make a perfect replica of the book's drawing, it's still not really an effective teacher - it doesn't show you a realistic subject & its inner workings, but rather just has you throw together a bunch of circles & rectangles to make something... which in theory is a very good way to go about drawing - I *never* just lay down a final line w/o sketching basic shapes first - but the way it's presented is far too mechanical for my liking :/ I like to see how things should be built and such, but I also like some wiggle room, not a step by step how-to. I think you need to be able to draw w/ more fluidity to really 'get' what you're drawing - sketch lightly at first, make scribbly lines & circles, etc, and really feel your figure out a bit before you finalize it.

...

ahhhh dear, this response turned out far longer than I meant for it to Oh well. I'll leave it as is cause I like to think it'll be helpful to someone.

In short, I mostly agree w/ you, besides that one bit about paws & style (which i think is kind of nitpicking it). And I hate to say it but I feel like you do come off as condescending in your post, as Sora-Kun said, and in some regards you seem rather full of yourself, and that you are the definitive authority figure on "good wolf art"... which isn't true. But I do have to say, you do lovely Balto/toony canines, so at least you know what you're talking about, for the most part - just the way you present some of your points I find irksome... *shrug* but w/e, it's no big deal - you're just another faceless internet persona to me, and I'm sure I'm the same to you, so it dun matter much

Good day :3

PS; If your character's name is actually Windsong, Wolfheart, or Mountainspiritchildriversoul, I mean no offense by the mention.

I'm all for the stylization of paws. And if they actually drew the paws correctly, I wouldn't be ranting about it. I'm not ranting about 11 year old artists who just started drawing, I'm talking about self-proclaimed professionals who don't expand their artistic horizons. And OBVIOUSLY said artists don't know "enough" about anatomy, when they're consistently making appendages four different sizes.

And the 11 year old artists who've just started drawing, think it's correct because they don't know any better, and reference off them, and keep referencing off them for loooooooong periods of time, until even their style is literally STUCK like that.

The artists want to keep drawing huge paws on long-necked stone-carved wolves? Fine. But they have no reason to do nothing else, ESPECIALLY improve. I've yet to see any improvement.

I see more improvement from said beginning artists and /they/ are the ones who supposedly know less about what they're doing than self-proclaimed professionals. Know what I mean?

Yes, it is fun to come up with your own style, but why not have fun with a new style and improve at the same time? I'm still working with a similar style I had a few years ago, and now it looks better since I actually wanted to get better. And I barely had to change a thing.

And an extra note, I hate Jenna's design and I always have. But I'm not talking about her. XD

You make a good point here - I definitely get what you mean. I could name a good number of artists whose work really.. isn't as superb as they & everyone seems to think it is... and they constantly get swamped in commissions, requests, etc. and get their *** kissed & fanart thrown at their heels... for drawing OVER & OVER for YEARS w/o significant improvement the same old cutesy, 'stylized' doggies... maybe this isn't quite who you're talking about either (looking at the examples in your original post) but they're the kind of people who come to mind to me... *cough*Frisket*cough*VanillaKitsune*cough* I mean it's not that it's WORTHLESS PIECE A CRAP but just, these mechanical errors that constantly pop up and never get fixed or improved and no one says boo - eh, *that* bothers me too... is that what you're trying to say?

And as for the coming-up-w/-your-own-style, I wasn't referring so much to people having wonky anatomy in their established way of drawing, but rather... breaking free from the Balto-dog-clone way of drawing & char design that I'm sure a lot of budding artists start off w/ (including myself - I still draw pretty Balto-y lookin dogs... but over the years I've learned to personalize them more, and not simply copy screenshots & tweak Balto or Jenna's designs).

I'm all for improvement at any stage in the game. And yes, looking through your old art in your BaltoSource gallery, and comparing it w/ your recent dA submissions, it's clear you've made leaps of progress, w/o completely changing the overall look of your style... good job :3 If only some other people would follow your example It takes time to see your mistakes, I guess... or rather, WANT to see your mistakes.

Yes, thats exactly what I mean XD

Ahhh, then yup, I gotcha :3 ...eh, after those long posts I feel like i should have more to say, but I guess I really don't XD;;