The most “realistically proportioned” prominent female animated character is probably the human version of Princess Fiona from the Shrek movies. Personally she was my least favorite of the bunch because of the Uncanny Valley factor.
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Viewing these, I’m starting to think that the large eyes and button noses in these CG characters have evolved in response to earlier CG characters that were much less exaggerated and more like the edit versions, and too often dipped into the uncanny valley. If so, that’s an unfortunate twist.
Cell-drawn characters have less to worry about in regards to uncanny valley, so for comparison “Princess and the Frog” was cell-drawn, and it also has biggish eyes, but… not the same. (Though they get pretty big on the promo materials art - those seem to look like full CG versions of the characters …possibly for brand unity alongside the always-CG characters?)
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Since we’re on a thread about female animated characters and “natural features” and you’ve included a picture of Tiana from Princess and the Frog…
I just saw an internet piece on the fact that unlike any other Disney princess, Tiana’s hair is never shown down. It’s always pulled back or up or put into a short bob. So it’s not just the eyes and head and neck that are drawn to make female characters seem more fragile and childlike: the black female character isn’t drawn with natural black hair.
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Agreed. I’m surprised at how great these all look. Especially the aunt from Big Hero 6. I feel like I’d emotionally resonate far more with these lemur-eyed characters.
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You might be on to something as far as the general trend goes but I’m not sure that statement is quite accurate. Was Princess Elsa’s hair ever shown out of a bob or braid?
Also, while you’re correct that she never sported long, natural black hair there was one scene in which she had a chic period hairstyle (I think it was part of a magical illusion or something).
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That’s the short bob I mentioned. Her hair is consistently long enough in the rest of the movie for a ponytail or up-sweep so the bob is, in fact, magical!
I think the piece I read might have been written prior to Frozen. There is the moment in “Let it Go” where she tears off the crown and her hair gets wild and then after that, her hair is always in a very loose side braid instead of done tightly the way it had been before, but yes you’re right: her hair is never loose down her back.
I think Beavis used to go to my school.
Do you happen to have any tendencies towards Prospopagnosia?
I had it really badly as a kid, to the point where I couldn’t tell my parents apart from other adults by just their faces. But I grew out of it mostly. I still have trouble telling men apart by their faces sometimes, but people’s clothing and the shape of their bodies are pretty good. I find looking at someone’s hands to be really useful. Hands are amazing. They have just as much character and individuality as a face.
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Why did I watch that? You warned us, and now I’m going to have nightmares.
I’ve seen lots of overtly and over the top horrible things on the web, but it’s the subtle creep that you gotta watch out for.
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I agree. Merida and Anna look better but Rapunzel in particular has a really bad Uncanny Valley thing going on
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That’s QUEEN Elsa to you, bub.
Huh. You think the altered versions are natural?
Huh.
I recall another artist creating “realistic waistlines” for Disney princesses, which I’m SURE was posted here on BB but I couldn’t find it… It’s here, any way.
As for this post… I find the more human-like faces interesting, to be sure. I think the real key would be to see them animated, as still frames can only communicate so much.
It’s decided, then. That was an interesting experiment, but the ‘realistic’ slider only seemed to move from zero to about 25%. We have to go deeper.
And only the bottom half of it! It’s amazing how hardwired we are to completely ignore the foreheady half of the head, to the point of having trouble drawing realistic human proportions because we keep thinking the face is larger than it is.
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Very likely yes. Developed a set of workarounds and they don’t work exactly well; a momentary loss of focus or forgetting of a key marker and the scene state is gone. Looking forward to augmented reality with face recog and tagging so I could offload all this cognitive overhead crap to a sliver of silicon.
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Yeah, and the style of caricaturisation is stunningly uniform, like it’s becoming in western animation. What sort of creative choice is picking an amount to turn the anime dial? …Next to you know, developing an actual original style like say, Aardman’s, or pretty much any successful cartoonist, ever.
That’d explain why you might not see much of a difference. I didn’t till I loaded them into an image editor and took some measurements, because I have stupid brain.
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I’m not sure I want to see “realistic waistlines.” Check out the background characters in any Illumination film (look at Despicable Me or the animated Dr. Seuss adaptations) and there are “realistic” but aesthetically gross people all over the place. Interestingly, none of the protagonists have this kind of physique.
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