History Main / FurriesAreEasierToDraw

* WarnerBros WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes, back in the day, had a lot more animal characters than humans. There were really only three recurring ones at the time: [[TokenHuman Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam and Granny.]]

* WarnerBros WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes, back in the day, had a lot more animal characters than humans. There were really only three recurring ones at the time: [[TokenHuman Elmer Fudd, Granny Smith, and Yosemite Sam.]]

** 2. [[TakeAThirdOption They didn't want to be limited by]] typical MedievalEuropeanFantasy tropes.

A lot of [[WesternAnimation cartoons]], [[{{Anime}} anime]], and {{webcomics}} have anthropomorphic animal characters. Many [[GIFT self styled internet experts]] [[SarcasmMode perfectly explain this tendency]] [[MisaimedStereotyping by claiming]], "The artists are themselves [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furries]], and this is why the characters are all [[SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism literal Furries]]." While this is certainly true in some cases, [[MisaimedStereotyping more than 90% of the time, it's not]].

A trope primarily seen in {{webcomics}} and other artistic media. It seems that a lot of comics and cartoons have anthropomorphic animal characters. Possibly more than one work of fiction can justify this by saying, "The artists are themselves [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom furries]], and this is why the characters are all [[SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism literal Furries]]."

The other, more common reason may be this trope.

[[MostWritersAreHuman Most Artists Are Humans]], but unfortunately humans are fairly hard to draw. This has a lot to do with the principles behind the UncannyValley theory. We know what people look like. We see them every day. We have entire neural structures in our brains dedicated completely to picking up the incredibly subtle differences between human faces. If an artist's human characters don't look juuust so, those characters won't be appealing.

Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be much of an UncannyValley equivalent for animals aside from photorealistically rendered CGI animated animals and real animals in live action films that talk or make humanlike facial expressions. There is almost no equivalent of UncannyValley for [[CartoonCreature extremely]] [[InformedSpecies stylized animal]], monster, and alien characters, or giant robots. After all, there aren't any PettingZooPeople running around in the real world (at least not to our knowledge). This means that there isn't any right or wrong way to draw cartoon animals, so it's impossible to be close but not quite there.

Also, it tends to help that while artists who limit themselves to humans are very likely to use OnlySixFaces, Furries and animals have several additional traits to help tell each other apart, from fur color to ears, tails, paws -- not to mention species. As a result, an artist can easily make a CastOfSnowflakes just by randomizing each character.

In some cases, but not all, this may be due to a LazyArtist. Most webcomic artists are amateurs, and thus they do this in their free time. Some of them [[SturgeonsLaw just can't draw that well]], so they borrow from the more professional {{Furry Comic}}s as a shortcut. The audience tends to notice the difference in quality. Most art school students run a long, ''long'' gauntlet of figure drawing courses. An appealing human face is indeed one of the hardest damn things in the world to draw -- however, the rest of said human isn't any harder or easier to draw than any other animal. Many artists go on to create animal characters anyway -- but there is a noticeably greater attention to detail from someone who's trained on drawing humans. Furthermore, once you start drawing animals, you understand why you drew so many human figures. We're about as close to a "[[DoAnythingRobot Do Anything Tetrapod]]" as you can get.

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* Subverted in Stan Sakai's UsagiYojimbo. Stan is perfectly capable of drawing recognizable and distinct humans - but his "furry" characters allow new readers to grasp the essentials of his regular cast very quickly and easily. The character Katsuichi is powerful, insightful and reserved, so he's [[KingOfBeasts a lion.]] [[TricksterArchetype Kitsune]] is fun-loving and cunning but essentially amoral, so she's a fox. Gen is fearless, powerful and easily angered, so he's a rhinoceros... and so on.

* As WaltDisney sought to drastically improve [[ArtEvolution animation quality and standards]] in his cartoons throughout the 1930's and early 40's, this trope became apparent in full force. Far and away the best and most revered Disney animation of the period tends to be either animal characters such as WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse, WesternANimation/DonaldDuck, WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}}, the Disney/ThreeLittlePigs, [[Disney/{{Pinocchio}} Jiminy Cricket]], Disney/{{Dumbo}} and Disney/{{Bambi}} or stylized caricatures of humans such as [[Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs the Seven Dwarfs]].

* There's an artist, who claims he even can't draw animals other than toucans. His works include [[http://toucan-house.com/ House M.D. parody]], [[http://acomics.ru/~depth-of-delusion The Matrix parody]] and [[http://acomics.ru/~stoolmaster Lord of the Rings parody]]. With all characters [[EverythingIsBetterWithPenguins as toucans]]. (No translations, unfortunately.)

* Doc Nickel (artist for ''Webcomic/TheWhiteboard'') has explicitly stated that he used anthropomorphic animal characters because he couldn't draw humans for crap. According to several of his posts on the forums in August 2011, though, he was working on overcoming the problem with drawing humans, with more human characters being given actual details instead of undefined "floating bubbleheads", and [[http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1405.html the results]] [[http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1403.html were impressive]]. But a few months later he decided to drop humans altogether. He did use [[http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1481.html generic human faces]] to replaced "the no-necks" when he retroactively coloured strips for winter and spring of 2012, but after that all one-shot characters have been anthropomorphic animals. Also of note is converting [[ThoseTwoGuys Larry and Daryl]] -- the no-necks who gained some depth over time -- to [[http://the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1853.html squirrels]].

* Yoshihiro Takahashi's works tend to invert this. Especially the anime adaptation of ''Anime/GingaDensetsuWeed'' - the dogs can look so strange as to be cringe-worthy. GingaNagareboshiGin suffers from this as well, but not nearly as badly. Humans in these series, on the other hand, tend to be rather well-drawn.

* Subverted in Stan Sakai's UsagiYojimbo. Stan is perfectly capable of drawing recognizable and distinct humans - but his "furry" characters allow new readers to grasp the essentials of his regular cast very quickly and easily. The character [[TheObiWan Katsuichi]] is powerful, insightful and reserved, so he's [[KingOfBeasts a lion.]] [[TricksterArchetype Kitsune]] is fun-loving and cunning but essentially amoral, so she's a fox. Gen is fearless, powerful and easily angered, so he's a rhinoceros... and so on.

* ''WolfsRain'' is one of the few works that turns this trope on its ear. The animators had far more experience animating appealing human characters; their animal characters tend to look a little off. So there are whole episodes in the series where the animal characters spend all their time [[HumanityEnsues in human form]] (ItMakesSenseInContext) when there is no particular reason to do so.

* Pretty much ''the'' reason why many, many cartoon characters were {{Funny Animal}}s during TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation when the medium was just getting started. Artists at that time knew how to draw people, sure, but ''animating'' them was a whole other story. Cartoons at the time all shared a very similar art style due to FollowTheLeader and the fact that details were harder and more expensive to work in, so many characters tended to look exactly the same...what helped separate them from the masses were those one or two characteristics (ears, tails, etc.) indicating that X Character was supposed to be a Y Animal.

* The art of ''Roleplay/RubyQuest'' is half this and half ShoutOut to ''AnimalCrossing''.

* WarnerBros LooneyTunes, back in the day, had a lot more animal characters than humans. There were really only three recurring ones at the time: [[TokenHuman Elmer Fudd, Granny Smith, and Yosemite Sam.]]

* Yoshihiro Takahashi's works tend to invert this. Especially the anime adaptation of GingaDensetsuWeed - the dogs can look so strange as to be cringe-worthy. GingaNagareboshiGin suffers from this as well, but not nearly as badly. Humans in these series, on the other hand, tend to be rather well-drawn.

''This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.''"\\
-- Animator '''Robert Graves''', "Epitaph of an Unfortunate Animator", quoted by Creator/RichardWilliams in ''Literature/TheAnimatorsSurvivalKit''.

* As WaltDisney sought to drastically improve [[ArtEvolution animation quality and standards]] in his cartoons throughout the 1930's and early 40's, this trope became apparent in full force. Far and away the best and most revered Disney animation of the period tends to be either animal characters such as MickeyMouse, DonaldDuck, {{Goofy}}, the Disney/ThreeLittlePigs, [[Disney/{{Pinocchio}} Jiminy Cricket]], Disney/{{Dumbo}} and Disney/{{Bambi}} or stylized caricatures of humans such as [[Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs the Seven Dwarfs]].

* In some sense, this trope is TruthInTelevision. Furries aren't necessarily easier to draw, but it's easier to get away with flaws when drawing furries. The human brain has very specialized centers for interpreting human faces, but there is no equivalent for animals, which end up getting processed with generalized optical centers. As a result, minor flaws in human faces will be picked up on (it could be interpreted as [[UncannyValley nonhuman]]), where as bigger flaws in animal faces will go completely unnoticed (Some will assume it is a part of the creature and or animal faces cannot really be too exaggerated)

* WarnerBros LooneyTunes, back in the day, had a lot more animal characters than humans. There were really only two recurring ones at the time: [[TokenHuman Elmer Fudd and Granny Smith.]]

-- Animator '''Robert Graves''', "Epitaph of an Unfortunate Animator", quoted by Creator/RichardWilliams in ''TheAnimatorsSurvivalKit''.

* Tracy J. Butler, the author of ''{{Lackadaisy}}'', says that she doesn't identify with the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom but uses cats because she finds them more expressive.

* ''CoachRandom'' had some characters drawn as dogs because the artist was under a deadline. [[http://coachrandom.zzl.org/Chronological/comic-189.xml In one strip, he has humans and a dog side-by-side, showing the difference in how the artist drew them.]] His humans are quite detailed. The dog, not so much.

* The creator of the web comic ''{{Harkovast}}'' originally struggled to draw animals, but after a few months of drawing nothing but animal people found human infinitely more difficult. Fortunately, the comic features no human characters!

* The artist of ''KeychainOfCreation'' has stated that he gradually made Marena's fox ears and tail more prominent because they make her more expressive. It's hard to show complex expressions on a stick figure.
* The artist of ''TheDragonDoctors'' attempts to avert his instances of OnlySixFaces by throwing in a few "beastmen" to diversify the cast. We've seen a cat-man SWAT officer, an insect-looking lawyer (talking to a buffalo-looking lawyer!).
* Though the creator of ''CheapThrills'' can (and does) draw humans very well, she claims this as one of the reasons she draws in an anthro style: "When I started the comic, I couldn't draw human faces for shit. I could draw animal faces, though, so I went with it...If I were to start over, I'd probably do the comic with human characters instead, or possibly tinker with the comic's universe a little bit so that the usage of animal people made more sense."
* Most of the characters in Webcomic/StubbleTrouble are furries for this reason, though some humans do appear as well.
* Webcomic ''RankAmateur'' has only one human in the main cast, which the author has so far drawn only a few times. The cast also features two furries - Felix, a cat and Guardian, a bird - though the majority of the main characters are humanoid aliens.

* T.J. Baldwin admits that ''KarateBears'' are easier to draw than people. Look at the [[http://www.karatebears.com/2011/06/cut-rug.html crowd scenes.]]

A trope primarily seen in {{webcomics}} and other artistic media. It seems that a lot of comics and cartoons have anthropomorphic animal characters. Possibly more than one work of fiction can justify this by saying, "The artists are themselves [[FurryFandom furries]], and this is why the characters are all [[SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism literal Furries]]."

* Tracy J. Butler, the author of ''{{Lackadaisy}}'', says that she doesn't identify with the FurryFandom but uses cats because she finds them more expressive.

-- Animator '''Robert Graves''', "Epitaph of an Unfortunate Animator", quoted by RichardWilliams in ''TheAnimatorsSurvivalKit''.

* Tracy J. Butler, the author of ''LackadaisyCats'', says that she doesn't identify with the FurryFandom but uses cats because she finds them more expressive.

* Vince Suzukawa gives a detailed explanation of why the cast of ''The Class Menagerie'' were all furry. The main point was that animal faces can be more expressive (ears can move, fur can bristle etc). Also, it creates a comfortable divide from the real world, and problems of racial balance or resemblance to persons living or dead. He also demonstrates that he can draw humans and make his characters work in human form.

* Doc Nickel (artist for ''Webcomic/TheWhiteboard'') has explicitly stated that he used anthropomorphic animal characters because he couldn't draw humans for crap. According to several of his posts on the forums in August 2011, though, he's working on overcoming the problem with drawing humans, with more human characters being given actual details instead of undefined "floating bubbleheads".