No one should be encouraged to draw anime. You do that shit on your own time. At home in a dark cellar away from normal people.
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Hey art teachers, stop discouraging student's love for anime and manga art
- Thread starter ElBoxy
- Start date
I think its because ten years ago it was still a unknown thing to most art teachers that they didn't know how to grade properly. It doesn't help that these type of books were the norm back then being sold in book fairs.
I remember this book :)
This is not about kids drawing anime for school. This is about a department chair disparaging an entire elective class and implying they shouldn't see any of it's influence in other major courses.
It's a toxic opinion that art teachers still have, when pros in the industry constantly draw from Japanese influences. I suspect this stigma will go away in a decade or two when artists who grew up with anime are well into their teaching years.
It's a toxic opinion that art teachers still have, when pros in the industry constantly draw from Japanese influences. I suspect this stigma will go away in a decade or two when artists who grew up with anime are well into their teaching years.
I mean, draw anime all you want...but at least do it after you learn traditional fundamentals. Too often people just specialize on one thing and become defensive whenever it's called into question.
If you are limiting yourself to just that spectrum, you are missing out on a ton of what it means to be an artist.
If you are limiting yourself to just that spectrum, you are missing out on a ton of what it means to be an artist.
If you're trying to become an artist by simply doing what's most safe and profitable, you should just quit. You've already failed.
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I still have this book in my closetI think its because ten years ago it was still a unknown thing to most art teachers that they didn't know how to grade properly. It doesn't help that these type of books were the norm back then being sold in book fairs.
Got it like during like... grade 3 scholastic book orders?
I have similar dire situation like this and this is my real anxiety because of that. I'm constantly drawing from time to time on sketchbook while indulging myself to keep practice so I can become a comic artist for graphic book in the future. *Anything* art styles can be considered as "anime" or realism and they are both acceptable in the artist's eyes and if anyone disagrees with this can go fuck the right off.
Forgive my native English language, I have to get off my chest.
My fiancé is an art teacher and she has 3-4 students that routinely turn in anime drawings, regardless of what the assignment actually is.
Last year, she did a Jackson Pollock water balloon fight with two huge canvases and paint-filled balloons and apparently the same three kids decided to sit out and draw anime...I think I kind of understand what type of 'artist' this is talking about.
Last year, she did a Jackson Pollock water balloon fight with two huge canvases and paint-filled balloons and apparently the same three kids decided to sit out and draw anime...I think I kind of understand what type of 'artist' this is talking about.
I can't believe some of the replies here are dismissing this. When did anime suddenly become a lesser art form?
I agree that people need to know the fundamentals, but I think after that point it shouldn't matter what style they are drawing in. No one style is correct, and no one style is the only way to get a job in one's chosen field. To have instructors and professors saying this kind of stuff repeatedly is completely disheartening to an aspiring artist. And it isn't just one or two people at a handful of schools but many professors at big and small institutions across the western world.
If an art student is able to show their proficiency in the fundamentals, why shun their art for its influences drawn from anime/manga?
Edit: I'd get it if this was just about students who staunchly refuse to step out of their comfort zone, but these aren't the only students this mindset is affecting. It's affecting good students as well.
I agree that people need to know the fundamentals, but I think after that point it shouldn't matter what style they are drawing in. No one style is correct, and no one style is the only way to get a job in one's chosen field. To have instructors and professors saying this kind of stuff repeatedly is completely disheartening to an aspiring artist. And it isn't just one or two people at a handful of schools but many professors at big and small institutions across the western world.
If an art student is able to show their proficiency in the fundamentals, why shun their art for its influences drawn from anime/manga?
Edit: I'd get it if this was just about students who staunchly refuse to step out of their comfort zone, but these aren't the only students this mindset is affecting. It's affecting good students as well.
Animation is the most sellout tier art form don't give me that shit.
I'm not the least bit surprised to see stupid posts like this.
Gonna be a while before the stigma anime/manga has in America to go away.
uhhh I got bad news for you buddy.
ain't nothing about this easy, or safe. Cause this is what you're competing with on a weekly basis: https://www.artstation.com/artwork?medium=digital2d
Lol, my brother had this book and it inspired us to start our own comic series.I think its because ten years ago it was still a unknown thing to most art teachers that they didn't know how to grade properly. It doesn't help that these type of books were the norm back then being sold in book fairs.
If you mean the stereotypical Insert poorly drawn anime character I guess, but I still don't like the guideline or whatever. Plus some art from anime and manga is crazy good, and I'm only a casual fan really.
Seems like half the people in this thread didn't actually read the OP. This isn't about art teachers wanting people to learn fundamentals the right way. This is about teachers outright BANNING anime as an art style. The specific class listed is a 300 level class. Dunno how it works in art but in computer science at least I was way past the fundamentals by that point.
You want to draw anime, then fucking draw anime is my point.
I don't know what this has to do with what I said.
JUST DO WHAT YOU WANT
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Honestly, this is true. And it's the same as if your portfolio was strictly Western comic book super heroes in the popular style.
This is an amazing book. I don't know how this shit gets published.I had the red one, but it at least was decent compare to other books. It's not hard to understand the teacher's argurment when the anime boom happened, as many people tried to make a quick buck out of it.
If you're a beginner or want to aspire to draw manga style, then please draw from life. Learn actual anatomy.
You can learn about drawing different styles by emulating manga artists, but most of them have near enough nailed the foundations.
Anyway.. blanket banning manga style seems silly. It's fine to draw it but yeah, try and do it well.
Oh, and if you're just drawing for your own pleasure, then go wild!
You can learn about drawing different styles by emulating manga artists, but most of them have near enough nailed the foundations.
Anyway.. blanket banning manga style seems silly. It's fine to draw it but yeah, try and do it well.
Oh, and if you're just drawing for your own pleasure, then go wild!
Racism, maybe. Regardless people are incredibly dismissive, thats for sure. More and more western animation is inspired by anime these days. New generations of animators and comic books artists will take it further.
Wow, lots of ... passionate misinformation here, haha.
Ive been around Ringling a fair bunch, its ... a problematic place. My wife graduated with a BFA in illustration and it took us a long time to pay for her 120k plus in college loans. I wont say dont go to art school but I will defimitely say "dont go to Ringling.
As for my own experience I am a Joe Kubert graduate, have a native "anime" style and have worked/done work for many companies like EA, Lab Zero, Fangamer, Capcom, Udon, etc etc for over ten years, Im pretty damn qualified to talk about this topic :P
First thimgs first, in the real world it doesnt matter what style you have, if you're good, you can find work. There are many, MANY outlets out there. Character design, storyboarding, comics, covers, illustrations, vis dev, world building, coloring, layouts, prop designs, weapon designs, creature design, background artists, animators, cleanup artist, shading artists, background designers, special effects artists, graphic designers and the llist goes on and these jobs are available as full time work or as freelance or as part time and they are all over the place with many different needs, goals and challenges. Lots of people take a while to find the right job because they may not be the right fit, but its very, very rarely a case where style comes intoplay, its ,uch more about personality, problem solving and being flexible so you can delover what your project needs
Second thing second, lots of people have no fucking clue what "anime" even is. To some it means "bad art", to some it means "foreign art", to some its just that anime they don't like and thats something I find to be very prevalent.
People dont usually say this is anime style
They say its Ghobli style! How convenient!
Hey guess what, this is anime too
Hell yes backgrounds count, they take way more artists than charavters do!
People like to keep putting art styles into weird boxes. Ome day its calarts style thats making the rounds yet nobody calls that "American Style", we dont do that with Disney, either! Yes, I know that most people associate an anime look with Dragon Ball or some lower common denomination high school show with a bunch of schoolgirls with weird hair and giant eyes but thats as disingenous as watching some shitty Scooby Doo episode and thinking "American Style is garbage". We must become able to discern quality regardless of style.
With that out of the way, lets talk about art education at the college level.
Usually a lot of these horror stories happen to women! My wife was told, in her expensive ass college by a respected FEMALE instructor, to quit drawing and just get married, my friend Missy who is featured in the OP was also lambasted for her style and many of my lady friends have been through it as well. Hell, go to ANY anime convention in America and youll see most artists are women. Women who got fed up with being told they couldnt do what they wanted and became self reliant instead.
Why is that even a thing, you ask? Because manga and anime create fans due to how varied their comtent is, you can have romance, comedy, drama, action, food, sex, kid stuff, politics etc etc instead of 90% superhero books for dudes in the US. There was this group of female nerds waiting for something different since the 90's and with the advent if the internet manga and anime took hold of the female fanbase by giving them the variety they craved for, creating fans!
Many college instructors are too old, out of the loop and not flexible in their thinking. If I have a student that has bad fundamentals, in doesnt matter what style they try, its gonna look like shit .. however, nobody that draws in "the Marvel style" is told to chamge styles, even if they are shitty artists, wonder why that is?
A lot of these older educators probably saw an anime movie, like one of the Dragon Ball ones with Broly or whatever, thought it was ridiculous compared to Beauty and the Beast and just swore off the entire genre altogether. In reality manga and anime should be studied closely because it teaches an artist how to be ruthlessly efficient. When American cartoons like Transformers or Hannah Barbera have to deal with budget issues their shows become a laughing stock due to how obvious they are with their asset reuse but manga and anime have mastered framing, pacing and timing so that they can have compelling entertainment without having to animate or draw everything which is incredibly important to learn in art school.
What any art school should really focus on (aside from failing students which is a whole other deal) is to separate style from fundamentals. A young artist shouldnt be ashamed of their style just because their fundamentals are low, thats what school should be for! As I learn basic shapes, linework, perspective, color etc then I would apply those teaching with my native style and, not unlike alchemy, see what the results are, THATS an art education because it gives me tools to learn for myself.
So yeah, fuck Ringling.
If you're an artist, heres my advice. Dont worry about jobs, worry about how awesome you can be and analyze what is stopping you from getting there, its probably not your style but rather being stellar at any particular skill. When you're a beginner you should try to be really good at -one- thing and leverage that to get yourself out there, then start working on the supplementary skills you need to reach that mext level. Maybe its color, maybe its perspective, maybe its storytelling, figure out what it is for you, find the references you need and go chase them as hard as you can. Dont worry if your style is too much of thisor that, if its AWESOME good things will happen.
Ive been around Ringling a fair bunch, its ... a problematic place. My wife graduated with a BFA in illustration and it took us a long time to pay for her 120k plus in college loans. I wont say dont go to art school but I will defimitely say "dont go to Ringling.
As for my own experience I am a Joe Kubert graduate, have a native "anime" style and have worked/done work for many companies like EA, Lab Zero, Fangamer, Capcom, Udon, etc etc for over ten years, Im pretty damn qualified to talk about this topic :P
First thimgs first, in the real world it doesnt matter what style you have, if you're good, you can find work. There are many, MANY outlets out there. Character design, storyboarding, comics, covers, illustrations, vis dev, world building, coloring, layouts, prop designs, weapon designs, creature design, background artists, animators, cleanup artist, shading artists, background designers, special effects artists, graphic designers and the llist goes on and these jobs are available as full time work or as freelance or as part time and they are all over the place with many different needs, goals and challenges. Lots of people take a while to find the right job because they may not be the right fit, but its very, very rarely a case where style comes intoplay, its ,uch more about personality, problem solving and being flexible so you can delover what your project needs
Second thing second, lots of people have no fucking clue what "anime" even is. To some it means "bad art", to some it means "foreign art", to some its just that anime they don't like and thats something I find to be very prevalent.
People dont usually say this is anime style
They say its Ghobli style! How convenient!
Hey guess what, this is anime too
Hell yes backgrounds count, they take way more artists than charavters do!
People like to keep putting art styles into weird boxes. Ome day its calarts style thats making the rounds yet nobody calls that "American Style", we dont do that with Disney, either! Yes, I know that most people associate an anime look with Dragon Ball or some lower common denomination high school show with a bunch of schoolgirls with weird hair and giant eyes but thats as disingenous as watching some shitty Scooby Doo episode and thinking "American Style is garbage". We must become able to discern quality regardless of style.
With that out of the way, lets talk about art education at the college level.
Usually a lot of these horror stories happen to women! My wife was told, in her expensive ass college by a respected FEMALE instructor, to quit drawing and just get married, my friend Missy who is featured in the OP was also lambasted for her style and many of my lady friends have been through it as well. Hell, go to ANY anime convention in America and youll see most artists are women. Women who got fed up with being told they couldnt do what they wanted and became self reliant instead.
Why is that even a thing, you ask? Because manga and anime create fans due to how varied their comtent is, you can have romance, comedy, drama, action, food, sex, kid stuff, politics etc etc instead of 90% superhero books for dudes in the US. There was this group of female nerds waiting for something different since the 90's and with the advent if the internet manga and anime took hold of the female fanbase by giving them the variety they craved for, creating fans!
Many college instructors are too old, out of the loop and not flexible in their thinking. If I have a student that has bad fundamentals, in doesnt matter what style they try, its gonna look like shit .. however, nobody that draws in "the Marvel style" is told to chamge styles, even if they are shitty artists, wonder why that is?
A lot of these older educators probably saw an anime movie, like one of the Dragon Ball ones with Broly or whatever, thought it was ridiculous compared to Beauty and the Beast and just swore off the entire genre altogether. In reality manga and anime should be studied closely because it teaches an artist how to be ruthlessly efficient. When American cartoons like Transformers or Hannah Barbera have to deal with budget issues their shows become a laughing stock due to how obvious they are with their asset reuse but manga and anime have mastered framing, pacing and timing so that they can have compelling entertainment without having to animate or draw everything which is incredibly important to learn in art school.
What any art school should really focus on (aside from failing students which is a whole other deal) is to separate style from fundamentals. A young artist shouldnt be ashamed of their style just because their fundamentals are low, thats what school should be for! As I learn basic shapes, linework, perspective, color etc then I would apply those teaching with my native style and, not unlike alchemy, see what the results are, THATS an art education because it gives me tools to learn for myself.
So yeah, fuck Ringling.
If you're an artist, heres my advice. Dont worry about jobs, worry about how awesome you can be and analyze what is stopping you from getting there, its probably not your style but rather being stellar at any particular skill. When you're a beginner you should try to be really good at -one- thing and leverage that to get yourself out there, then start working on the supplementary skills you need to reach that mext level. Maybe its color, maybe its perspective, maybe its storytelling, figure out what it is for you, find the references you need and go chase them as hard as you can. Dont worry if your style is too much of thisor that, if its AWESOME good things will happen.
I hope you and this art teacher are both haunted by the vengeful ghost of Tezuka Osamu for the rest of your life.
Hi No Tori is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of art/fiction ever created. His sense for panel and page layout is still one of the best every put to paper.
Pure ignorance.
I can understand trying to encourage a student who is focusing too much on anime style to branch out, but that's not what is happening.
What is that monstrosity ??I had the red one, but it at least was decent compare to other books. It's not hard to understand the teacher's argurment when the anime boom happened, as many people tried to make a quick buck out of it.
I thought art school was about teaching fundamentals. Most mangaka with a very distinctive style have works that are purely adhering to realism, mostly early in their career. I know instructors can be assholes but I think they just want to show you the way to the starting line. If you know how to draw the real world realistically you won't have a problem with adapting anything into your style. However if you only draw stylized you might get flustered if you try to push the genre with something that hasn't been present, yet.
Maybe I'm wrong and art schools are way worse than I thought.
Maybe I'm wrong and art schools are way worse than I thought.
I was an Asian studying in the UK, despite having drawn in anime-style for my entire life(I mean, come on, I grew up on anime), the discouragement from my art teachers to stop anime-ing was why I struggled so hard at uni. I basically had to restart to fit their specific mold in the 3 years of university.
... Only to go back to anime after graduation, because ironically, it was the next big thing in the market I was interested in, every art mag was pushing anime art, every illustration exhibition was pushing it too, but it was way too late for me to catch up to people who didn't get dissuaded by anti-anime art teachers in their pursue of anime art. My portfolio was filled with a mish-mash of bollocks wannabe as I tried to transform my style to something I wasn't used to in those 3 years.
I wish I had some confidence and stayed on my path, I probably wouldn't be working some dead-end job that has nothing to do with my degree right now.
To people saying the West has no market for anime. Yes, that's certainly true for most sectors of the market, but they ain't all there is out there, there are plenty of audience and prospect in being a good anime-style artist in the West.
... Only to go back to anime after graduation, because ironically, it was the next big thing in the market I was interested in, every art mag was pushing anime art, every illustration exhibition was pushing it too, but it was way too late for me to catch up to people who didn't get dissuaded by anti-anime art teachers in their pursue of anime art. My portfolio was filled with a mish-mash of bollocks wannabe as I tried to transform my style to something I wasn't used to in those 3 years.
I wish I had some confidence and stayed on my path, I probably wouldn't be working some dead-end job that has nothing to do with my degree right now.
To people saying the West has no market for anime. Yes, that's certainly true for most sectors of the market, but they ain't all there is out there, there are plenty of audience and prospect in being a good anime-style artist in the West.
Me? Yeah, I get to work with some of the greatest art directors and artists in the gaming industry on a daily basis.
People who obviously grew up with a manga/anime art aesthetic, but according to most here they must be completely lacking in fundamentals!
Absolutely no chance this stance is just another example of western-centrism and borderline racist. Nope, no siree.
As Raging Spaniard says above, this thread is just full of ignorance.
I would be surprised if someone emulating Marvel and drawing some really sick Spider-Gwen art would be discouraged in the same way, despite the fact
that American comics are a lot more limited in the range of stuff you see for popular consumption in comparison to manga.
As someone who used to work at the college of design some years ago I have to say, that our art teachers had the similar stance. I wouldn't say they hated animesque style (though, admittedly, most of them thought that it's a fast food level of art), but the majority of students who were working in that style had zero foundation and stubbornly refused to branch out to other styles or even learn the basic principles.
This is dumb.
From my experience of arts teaching for secondary school kids, we were a lot more diplomatic about it. We didn't mind kids drawing manga / anime, because it was good that they were drawing at all, it only became an issue when they ONLY wanted to draw manga / anim.
School is one of the greatest opportunities for art students to mess about and try a lot of things. It's daft to say at the age of 11-16 'this is how I'll make work for my entire life and I will try nothing else'.
It's important to understand he basics, rather than just jumping the gun and aping an end product.
From my experience of arts teaching for secondary school kids, we were a lot more diplomatic about it. We didn't mind kids drawing manga / anime, because it was good that they were drawing at all, it only became an issue when they ONLY wanted to draw manga / anim.
School is one of the greatest opportunities for art students to mess about and try a lot of things. It's daft to say at the age of 11-16 'this is how I'll make work for my entire life and I will try nothing else'.
It's important to understand he basics, rather than just jumping the gun and aping an end product.
An illustration student drawing in "marvel" style and drawing Spider-Gwen tier art would be demonstrating a much larger understanding of the fundamentals of art than a student drawing their favorite anime of the month. And would most definitely be more willing to show a willingness to deviate from that style than a student who's bread and butter is "I like anime so I draw anime." Don't even get me started on how often they get stuck on solely drawing 3/4th view.
I think for the most part it is helpful to start out learning to draw realistic proportions, once you master that you can freely add your own spin to it but atleast you will have a solid base to build upon.
I don't think anyone is saying that should be ignored, but that would be done on a case-by-case basis not a blanket ban saying
that a course that has been approved and offered by the Uni is not acceptable. I find it especially weird considering it's a CA course too....
I'm not an animator but I feel like there would be a ton of overlap when it comes to keyframing techniques and such, especially when you consider the breadth of JP animation content to draw from.
You are just making up shit and drawing from your own bias and head canon.
So someone drawing Tezuka-tier landscapes would lack fundamentals? That's manga style too.
What if you compared someone who is a huge Greg Land fan to someone who is emulating Satoshi Kon?
Which would you consider to have a better understanding of art fundamentals?
If you are making blanket statements about entire mediums of artistic expression, you are wrong.
Full stop. Just plain wrong.
Actually no, speaking from direct experience.
Now THIS is what making up shit and drawing from your own bias and headcanon looks like. You're talking about hypotheticals instead of acknowledging what the average quality of art students who solely draw anime actually looks like.
This is a very very common situation among a minority of students:
Let me just confirm this, from my experience, the students who rigidly stuck to solely drawing anime and never branching out and/or outright refused to learn the fundamentals routinely produced the worst work. Many uni professors who discourage that style would tell you the exact same.
Back in the late 90s when I was in art college, the tutors had an absolute disregard for anything even remotely 'comics' or 'cartoon' like. They even had a pet name to refer to it: "Megadeath syndrome" (no idea if they spelled it like the band). Basically, they had no interest in anything which wansn't paint splattered Tate modern fodder.
I always thought it was bullshit and that most comic artists do what they do more out of love for their craft than the hucksters in modern art circles
I always thought it was bullshit and that most comic artists do what they do more out of love for their craft than the hucksters in modern art circles
What manga is this? For some reason image search is not working for me. And, is it a good manga or just a good drawing? I'm interested.
So you would approve of a blanket ban that would actively work against someone who did excel in that style, instead of working with each
student on a case-by-case scenario? Sorry, but you sound like a terrible teacher if that's your stance.
I don't even disagree with your final point and I already said that encouraging someone to branch out is a good idea above:
The only ones being rigid in their way of thinking are the people issuing a blanket ban on an entire artistic medium. I am not saying it is alright for an artist to stick to one specific style and not branch out. I am saying that telling someone that an entire field of artistic expression is not worth their time is a bad way to encourage creativity and is absolutely a western-centric idea.
Again, you keep talking about this mythical student who's mastered the basic fundamentals of art by solely drawing anime/manga. The sooner you learn o acknowledge the average quality of art from the students who rigidly stick to anime the sooner you'll realize why it's so heavily discouraged. It's very rarely a case by case scenario, in fact it's actually quite impressive how consistently you get the see the same types of students.
This is solely because you're not actually thinking about the reality of the situation and instead keep insisting on thinking about the hypothetical student who has a way larger understanding of the fundamentals of art than the average student who draws anime and only anime.
a whole bunch of posts in this thread are basically "artists-in-training should learn to do the fundamentals and art teachers should compel them to step out of their anime-only safe zone" but that is not at all what the premise of this thread is. the professor in the OP is saying "hey, you know that anime elective that the school recommends for art students to take? it's worthless and anime is trash and the entire computer animation department refuses to recognize it is even valid and if you submit literally anything that even has anime influences i will fail you."
Yeah, this is my issue and a lot of people seem to be completely ignoring the situation at hand.
But that's not what is happening here. This is a computer animation prof. telling his students that he will not recognize their credits if they dare to take another class offered by the same university that teaches manga and anime style. What exactly does that accomplish? Do you really believe that JP animation has nothing to teach in regards to keyframing and such?
If a student needs to be encouraged to branch out, then that professor should take the necessary steps to educate and guide them.
Nothing you have said has proven to me why a blanket ban on that class would be a positive thing.
It's literally one class out of dozens that a student would need to complete the major I assume.
Something that can't be taught with western animation? (Let's not even get into the working conditions of the anime industry vs western studios even with outsourcing considered..).
I'd have to see what exactly the class entails and what the average work it produces to get a full read of the topic. But again, I can absolutely take a guess at exactly what student that class attracts the most.
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