ART STYLE OR BODY SHAMING? || SPEEDPAINT + COMMENTARY

Please stop letting art fixers and ignorant audiences bully stylized artists into abandoning what makes their art special and unique just because they feel morally justified. People are actually drawing fat characters as skinny and genuinely erasing body types, so stop diminishing the significance of that problem by bashing artists who are just exaggerating the features of already-skinny characters or people. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

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JACKIE'S SOCIAL MEDIA

[YukonYuki]

That style actually looks similar to Winx club which is a popular and was a popular show. The artstyle was all about the waist but this art style knows how to draw, they made the waist that and does sympathy with the people who attacked them which shows how professional are they

[Reyreychills]

I think you're 100% right. It's really heart breaking that people would just tear into her like that and make her question her own art style. We should be allowed to draw people in their styles. I wouldn't go drawing a plus sized person as a twig, and I wouldn't draw a skinny person bigger. You can take from reality and stylize it, that's the beauty of art. It reflects reality enough that you know what it is, but it also has a massive chunk if yourself in it. I wish people would remember that the person on the other side of the screen has emotions..

[InvaderBB]

As someone who is plus sized, I’d rather artists have fun than force them to draw plus sized characters, If they want to do it in their own time, that’s alright, forcing them isn’t helpful.

As long as when they do draw a different body type, they don’t alter it in a manner to where it’s purposefully malicious. (Ie: purposely making a plus sized character look like a twig or a skinny character a bit more pudgy.)

There’s nothing wrong with diverse bodies, the problem is when people feel like artist are entitled to drawing every single body type. (In defense of fellow artists, trying to stylize bodies in a manner to give off the silhouette of that body type takes time, we might not get it the first try.)

[chunksofplum]

I once got commissioned to draw a middle-aged man, he was larger and balding, so I tried my best to show him as close as possible but in an "anime" style and my client flew off at me because I was making him look worse than he was, so I had to redo the whole thing

My take basically is that if people don't study art or draw or even surround themselves in that "style" often enough to understand it, then they most likely don't understand the choices made or what you can do to make the image look like them but in your own style, so they see it as an attack

I don't know if I'm making sense here haha

[cydney]

It's almost like people forget art styles are almost always modifying how people look normally (yes like you said it doesn't excuse drawing larger bodies as thinner or vice-versa). If they want to get mad at exaggerated body proportions they should stop watching anime, or even consuming any art in general. one I always see go through the ringer is pin-up art which, yes, has unrealistic proportions but the is almost its purpose just how in anime the eyes are almost always exaggerated and big. So if they are so against it because of unrealistic body isn't everything else stylized unrealistic body standards also? An example could be anime eyes, having large eyes is unrealistic along with other things.

this is kinda a rant and I hope I got my point across in a non offensive way. Great video as always Celestia.

[edorasmarauder]

Ugh! I hate these body shaming arguments so much because to me, it’s trying to control the way artist’s draw.

[realistfromrussia]

This whole situation reminded me of a similar story but with more tragic consequences:
One artist drew Rose Quartz from “Steven Universe” cartoon with her husband and son, but she drew Rose as a skinny (If I remember correctly, there was no malicious intend behind it). As a result: artist got bullied to the point of almost ending herself (but, thank goodness, she's okay now).

[sillyhyenalaughs]

as an artist myself, i’ve had people complain that the character i use as my own persona is “overly skinny and i should add more weight to them”. the character is supposed to depict me in a slightly animated style. and i’m actually teetering on the edge of underweight due to some problems, and a really high metabolism. so yes, i honestly think, especially for when it’s just personal art, people have got to stop criticizing everything in such a serious manner when it comes to it. if i’m tryna draw realistic, i will make as realistic the body type that i am able to do, but personal art and art styles are not meant to be realistic :)

[AngeliqueSe]

I very much agree with you 100%, but too add my 2 cents, I think one of the reasons people went mad over the original tiktok is how Britney as quite the history of being mocked for not exactly being the perfect hour glass shape. It’s a known fact that for a decently long time, when Britney was really in her prime in fame, it was pretty common to see people blatantly shaming her for her weight even though, looking back at it know, she’s thin and was even then, people just had that ugly mindset about judging a woman by her weight. Even though the attacks to the artist were in no case okay in my opinion, I can definitely understand why they did it and where they’re coming from especially with Britney’s history.
(English is not my first language forgive me for any mistakes!)
Have a wonderful day ^^ hope my 2 cents helped

[MewMira]

What bothers me about these types of situations, is that people go after one specific artist, who just happened to cross their way, instead of criticizing the general problem. That, and attacking someone is just always wrong.
People should try to look more deeply into where the problems (like with representation) are coming from and what could be done to improve things without making innocent people suffer. Like with different body types, I think a common problem is just that many artists don't know how to draw them. Most learn how to draw one body type and then only use that. It's kinda like same face syndrome. Not everything is done with malicious intent. People really need to chill more.

[cucaresto]

I agree with you to a degree. As someone that is and has been overweight/obese most of my life, Being obese isn't healthy or something to be proud of, it can be debilitating. So I don't think artist are obligated to depict overweight bodies in their work. They can, but they don't have too.
Just like they don't have to depict POCs (I'm a POC myself so no, I'm not racist.)
Comics set in Russia will probably have a white or mostly white/fair skined cast. Because that's true to life, just like how most cast in japanese comics are asian.
Artist shouldn't be obligated to give representation, and if people are so mad about it then why not create representation yourself?
Can't draw? Write. Can't write? Then just advertise and promote inclusive content.
Now I'm not saying for artist to be racist, ableist, homophobic etc. And they definitely shouldn't erase bodies of real people. But what I'm saying is artist have the right to choose what they draw, and not every peice has to represent everyone.

[sirjokiti]

Honestly, the entire thing feels baffling to me. And all it really does, in my opinion, discourages artist to draw different body types in their respective styles and post their personal stuff online because of the said bullies.

[HelplessFangirl]

Ngl I feel like so many of these problems boil down to the fact people are going about it with the wrong mindset: destroy, not create. The want to destroy people who make personal content in a skinny style and potentially harm people who's only crime was drawing something "the wrong way", but aggressive campaigns like this don't incentivize anyone to draw these realistic proportions, if anything make it terrifying to be an artist on anywhere.

But I feel like maybe people should be instead create more content on their own or support content creators, it might inspire people to draw these body types and contribute to a loving community, because regardless of whether you think showing more body types is the "right" thing to do....if people terrorize everyone who doesn't draw body types exactly the way they want, it won't change any minds or make the idea more widely accepted.

[vivianevtVODs]

as a plus sized woman, i don't think people should be forced to draw plus sized characters when it comes to hobbies and having fun. like professional is another story, but i have a habit of feeling more comfortable drawing hourglass shape figures because it's something I wish i had honestly, and i'm not proud of my weight. i swear there's a problem with just about anything in the art community sometimes, just let artists have their fun

[poemone]

I've actually been harassed like this before bc j draw larger chests (mainly to represent myself and my gay attraction to women) and get called things like predatory and body shaming and I even have people make fun of other stylistic traits in my work. It honestly feels like people never wanting any individuality in artwork and just want carbon copies of hyperrealistic art or you're not allowed to be an artist without getting attacked:(

[unofficialfoxi]

i'm an artist that takes traits from their own body and inserts them into my own art. i am underweight, so my hips do stick out a bit more(to me). so i add it into my own art. then the legs usually get very thick, so you get thick thighs and thick calves with me. and i am trying to add a bit more diversity to my own art. but seeing this happen on an app i use frequently makes me question my style and become slightly frightened of being attacked. my account is relatively small, so i do not believe i would be attacked(always a possibility though!). i agree entirely with you; sometimes art style is just that: an art style. and yes, there is always a possibility that the "art style" would be problematic, most sometimes it's just an art style.

[sixnigthmare]

i get so much whataboutmeism from all of this
we artists shouldn't be shamed for the type of characters we draw
i remember one time someone told me that my character can't be uderweigth because its "unhealthy" while completely discarding the fact that one of the core elements of the story is starvation

[TheArtMentor]

This is interesting discourse for sure. Ultimately though, if you proclaim to be an artist or art appreciator, yet shame artists for their preferences or style in content, then this degrades the inherent value of art all together. It’s trying to play both sides. Do you agree with that, Celestia? If art becomes controlled by politics, then what’s produced isn’t art but just censorship

[ColorfulSouls]

It really bothers me when I see this type of stuff because its like people completely forget what "styelized" means in the first place, its not made to look "perfect" or accurate, the more cartoony it'll be the less realistic itll be and its like the idea bothers people to no end, I've seen it countless times, an artist I love got a lot of hate from 1 person just because they drew a character in their style that was stylized. Theres a difference from erasing body types and just simply drawing, how I draw myself isn't perfectly how I look like in real life but I keep most of my parts from my body but just change it to how i'd draw it in my style. It bothers me cuz I feel like people aren't allowed to draw cartoony, if you draw a character with a wonky body or something your art is seen as weird. I really look up to artist that have those really expressive wonky styles because its amazing to me and inspires me, but it sucks when I see people be mean about it for no other reason then "it looks weird" like, , , , thats the point, , , ,

[monstergirlinc]

Most of the crituque ive recieved on the body types of my characters actually came from my mom. She was a larger woman, and she often expressed her jealousy of my skinnier, hour glass body thru insults, which also carried thru to my art. She would always comment if she thought my characters has too skinny of a waist, or too large curves, saying "real people don't look like that." of course they didn't. I was a kid who hadn't fully developed my skill and still couldn't get proportions to look right, no matter what body type i was trying to draw. Looking back at my old art, i made the heads way too massive and the hands way too small, but my mom never commented on that. She only commented when i drew girls with bodies similar to mine saying that no one looked like that. I think that's why i'm so passionate about body positivity, because as a woman who sees my body type represented and praised all the time, it only took one person close to me to make me feel terrible in my own skin, so i can't even imagine someone of a different body type without a lot of representation feels. and i dont think its the job of artist doing it for fun to fix the years of media that lead this problem into existence.