perhaps my issue is less apparent from the front, this is what I mean
rabbit heads have a distinctive outward curve to the snout, lending to a sleek, round appearance. in furry media, it’s important to rly capture the overall shape of an animal’s head to quickly/efficiently communicate *what* that animal is. here, I’ve given an example of how I might “furry-fy” a rabbit head into a simple, easily-identifiable face, keeping that beautiful outward curve intact. while the face is certainly similar to a misc rodent w/o the ears there for the obvious tell, I think there are still notable differences. for example, mouse/rat faces are far more pointed, so the flatter end to this snout is a good tell that this is a rabbit, rather than a different species
now let’s look at the rabbit characters I used as examples here and see how they hold up
well. they certainly make shapes with those faces, huh?
while there are little differences b/t all these faces, they all share the basic shape of a large/rounded forehead, exaggerated cheeks, and a *supremely* tiny barely-there snout that either sticks straight out from the head or has an upward curve
I do not have a problem with the cheeks, it makes sense that they’re exaggerated in rabbit characters. I do have a problem with how the shape of the snout is not true to anything even close to rabbits. if not for the obvious rabbit ears and how we’ve been trained by old cartoons like Bugs to associate this face shape w/ rabbits, I’m dubious that they’d even be recognizable as rabbits? like, even the most HORRIFICALLY brachycephalic of real-life rabbits don’t look like this
now the funny thing abt Haru, since u defend her specifically in ur tags, is that her head leans far more into humanoid design elements than Bugs/Judy. her tall cranium (esp in conjunction w/ the small eyes) + pointed chin are both human design elements. while I admit I absolutely hate uncanny-valley half-human furry heads like hers, I’d be willing to excuse it as the show’s style– she does admittedly retain the rabbit snout a *little* bit better than Bugs/Judy, even though it’s plastered onto a human skull
however, that isn’t Beastars’ style. beyond the sometimes-sclera and the emphasis on brow/forehead bumps, I genuinely can’t think of a single other goddamn species in that show that goes uncanny-human with their heads (maybe the bird characters, but their heads aren’t so much human as just. bad). but Beastars’ style itself is completely inconsistent, so maybe the uncanny-valley rabbits DO fit the style, if we look at it from a “let’s confuse the audience” perspective. who knows
but anyways, this is why I focused specifically on rabbits– it’s not just a Beastars problem! I see it all the goddamn time in furry media! sure, some stories will do that annoying thing where they make the main characters more humanoid to appeal to the audience/gender standards, or there’s something fucky w/ the style in general. but even when rabbits AREN’T the mains, this seems to be the default head shape for them?
and yeah other species can get real ugly head shapes too, but that depends more on the style of the specific story or character. other species get all kinds of wonderful AND ugly head rep across the board. but rabbits? we got the aesthetic ambrosia that was Watership Down (tho xenofiction in general is better at that kinda thing), then it all went downhill from there. I don’t think any other species has gotten so painfully pigeonholed into one inaccurate head shape like this. I blamed Bugs as a joke, but genuinely where did this trend come from, it makes no sense??
gamechangershow
gracieabrams
romaincrisis
discoholicmusic
2087
tangentwithtanner
amandla
areudirty
