Anime proportions

Icalasari

Imagine if someone in real life had the proportions of an anime character. Same sized head, eyes, mouth (both open and closed)...

Firebert

That'd be... surreal, uncanny even.

DYRE

It would look several orders of magnitude less creepy than if it were a typical American cartoon character's proportions, that's for sure.

MillerCross

Depends on the artstyle. 

Icalasari

^^ Depends on the American cartoon

Anime on the other hand usually has the same proportions for at least the face no matter what

Anything drawn by that one horrid artist who thinks a woman can have boobs the size of her head yet a paper thin midsection would be scary in real life however

IanExMachina

Anime eyes at least:

MillerCross

Nose and lips too, apparently.

Icalasari

^^ KILL IT!

Crimson

am i doin it rite?

Icalasari

^ That still looks fake enough to not be scary

MrW

They'd look like aliens, pretty much.

There are somethings that should stay on paper.

Schitzo

INB4 CLAMPS NOOOOOOODLE PEOPLE

DYRE

Anime on the other hand usually has the same proportions for at least the face no matter what

This isn't true any more than it is of non-anime art.

ClockworkUniverse

It's not absolutely true, but a large amount of it shares a certain trend.

Icalasari

^^ Doesn't anime usually have huge eyes, huge head, small nose, and a small mouth (or large if they are shouting)?

Guess I need to watch more anime/read more manga

ClockworkUniverse

^[obligatory Vinland Saga recommendation]

DYRE

Doesn't look particularly unrealistic to me.

And it's not like Gundam's art style is unique.

What you're thinking of is just one particular trend in manga/anime art that happens to currently be popular.

I'd also argue it's still more realistic than the Western art it was distantly based on (old Disney, Looney Tunes, Betty Boop, etc. via Tezuka)

glennmagusharvey

ClockworkUniverse

^^I agree with you, but when one talks about unrealistically proportioned anime, there's a certain set of unrealistic proportions that comes to mind, which can't be said to the same extent about modern Western animation.

MillerCross

Also, just as there is variety in anime art styles, there's also a lot of variety in western cartoon artstyles. 

glennmagusharvey

Well, modern western animation also has its bunch of artistically-deformed characters; it's just that there's much less of a consistent style in western animation than there is in (Japanese/east-Asian) animé.

I mean, think about this:
* Matt Groening style (The Simpsons, Futurama) - big googly eyes, simple features
* Powerpuff Girls style - angular shapes based around simple polygons, related to...
* Dexter's Laboratory style - angular shapes based around iconic, stylized designs
* Southpark style - a style resembling paper cutouts
* Seth McFarlane style (Family Guy, American Dad) - exaggerated "ugly" features, such as rotundity of fat people

and so forth.  None of those are particularly realistically proportioned either.

Though one key difference is that there is very little, if any, non-comedy programming that uses these styles.  "Serious" western cartoons tend to use a simplified comic-book style--see Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, and Robocop, for examples.

DYRE

^^ Fair enough, but currently the only thing I'm arguing against is the idea that anime art is totally homogenous.  It's a terribly frustrating idea because it's so widespread and yet it's also totally wrong.

I guess my first comment in the thread suggests that I don't think there's variety in Western animation's art, but that was mostly just me being an ass.  I don't really believe that.  Although I do think that in general popular Western animation is more stylized than anime but I have no intention to argue about that so... yeah.

Naas_Human

Yeah, if we're talking about unrealistic, animation in general is like that.

Them

There used to be a gallery or series of galleries on Worth1000 dealing with exactly the OP, but I can no longer find them.