ideographs of emotions

Discuss the future, present and past of sequential art.

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Phlip
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ideographs of emotions

Post by Phlip »

The notion was raised, in another thread, that some audiences have been trained to predictably respond to symbols of emotions in preference to representations of emotions.

Here's an example of the culprit in action:

<img src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/innerTubeChick.png" width="700" height="500" />

Look at the knees, and especially the hands. They convey emotion; exhilaration and anticipation.

So does the face. But the closer to the nose, the more symbolic the representation. Primates respond to faces on hard-wired channels in their brains. We could draw the hands and knees more abstractly, but not more symbolically. The symbol only works around the face because people's instincts shape their faces to communicate.

Now here's an example of an eye influenced by Manga, and a question:

[center]<img src="http://flea.sourceforge.net/ZeekLand0211detail.png" width="316" height="308" />[/center]

Note that Tuyen is not human, and her eyes really are bigger. And the committee indeed draws them just a little bigger, naturally, for emphasis.

Notice her right eye (our stage left) has the standard shiny reflection system. (The kind that some artists insist on drawing with disregard to ambient light situations.)

Now look at her left eye. Notice the difference?

Now the question: Would an artist working within a system (Marvel, Manga, Disney, or whatever) have felt inspired to make one eye different, for effect? Or would their system have prevented such inspiration?

I'm not necessarily declaring my own radical independence from such systems. I'm curious about their effect on creativity.
Proud victim of the dreaded boomerang effect
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