sailorleo:

luxtempestas:

luxtempestas:

the character artist for pokemon seems to be eternally struggling with drawing quadrupeds’ hind legs..

theres this consistent style of drawing the hind feet very inward, while the tip of the heel juts out past the body. i know pokemon are fictional but still its a structural issue and even in-universe it makes the character design structurally confusing and poorly shows weight. something about it makes the characters look stiff and rigid. because i believe the best fiction is rooted in well-studied nonfiction, i can give an example on why each of these three pokemon’s physiology is actually wrong in different reasons. 

first off litten. “but cats DO have very inwards facing feet!!” this is true! BUT you will not see the heel extend past its bum unless in a very strained posture, otherwise the heel is tucked under the body. this cat is somewhat bringing it’s hind leg forward and not in a completely passive posture, but you can clearly see the heel stop. its other leg is an example of when a domestic cat does bring its hock out past the body, you will actually see the angle of the heel gets reversed, pointing the opposite way.

personally i interpret eeveelutions as canine, so i will also base sylveon off a dog’s body for this example. if i were to compare it’s hind limbs to the real world, they look like sickle hocked dogs, which is an undesirable trait and a fault as conformation. they do exist, but its not good and does cause joint issues.

pyroar gets more complicated, its just built all sorts of wrong. firstly, its body is downright canine. cats have a much lower set backside especially panthera big cats and the hocks are a mile long. its posture is straight back, square built, and a high neck (it should have a neck more like raikou imo) this design really does not show weight well, pyroar is stick thin, it’s elbows are placed very low but honestly fattening it up would probably make them look alright where they already are. 

once again cats will have inward slanted hocks and its back legs could be easily fixed by completely shortening them into a feline physiology instead of a very canine one. even by a skeleton you can tell big cats are supposed to be heavy-set, and actually can retain the inward foot posture when the leg goes behind the body sometimes because of their weight.

on the opposite side of things, pokemon ungulates work better because their knees are supposed to be set very high. still the zebstrika looks very stiff and technically hocks that don’t line up straight with the butt on equines is a no-no

basically take this as a lesson in character design. observing from nature will keep your characters stronger and more believable in both concept and visual structure. a good example of this is the work of Terryl Whitlatch , she designed many creatures for the star wars universe and has written books about it, but most importantly she was an intensively trained zoologist illustrator working on observation before turning to create fictional animals. go check out her stuff.

IN CONCLUSION, OBSERVE FROM LIFE AND “ANIME STYLE” IS NOT A VALID EXCUSE.

(via ghostboysandcryptids)