Clearly, the artist of this drawing has never been with a woman or stepped foot in an art school. I am not sure if his grossly disproportionate rendering should be blamed on his lack of sexual experience, bad artistry or unreal expectations that will inevitably land him in jail when he realizes women typically do not have booties made out of steel or lasers in their breasts. This guy is predestined for sexual fetish therapy or divorce court even before he earns enough money to pay for a woman or cons an artist groupie into believing he has talent.Sadly, an intervention did not take place before this man created such an offensive travesty that will neither help his career nor his sex life. There is no hope for this artist, but I am here now to help future anime and magna artists and their readers.
Let's start with the magna readers because their reconditioning is as simple as replacing all their magna graphic novels with issues of Playboys and switching out their anime films with soft-core porn. If these boys are going to have unrealistic sexual expectations, they should be the kind of fantasies fashioned by plastic surgery and minor air-brushing instead of fetishized pen and ink drawings. Although not fully based in realism, at least, Playmates exist in this realm of Earthly disappointment and unfilled desires. Keeping your son physically, emotionally, socially and sexually connected to a brick and mortar reality may be the first step in preventing Magna expectations from destroying his relationships and never giving you the grandchildren that you desperately want.
Now that I may have saved a few boys from spending an asexual life in their mom's basement, dreaming about busty, big-bootied, bug-eyed bubble heads that would tip over or deflate upon contact, I can focus my attention on the wretched artists, who create these ill-conceived fantasies and repugnant mockeries of the female body.
There is no better way to re-educate pseudo-artists than with the history of art. With many lessons to learn about female anatomy and so many beautiful depictions that can be used for didactic purposes, it is difficult to choose a starting place. But for today, we’ll start with the “nudity isn’t always best" lesson, demonstrated by comparing Francisco Goya’s Nude Maja to his Clothed Maja.
The brazen sexuality and aggressiveness that confronts viewer in the Naked Maja becomes more coy, subtle, mysterious and appealing in the Clothed Maja. Anime artists should take note that there is nothing wrong with stirring up a little mystery and desire to see more later. (Also, a good lesson to teach your daughters about not putting out on the first, second or tenth date).
If you are going to show the female form in its unbridled beauty, try to learn the correct anatomical proportions for a female body before you twist the form to meet your lustful urges. A good place to start is Alexandre Cabanel's The Birth of Venus (pictured below). This example of a well-received, exceptionally conventional but meticulously rendered painting from the 1863 Salon shows academic painting at its finest. This painting is aesthetically pleasing in its traditionalism. While not breaking new ground, it teaches a valuable lesson: You need to know the rules before you can break them.
Once you know how to render accurate proportions, it is time to start breaking the rules through the subject's pose and gaze as exemplified in two Édouard Manet's most famous paintings: Olympia (top) and Déjeuner sur l'Herbe or Luncheon on the Grass (bottom).
The use of the unconventional color and unexpected geometric shapes can also be used to challenge traditional renderings of the female body without objectifying it as in the case of Henri Matisse's Blue Nude, or Souvenir de Biskra (below):
After studying the unembarrassed, confrontational glances of Manet and the sensual distortions by Matisse, it is time to study an artist who puts all together to produce glorious sensuality. Amedeo Modigliani's moderate distortions and models with provocative and confident expressions produce sexy and appealing images that do not establish unrealistic expectations of superpowers in the bedroom, as seen in the Reclining Nude.
