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FA - Stop Making Stupid Rules
2 years ago
Certifiable Mad Scientist: I have a Death Ray, and I know how to Use It.
Currently, the FA mod team is looking at updating their posting rules to further decide what the legal age of a drawn character is, primarily due to the on-model posting of non-human anthropomorphized animals. The current discussion originally was centered around Pokemon and Digimon as the current target of ire, as the original model proportions all have a heavy dose of 'cute' which often leads itself to child-like proportions to begin with. This has now been moved to a complete codification of acceptable character proportions. Coupled with the previous rules that completely disregard a drawn characters actual in-universe age this will have additional consequences for artwork posting outside of specific allowable styles that will broadly hurt the furry artist community that thrives on a wide variety of styles.
What does human age-based proportions actually mean in the context of this discussion? Well, that is the first issue, as if you ask multiple sources, you will get multiple answers. I took a look at Anatomy 4 Sculptors[1], Making Comics[2], Canson[3], and Wikipedia (specifically for the Vitruvian Man[4]) websites to get at least a few references that I can share, and really the only source proportions that seemed to be available were "Child" and adult. Thankfully, Anatomy 4 Sculptors has a decent list based on age group and head size, and where it overlapped with other sources it agreed within one head length so I will go ahead and use that as a baseline:
Source: Anatomy of Sculptors[1]
* Newborn: 4 Heads
* Infant: 5 Heads
* Young Child: 5.5 Heads
* Child: 6 Heads
* Teen: 7 Heads
* Young Adult: 7.5 Heads
* Adult: 8 Heads
* Elderly: 7 Heads
Just for a lark, I also found an article on Clip-Studio[5] called "Body Proportion in Chibi Drawing" which includes the following guidelines for a "Chibi" character:
* Chibi: 1.75-3 Heads
Looking at the head-based proportions for age, and the chibi proportions that are not going to be an easily defined age (given that they are below 'infant') there are a few standouts that need to be talked about. First and foremost, the proportion of a teen and the proportion of an elderly figure are roughly equivalent which means that there is already an issue with the proportion test. Secondly, is that "Chibi" breaks all rules of proportions and so cannot be judged on this scale. Given an ideal human figure, however, we have a reasonable chart to determine what would be younger than 'teen' which at least manages to make sense by the ruling as between 4 and 6 heads in height. Except for one thing, 'ideal human figure'.
If you're new to anthropomorphic art, or even just strictly 'furry' art, you will understand the immediate issue with 'ideal human figure' when you look into anatomical changes such as digitigrade legs, muzzles, ear location, eye location and size, all-fours compatibility, tauric shapes, multi-furs, body modification, and basic non-human body design just to start with! Let's get a little deeper into these really quick in terms of how they muddle up our proportion test. Digitigrade legs (or standing on the toes) would need to have their proportions checked when standing flat footed in order to properly align with our charts. Muzzles, Ear Location, Eye Location and Size tend to lead towards a more cartoony, cute style which tends to be child-like in proportion. All-Fours compatibility (a character that can stand on two legs and manipulate with hands and also run hands and feet on the ground) leads itself to a different proportion of arms and legs to torso, which is another wrench to worry about. Taurs and multifurs just break proportions completely, since there's two sets of legs to deal with and would have to wholly be based on proportion of head to upper torso (or final?) torso. Non-human body designs like Xenomorphs, Robots/ Cyborgs, Dragons, Aliens, etc all cannot use a standard human proportion chart without converting everything to an anime-esque 'mimi' form. Body Modification can change body proportions as well. And of course, my favorite Pokemon to bring up here is Trubbish. Trubbish is always at peak adult performance, although people don't like to admit it. Trubbish is also a sentient trash bag.
On top of all this, there is a more serious issue with using 'ideal human proportions' as a yardstick for age. "Child Like Proportions" include the majority of fursuits, fursuit reference sheets, and can also catch Short Characters. "Child Like Proportions " also include the Xenomorphs from aliens because of an obnoxiously large head, and Elmer Fudd. In fact, it catches just about every on-model Chuck Jones era character including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Yosemite Sam. If anyone can make a good case for Elmer Fudd being a child after being in production for over 80 years, I would love to hear them in the comments below. While I understand that there may be some people that say 'but this doesn't matter if the character is designed super human-like!' and to that... well again I point to Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam.
To conclude, the rules of trying to use ideal human proportions as a yardstick for age simply isn't a feasible unit of measure on a website based on the various cartoonish and exaggerated body types that exist currently in the drawn media. The is especially true when the source of the anthropomorphic character is already non-human to begin with, such as a pokemon or a digimon that don't need to follow human proportions at all. It harms artists that don't have a realistic style, and even catches in its net the stylistic proportion of fursuit construction. The best measure of the age of a character is the characters actual in-universe age, but that has already been thrown out the window making the entire concept of 'what is child coded' arbitrary to begin with. With such a poorly defined rule, it essentially will simply be used for a mod to remove any art that they do not agree with without recourse or even needing to show why.
That makes it a stupid, arbitrary rule.
[1] https://anatomy4sculptors.com/about.....ns-calculator/ (Caution - Nude references of all Age Groups Mentioned)
[2] https://www.makingcomics.com/2014/0.....ns-human-body/
[3] https://en.canson.com/expert-advice.....an-proportions
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
[5] https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/4829
What does human age-based proportions actually mean in the context of this discussion? Well, that is the first issue, as if you ask multiple sources, you will get multiple answers. I took a look at Anatomy 4 Sculptors[1], Making Comics[2], Canson[3], and Wikipedia (specifically for the Vitruvian Man[4]) websites to get at least a few references that I can share, and really the only source proportions that seemed to be available were "Child" and adult. Thankfully, Anatomy 4 Sculptors has a decent list based on age group and head size, and where it overlapped with other sources it agreed within one head length so I will go ahead and use that as a baseline:
Source: Anatomy of Sculptors[1]
* Newborn: 4 Heads
* Infant: 5 Heads
* Young Child: 5.5 Heads
* Child: 6 Heads
* Teen: 7 Heads
* Young Adult: 7.5 Heads
* Adult: 8 Heads
* Elderly: 7 Heads
Just for a lark, I also found an article on Clip-Studio[5] called "Body Proportion in Chibi Drawing" which includes the following guidelines for a "Chibi" character:
* Chibi: 1.75-3 Heads
Looking at the head-based proportions for age, and the chibi proportions that are not going to be an easily defined age (given that they are below 'infant') there are a few standouts that need to be talked about. First and foremost, the proportion of a teen and the proportion of an elderly figure are roughly equivalent which means that there is already an issue with the proportion test. Secondly, is that "Chibi" breaks all rules of proportions and so cannot be judged on this scale. Given an ideal human figure, however, we have a reasonable chart to determine what would be younger than 'teen' which at least manages to make sense by the ruling as between 4 and 6 heads in height. Except for one thing, 'ideal human figure'.
If you're new to anthropomorphic art, or even just strictly 'furry' art, you will understand the immediate issue with 'ideal human figure' when you look into anatomical changes such as digitigrade legs, muzzles, ear location, eye location and size, all-fours compatibility, tauric shapes, multi-furs, body modification, and basic non-human body design just to start with! Let's get a little deeper into these really quick in terms of how they muddle up our proportion test. Digitigrade legs (or standing on the toes) would need to have their proportions checked when standing flat footed in order to properly align with our charts. Muzzles, Ear Location, Eye Location and Size tend to lead towards a more cartoony, cute style which tends to be child-like in proportion. All-Fours compatibility (a character that can stand on two legs and manipulate with hands and also run hands and feet on the ground) leads itself to a different proportion of arms and legs to torso, which is another wrench to worry about. Taurs and multifurs just break proportions completely, since there's two sets of legs to deal with and would have to wholly be based on proportion of head to upper torso (or final?) torso. Non-human body designs like Xenomorphs, Robots/ Cyborgs, Dragons, Aliens, etc all cannot use a standard human proportion chart without converting everything to an anime-esque 'mimi' form. Body Modification can change body proportions as well. And of course, my favorite Pokemon to bring up here is Trubbish. Trubbish is always at peak adult performance, although people don't like to admit it. Trubbish is also a sentient trash bag.
On top of all this, there is a more serious issue with using 'ideal human proportions' as a yardstick for age. "Child Like Proportions" include the majority of fursuits, fursuit reference sheets, and can also catch Short Characters. "Child Like Proportions " also include the Xenomorphs from aliens because of an obnoxiously large head, and Elmer Fudd. In fact, it catches just about every on-model Chuck Jones era character including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, and Yosemite Sam. If anyone can make a good case for Elmer Fudd being a child after being in production for over 80 years, I would love to hear them in the comments below. While I understand that there may be some people that say 'but this doesn't matter if the character is designed super human-like!' and to that... well again I point to Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam.
To conclude, the rules of trying to use ideal human proportions as a yardstick for age simply isn't a feasible unit of measure on a website based on the various cartoonish and exaggerated body types that exist currently in the drawn media. The is especially true when the source of the anthropomorphic character is already non-human to begin with, such as a pokemon or a digimon that don't need to follow human proportions at all. It harms artists that don't have a realistic style, and even catches in its net the stylistic proportion of fursuit construction. The best measure of the age of a character is the characters actual in-universe age, but that has already been thrown out the window making the entire concept of 'what is child coded' arbitrary to begin with. With such a poorly defined rule, it essentially will simply be used for a mod to remove any art that they do not agree with without recourse or even needing to show why.
That makes it a stupid, arbitrary rule.
[1] https://anatomy4sculptors.com/about.....ns-calculator/ (Caution - Nude references of all Age Groups Mentioned)
[2] https://www.makingcomics.com/2014/0.....ns-human-body/
[3] https://en.canson.com/expert-advice.....an-proportions
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
[5] https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/4829
