Why are insect anthro designs to hard to get right?

[VGmaster9]

They either look too humanlike or too insect-ty to fit in with the rest of the mammal/reptile/bird population. It's just so weird that there's little to no middle ground with designs for anthro insect characters.

[Guest]

Holy shit, you're right, now that I think about it. Now I gotta try this out. 

[Tsuujou]

I make bugs here and there. I have a cute ant lady with a very simple design that people seem to enjoy. Bug girls can be cute, but so many people are so scared to make anything other than neko/gijinka shit and they usually stick to safe things like bees and...bees (even though bees are king). 

[Nova]

Insects are too complex to be drawn right.

[Vallium]

Its a lot easier for people to wrap their mind around and anthropomorphise something closer to us in anatomical structure...even if it has four legs and covered in fur. Plus, people are more likely to relate to mammals than insects, which are creatures that we typically see to have less sentience than higher species

 

However, I actually dont see it as that hard for a bug to be anthropomorphized (see: bugs life;although a more insect rather than human facial structure is cooler)

You just have to think about how the anatomical structures relate and differ. Insects are three structured, they're going to have a head, thorax, and abdomen. Break that form down and relate it back to the human head, torso, and buttocks (which may be exaggerated to be a bit more humanlike, the abdomen probably ending up something tail-like).

Insects, being six limbed, will likely end up having four arms to accommodate their form in human standards, which is actually a really badass and natural way to experiment with a multiple limbed character. These limbs are also going to be segmented at the joints, as an insect would have.

The face is likely the hardest. Insects, unlike mammals, do not have a typical eye or mouth structure that we can relate as a face. No pupils, no facial expression. That would have to take some artistic license while retaining buglike qualities such as compound-celled eyes. The mouth-parts structure I imagine something like a sangheli from halo

 

Its not too difficult to imagine with the right perspective. I've done it before myself but alas, Im not the best artist meself

 

Still a cool concept that's very underdone, and probably takes the right person to get right

Gijinkas and Nekos lack the quality and imagination, tbh

[willow]

I'd say anatomy. it's kind of the same reason why there aren't a lot of fish. they're both really hard to normalize into a humanoid figure that not only retains the insect qualities, but also looks human. and also not like some Eldritch horror

it's a lot easier to stick a dog head on a human body than it is a fly's

[FlynnCoyote]

Doesn't look so hard to me. :v

 

But seriously, what Willow and Wolfnight said. Every attempt I've seen to anthropomorphize insects and other crawlies has resulted in either cartoony kiddie BS like A Bug's Life or some alien looking monster like the federal soldiers in Rick and Morty.

[Caledonian]

^^^^

my personal favourite image, maybe it brings inspitration

[VGmaster9]

4 minutes ago, Caledonian said:

^^^^

my personal favourite image, maybe it brings inspitration

Don't like the guy's head, looks too much like a real wasp.

[LowPitchFart]

Misos makes some cute bugs!

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19832912/

[Misomie]

I have two bugsonas. One is Vespa (a paper wasp) and the other is Buster (a honey bee). I don't have any pics of Vespa up but I ended up giving her one set of legs and one set of arms but made the legs very heavy set. I also included those skinny proportions wasps are known for. Buster however, I kept all six legs and made up some anatomy but I like the results: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15168345/

Also, bug anthros with very human faces are CREEPY. 

[Jayke]

Maybe insects aren't meant to be big?

[Hewge]

Mayhaps going into it thinking less "make ugly bug look human", and instead see it as designing your very own alien.
I mean, I imagine it's tricky as bugs are vastly different and already very alien, when compared to us. Can you imagine a mammal with their skeleton on the outside? Gross.

[Faust]

Anthropomorphising arises from the tendency for the human brain to form inappropriate patterns. We see a dog; it has two eyes, ears and a mouth and a surprisingly expressive face. We imagine those features to have the same expressions as a human face because our brains are used to processing that kind of response. The pattern is a false one - dog facial expressions are quite different from human ones - but the pattern persists because we're just so damn good at forming abstract links. We can therefore project a whole range of different emotions onto the face of that dog which it probably isn't experiencing.

...I wonder if dogs experience canidomorphising where they imagine humans shaking their butts on rap videos are really happy?

Anyhow, that's fine for the majority of mammals, but insects... there we have a problem. The eyes by-and-large don't look like eyes as they (for the most part - see mantids) have no pupils. The mouths certainly don't look like any kind of mouth you'd ever see on a human. They mostly don't have anything at all resembling a nose or ears. The face recognition pattern falls apart immediately; it is nearly impossible to project human emotions onto any form of insect as a result. This makes it difficult for us to empathise with them, and therefore also difficult to project human emotions and human forms onto.

Try drawing a mantis. They have pupils which gives you a degree of expression. Imagine its antennae are eyebrows - that'll give you something else to play with. Noses aren't really part of facial expression so they can be left off. Eyelids may need to be added. It's possibly best to take the Bug's Life approach and draw a human mouth, although also see 'Ants' and 'The Ant Bully' for a way to work mandibles into the face as a kind of alternative to facial hair. 'The Ant Bully' also has a uniquely interesting means for adding pupils to an insect without losing the compound eye. If you look really close the eyes are compound, but some lenses in the compound eye are different colours to mimic the human eye.

[PastryOfApathy]

On 6/28/2016 at 3:56 AM, FlynnCoyote said:

But seriously, what Willow and Wolfnight said. Every attempt I've seen to anthropomorphize insects and other crawlies has resulted in either cartoony kiddie BS like A Bug's Life...

Unlike furries obviously, which are hyper-realistic and adult.

[Faust]

11 hours ago, Jayke said:

Maybe insects aren't meant to be big?

Insects CAN'T be big, it's impossible in today's world. The effort of moving their bodies uses up a large amount of energy, which requires that they take in substantial amounts of oxygen as fuel. However, and here's the problem, insect's don't breathe in the same way as mammals do. Their breathing tubes (tracheoles) are connected to simple holes called spiracles. They can flex their exoskeletons to a small degree to aid in the taking in of fresh air and the expulsion of old, but they don't have diaphragms to inflate and deflate the lungs and oxygen just finds its way into their 'blood' (which again is inefficient at circulating that oxygen) more or less by a kind of osmosis. This is a horrifically inefficient means of respiration. In prehistoric times when there was a lot more oxygen in the air, insects could be quite large - 2-metre-wide dragonfly fossils have been found - but that only worked because of the high oxygen differential between air and blood.

Spiders have a form of book-lung that is more efficient, so they can get a little bigger.

Then there's the exoskeleton. This has to be shed at regular intervals or the insect cannot grow. The new skeleton is quite soft and hardens on contact with air, the insect 'gulping' air to inflate itself. The problem is that if the insect were much bigger its soft new boneless body would collapse under its own weight before the 'skeleton' could set hard. Marine crustaceans with shells that must be shed at intervals get around the problem because the liquid medium supports their soft, vulnerable bodies while their new shell hardens.

But then, size is not a barrier to anthropomorphisation. After all, we have legends of fairies no bigger than your thumb.

[Alexxx-Returns]

I've tried to do an insect character a few times- I'm not good at designing characters at the best of times and had no luck at all. It's not easy and probably some people are way better at it than others.

However when it's done right...

It's damn good.

[Vallium]

39 minutes ago, Faust said:

Insects CAN'T be big, it's impossible in today's world. The effort of moving their bodies uses up a large amount of energy, which requires that they take in substantial amounts of oxygen as fuel. However, and here's the problem, insect's don't breathe in the same way as mammals do. Their breathing tubes (tracheoles) are connected to simple holes called spiracles. They can flex their exoskeletons to a small degree to aid in the taking in of fresh air and the expulsion of old, but they don't have diaphragms to inflate and deflate the lungs and oxygen just finds its way into their 'blood' (which again is inefficient at circulating that oxygen) more or less by a kind of osmosis. This is a horrifically inefficient means of respiration. In prehistoric times when there was a lot more oxygen in the air, insects could be quite large - 2-metre-wide dragonfly fossils have been found - but that only worked because of the high oxygen differential between air and blood.

Spiders have a form of book-lung that is more efficient, so they can get a little bigger.

Then there's the exoskeleton. This has to be shed at regular intervals or the insect cannot grow. The new skeleton is quite soft and hardens on contact with air, the insect 'gulping' air to inflate itself. The problem is that if the insect were much bigger its soft new boneless body would collapse under its own weight before the 'skeleton' could set hard. Marine crustaceans with shells that must be shed at intervals get around the problem because the liquid medium supports their soft, vulnerable bodies while their new shell hardens.

But then, size is not a barrier to anthropomorphisation. After all, we have legends of fairies no bigger than your thumb.

Was gonna say, we hadnt ruled out micro anthros yet

 

...plus the entire concept of anthros is outlandishanyways why stop at biology

[Guest]

Well I made an alien species based off of mantises actually. I scrapped the exoskeleton thing and just went for a more human look for what concerns the body. It's got skin only but the legs are longer than usual and thicker, hips are much wider (and consequently the ass is bigger :3), waist and shoulders are narrower. Oh, and they have 3 fingers and 3 toes. In general it's a simple design but I'm thinking of making it more exotic somehow. For starters I could make it so that da nutz are internal, but I currently don't have other ideas

Here's what it looks like (the last two drawings are both NSFW, one for nudity, the other for porn. The first NSFW pic is kinda old and shitty)

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18908500/

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19775061/

 

This is kind of a shameless self insert but I also believe this might hopefully serve as some source of inspiration. I hope that didn't sound too presumptuous... In the end I prioritize on the head and make only minor modifications to the body. The head is key, because it must look relatable, human enough, but not too human either while still being at least somewhat interesting. The rest is secondary IMHO

[Ricky]

They are a lot less similar to people than mammals, and there are a lot fewer examples in contemporary art.

I mean, there was A Bug's Life, but I can't think of any good examples before that.

Then again, I had a "plantsona" commissioned of an anthropomorphic Hawaiian Baby Woodrose plant:

 

Insects can't be the hardest thing out there x3

[Jayke]

Also, insects are super creepy looking as humanoids.

 

 

Or thats just me...