In most cases anyone who is serious about their art, especially cartooning, will try to improve their realism techniques. Guess what cartooning is! A warped version of reality. To manipulate life in a skillful way you must understand life first.

No university or college will consider accepting you into an Illustration course if you're portfolio even has cartooning in it. They only want people proficient in Classical skills. It's the base stone for everything.

So, in short, being an anime artist should mean you CAN draw realism and quite well, at least.

I'm sorta tired of the realism thing. Some seem to think realism is the highest goal an artist can reach. I was into realism before and now I want fantasy/ cartoon styles.

Originally Posted by foggyday

but i have to admit, drawing anime too much can easily influence your realism style. And vise versa.

*guilty of just that* 0w0'
though I sorta draw in neither style now, but I always draw my eyes too apart when I attempt realism...

Semi-realism is really nice. xD;;;

As in "Pretty people who look kinda real but not but are pretty"...

I could care less how long something takes, how hard it is to do something, etc. As long as it's eye candy and as long as its very very tasty eye candy.

Attempting to measure the difficulty of two different styles of art is pointless. It depends on what you're used to doing more, if you have any art skills at all [haha if you have none then both will be extremely hard], what you like seeing more, what you're used to seeing, etc. Too many factors to take note of. xD;;;

I don't see why people insist on drawing such definitive lines.
There are degrees of realism, degrees of anime(ism? *laughs*), degrees of whatever artistic 'ism' you can think of...that all tend to meld together at the edges. Like a picture in itself, where one blends the point where two colours meet in order to create a seamless transition.

I can't draw realism...but then, five years ago, my anime pictures were quite...atrocious as well.
I believe that any person with even a hint of artistic talent could put that talent to work in any medium/style...as long as they work with it, practice with it.

I was discriminated against in High school a lot for drawing anime actually. My art teachers hated seeing me draw it, even if I had turned in my assignments. One of them actually told me that it was not art. Maybe not in the traditional sense it isn't, but traditional artists seem to be very closed minded. If it was not realism drawn on a piece of paper, it wasn't art. But realism is always taken from reference and is rarely straight from your own head. Thats how traditional art is taught.

In College however, my instructor encouraged my anime art. He was really big on experimental art forms though. If you wanted to make his day, you showed him something different with high light and dark contrast. He wanted me to study with one of his friends who drew for the Spiderman comics a few years.

I'm not too bad at realism, but you can definitely tell the anime influence... I think its mostly how I structure my lines, So semi-realism is more my deal.

Anyways, if they discount Anime as an artform, then comic artists, and cartoonists must not be artists either.

That teacher is so unfair! It's like some sort of style-discrimination of something! Pft. Both styles are difficult, and it's rude to think that because anime might look easier, it's easier to draw too :( I'm only 15, and I'm starting drawing at school this year for real, but I'm going to draw whatever I want to! You should just show your teacher just how much work goes in drawing anime~! >=D

It kinda seems like if you draw anime-styled art, people tend not to really take you seriously. =____=
At the same time, people on DA go "well, this person is popular only because they have anime art. x:"

Before I add my bit, let me say that both of your styles are INCREDIBLY gorgeous, and above average. I envy you.
I know the exact feeling of that discrimination.
My senior year of high school, I actually had a teacher who would openly call my anime drawings garbage, and I was told never to do it in her class. [I did anyway.]
As for realism, I find it less appealing, but I certainly feel that I can do it quite well.
I was always angry, because even when I DID do realistic projects in her class they always, STILL, looked "too anime-ish" for her.

In my opinion there's not a real way to compare how difficult is to draw anime or realism, the truth is that artists usually have a certain speciallity in something, this applying with anime.

I think the point here is artistic talent, mainly drawing realism or anime, usually means you have artistic talent BUT you may have way more practice in one of those styles, which doesn't means you are not able to draw the other one.

So for me is a bit stupid to discriminate any style

Realism doesnt imply a real life object It jsut implies realistic objects So in some forms anime can be realism first of all. Second of all Neither is mroe difficult then the other some artists on anime charecters wil lgo into great detail and you wil lget amazing charecters others will not put much thought into it and well anime like bleach and naruto are created with little charecter detail.(before anyoen goes off bleach is awsome so is naruto blah blah Im commenting art not the show.) When artists take there time to draw and design you will get good artwork like that of monster or elfen lied. The difficulty of a drawing is based on what you use to create it one and 2 the amount of detail the choice is urs. Some art work is simple but beautiful other slike in the first post has so much shading and is called realism but is far from it. Why there is alot of skill present there is alot of unrealistic shading and proportions that shows the person who drew it is unfurmilur with the human body.

Owell maybe I am jsut blowing smoke but thats my thoughts.


Sorry about the bad typing he he

That's...well a little ridiculous if you ask me. No, you should not be discriminated for being able to draw multiple genres. It's good that you can, meaning your not stuck to one thing. That's a great trait to have. But for a teacher to do that too someone. It's just wrong and is giving a bad influence also.

Nope. I am annoyed by people who says that anime artists don't know how to draw realistic. It's just like saying Asians are bad drivers or that African Americans eat chicken always. There are a few artists who draws anime art like myself who can't do realism but artists like yourself can do both which is great. I always think that a lot of anime artists take realistic classes or learn about realistic art because anime art structure are similar to those of realistic but more cute(?) Your artwork is amazing btw ^0^