Animated Tails are coming

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I can't tell a female from a male Wookie, but I can recognise Chewbacca HIMSELF, and I can tell that's him with photoshopped bikini on. This isn't a question of appeal or artsy preference, it's a question of picking your battles, and I honestly don't think that's a good example.

For the record, I've seen artwork of female Wookies, as well, or Wookies that were said to be female. Like all the Mass Effect 2 Tali erotic pictures, it has the same problem - people are trying to work with canon that doesn't lend itself to this sort of thing. Lucas didn't design Wookies to resemble humans enough for us to ascribe human-like physique and draw sexy ladies. All wookies, male and female, are basically tall body-builders wrapped in a shag carpet, so trying to make human-like females of them is a lost cause. Either you break canon so bad it no longer resembles, or you end up with a grotesque caricature that people aim and fire at "furry fans."

To this effect, I agree with you - that is not good. But it's kind of obviously not good even to said furry fans, so it's more of a straw man, really. It's funny to look at, but it isn't actually accurate satire.

That, too, is a straw man. I don't want to assume what the Technobot's ultimate goal is, but mine isn't one of political correctness, but rather one of tolerance. You find these things absurd and/or ridiculous, but then YOU don't get to decide what is and what isn't. I don't find them ridiculous, myself, and I find artists drawing in this field to be, by and large, quite very capable. It's a case of personal preference within the context of diverse preferences and tolerance between them. I happen to find rap, death metal, women's fashion and silver and golden age comic books to be absurd and ridiculous, but I don't really hold it against people who like these things. I might make fun of comic books occasionally, but I try to laugh WITH the comic book fans, not AT the comic book fans. For instance, if I want to make fun of comic book absurdity, I might bring up Amazons Attack and watch people's eyes roll out of their heads, but I'd avoid pointing to, say, Green Lantern, laughing and yelling "He has a stupid name! What a ridiculous character!" Yes, he has a stupid name, but he is a very popular and, from what I can tell, very well-written character. Even if it's not my cup of tea, people still like him. And well they should.

This is an interesting social phenomenon. At one point, offending people became "dangerous," so political correctness was born, using blanket statement straw men to condemn offending material. Years later, people are using political correctness itself as a blanket statement straw man to excuse trying to offend people. Even if political correctness is bad (and it is), the polar opposite is no better.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Isn't that kind of missing the point, though? For me, it comes down to a dislike for the mundane and usual, and a preference for fantastic scenes and settings involving weird and wondrous creatures that aren't what you'd see in the everyday world, but retain enough humanity for us to be able to work with on an instinctive basis. Faces, body shapes, personalities and psychology, all of those things are needed to maintain a believable and understandable fictional world. In fact, some of the best antropomorphic works tend to take inhuman characters but treat them like humans anyway.

It's when they start getting off-track into weird crap like laying eggs, shedding skins or basically conforming to the more bizarre of animal biology that it starts to get disturbing. Even for me.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Male wookiee on the left, female wookiee on the right: http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...ca/lifeday.jpg

Edit: And that's from a game approved by LucasArts.

while i was being goofy(this is the guy who has a dragon as his main character, ya know) that actually was a big argument on the tes forums when oblivion came out. the argonians in morrowind did not have breasts, as they were reptiles, in oblivion, they did, and some people got really upset by that.

Like I said - muscle-bound body-builders in shag carpets

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

That actually gets into a topic that's rather interesting from a psychological and storytelling point of view. I want to call it verisimilitude, but it's more than that. I've seen a lot of fictional stories, some more crazy than others, but by the by, the best of them are grounded in concepts that we can readily recognise either from our everyday life, or from contemporary-settings stories. Take Aliens, for instance. It's about as unreal as it gets, yet the conventional-looking technology, the more recognisable "marines" in their drills and their antics, and the higher emphasis on action as opposed to psychedelic nightmares gives the movie the kind of believable grounding that makes it both fantastic and relatable at the same time. It's a lot like a war movie in execution, but wrapped around some relatively serious fiction, which hides the real and makes it interesting.

Antropomorphic characters are a lot like this. Anthro artists have a LOT of leeway about what they tweak on the characters, as anime artists have well demonstrated, provided they keep certain key points that still make us see these characters as persons, even if not necessarily human people. I couldn't begin to describe what it is that one must keep, though if I had to guess, face and relative body shape are important, as well as a human-like personality. It strikes a certain balance between something being an obvious stand-in for something real we can perceive on a subconscious level, but with a presentation as something unreal, which interests us on a higher-brain logical level. Well, interests those of us who like the unusual, at the very least.

Going too mundane, such as slapping down fantastic characters in high school AU and sidelining their uniqueness to the point where they may as well be palette swaps of every webcomic ever is detrimental for a fantastic story, as it just bogs down the fantastic into the mundane and ruins the illusion. Going too unusual, however, has the same effect. Creating characters who are so alien that they lack a face, cannot comprehend human emotions, have an unrecognisable body are basically one step removed from something you'd find scurrying about behind your toilet seat just alienates people and tosses the thing right smack-dab in the middle of the uncanny valley.

The uncanny valley itself is an interesting concept. Most people believe it happens when a character looks very human but isn't, yet most people miss the point as to WHY that is. We can trust humans to act like a human should, and we distrust machines, but we understand what they're capable of and simply follow safety precautions to avoid getting hurt by them. A machine that has the capabilities and inclinations of a human, but which cannot be trusted to value life, privacy, respect and emotion is frightening, because it is dangerous, yet cannot simply be shut down when not in use. It's a question of conscience and relatability that keeps characters feeling real, and it's a staple of horror movies to play with this. Dangerous machines that can spontaneously turn on of their own malevolence while you have your hand stuck between the gears doing maintenance, or people who look like humans and talk like humans but you know there's an unthinking insect mind inside which only pretends and could try to devour you as soon as you turn your back.

As far as this relates to anthropomorphic characters, a GOOD one feels as much like a human being that you can feel comfortable regarding it as one DESPITE its looks, yet is enough unlike a human visually that it's interesting in and of itself. Far too many people fail to understand this, both artists and public, leading to anthropomorphic art that's... Disturbing and to observers who refuse to acknowledge the bulk of the good for fear of a fraction of the bad.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Whilst I strive to be polite (or at least civil) in most things I do, I'm failing to understand what you'd like me to do. I'm happy to post in the thread you've stated (if I haven't already - must check that), but should I interpret this as it's your perception I've done the wrong thing by posting in here, simply because I didn't say 'yay for animated tails, my first-borne for animated tails!'? If I have offended some by not doing this, I apologise.

Just to be clear, I don't hate animated tails (my shape shifting magic doctor character will get one) - I'm simply saying that on the list of i17 features, it's of the least importance to me. I understand and accept that for many others, it's much higher up the list. That being said, I still wouldn't be crying if it didn't make the list for i17, or run to a competitor's product that has them.

you use Furry and Marvel in the same sentence and thats the best you can come up with.

I call your green chick and raise you Tigra (Marvel) and cheetah (DC)

http://nekollx.deviantart.com/art/Ti...etah-150569197
http://nekollx.deviantart.com/art/Ti...amup-151907341

No goals, just the same as yours, really =]
Given I am one of said artists who draw anthromorph characters, and I have a number of stories and characters that I am rather proud of and hope to actually do something creative with one day, I'd be worried if I wasn't a tad defensive of something important to me. That, and tolerance is a good thing (within limits, obviously).

But;
My ultimate goal is get people to use the right name!!
It's Techbot! TECHBOT!!!



Damn silly fleshlings

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

She got implants?

Oops! I know what constantly makes me have that problem - I don't read words letter for letter so much as I read them by look and pattern. Hence, seeing "tech" and "bot" somehow produced "technobot" in my head. Would you believe me if I told you I don't think I've read a word letter-for-letter in some time?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Na'vi are a really, really bad example of that. They are basically giant humanoids. It's like calling anime cat-girls, the ones with the stuck on tails and ears, anthromorphs.

Anthromorphism is, by definition;

Et la;

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...abbit_Hole.png

Na'vi are humanoid. They are alien, but not anthro.
Cat girls are humans with add ons. They are not anthro.
The white rabbit, etc are anthro.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

You know... Avatar, aside from being a good movie, is something of a personal vindication of mine. After being singled out as weird for liking this exact kind of story for years, it's just a little satisfying to see that movie bring in so much revenue and become so popular. It's a mixture of finally getting people to see the concept itself is not evil and presenting a movie that haters will have a REALLY hard time assassinating without delving into easily-ignorable hype backlash arguments.

I have to say, this is probably the first movie of this kind that seems to have been at least accepted by everybody. Movies of that nature tend to be dismissed as being for kinds, being weird or being niche, but you CANNOT deny this one. So I'm happy

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Heh, I do the same sometimes.
Doesn't stop me correcting people
Grammar and spelling Nazi? Why yes, actually!

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Youre right...




Tigra (Marvel)
Cheetah (DC)

Are the most prominent furry's in main stream comincs. Female version then... Puma and Beast from Marvel are male furries ofcourse.

Sure I do.
So do you.

And I can choose to make fun of the absurd and ridiculous as well. I also accept that many of my own interests are absurd and ridiculous. I am just capable of seeing the absurdity and laughing.

Tolerance doesn't mean I can't get a cheap laugh in once in awhile. d;D