Just how important do you think having a good understanding of human anatomy and body shape is if you aim to be a cartoonist in this day and age?
very low, really
your popularity/social skills > your style > how many trends you follow > pandering to certain groups > "knowledge of anatomy and body"
knowledge of anatomy is completely unnecessary in this day and age where political correctness forbids you from telling an artist his art is bad
Even if your end goal isn't to draw realistically, it's immensely helpful to understand how and why the body does what it does, and how it looks across a variety of people.
Even for a show like adventure time, if you take the good artists from it and asked them how much life drawing they did, the answer would be *tons*
>>78839061
/thread
Came here to say pretty much this exact thing.
Depends on what you think a "good understanding of human anatomy" means. You won't need to be a student of human anatomy (eg knowing every muscle, every bone, every realistic expression) unless you're planning to go into some high-budget studio, but you will have to be very familiar with how weight shifts itself around in the human body and how it looks from different angles if you plan to be in any animation position.
Also don't let the highly-stylized, minimalist designs of modern cartoons fool you, in terms of actual animation quality, the standards today are usually quite high.
>>78838857
it depends entirely on your subject matter and style
if you're drawing a heavily stylized version of reality, you still want to have basic anatomical knowledge (in other words even if your forearms are diamond shaped, you still want to put the 'sides' of the diamond where a forearm should be at its widest, and narrower at the wrist end, etc. Bruce Timm shit comes to mind)
If however you're just drawing geometric shapes with faces on them, then.. you have to study geometric shapes. Different, but just as important. I've tried drawing Finn a bunch of times and quickly realized that it doesn't matter how good I am with realistic people, I have to think 'cylinder' and get that shit right or he will look terrible.
>>78838857
>that bone ridge over the nose
holy shit it's Jake
>>78839345
The Thing
>>78838857
>sans
0 fucking percent
>>78838857
That isn't a real skull, right?
Absolutely essential. Takes years of course work and life drawing.
See this guy?
>>78838928
He's a huge fag, and doesn't know what he's talking about.
>>78846024
Actually it is. Leontiasis ossea.
>>78838857
You could probably get by without it, but if you have some it could probably make life a lot easier for you.
>>78838857
All you need to get into the industry now n days is a CalArts degree.
You don't have to actually know how to draw. (and no, CalArts doesn't teach you how to draw, it teaches you how to make connections)
Anatomy, specifically? Maybe not. But no matter how "stylized" you plan on making your animation, you have to understand proportions or it's going to come out shit.
>>78838857
You may not use that knowledge of anatomy directly, but it's a vital part of learning.
An animator first learns life drawing for the same reason a cook first learns preexisting recipes and understands why they are good before making completely new ones.
>>78846341
I think I would take a dremel and ice pick to my face if I knew this was happening under my skin.
Getting the jeebies something awful.
Doesn't look like it matters much. Just draw a spoon with two dots, a mouth and some tubes coming out of it and hope the Koreans make it move correctly.
>>78838857
Jesus christ, it looks like it had an allergic reaction to bee stings or peanuts
