Unlike most people outside of any of these "fandoms", I think the line between animal and anthro is well defined. Mixing the two, I think, is akin to mixing Anime/Manga and realist styles of human concept art. Anthros are just as much human as they are animal, so why do they think that people that love to draw traditional animals automatically must like anthros? Do people that like human drawings automatically like anthros? No.
There is nothing wrong with anthros, but they are fundamentally different.
Animal art is one of the largest groups of art on Deviantart (with a good percentage of these artists making the front page daily), so why does it not seem to have its own category? I'm consistently confused as to what gallery moderator I should submit recommendations to.
Spotlights seem to fall on the smaller fan group of anthros far more than the larger group of four-legged creatures.
Do you guys ever notice this or do you have a different opinion? If anyone knows of a gallery moderator that does animal submissions, please tell.
EDIT: I know the word "anthropomorphism" is giving any human characteristics to an animal, but I'm using 'anthro' to refer only to animals with human bodies. I think this is one of the major problems with the genre anyway; it doesn't have specific terms for how human-like or animal-like these creatures are. I think a distinction can be seen, however, when comparing Bambi and Mickey Mouse for example. We have a word for 'anime' style, even though it's the same creature (a human)?
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I was trying to figure out where I should upload a story(not on DA) I had written that starred sentient animals, and was given websites that catered to Furries. From what I've seen, a furry character is usually nothing more than a human (with a human lifestyle) with fur, tails, and ears-so why would I post my story there?
"Because it's a site for anthro lovers," I know, I know. But they mostly like FURRY anthros, not "feral" ones. >.>
That's because anime is exactly that; a style. Anthropomorphism is not a style, it's too wide a subject for that. Disney's Cars' characters are anthropomorphic, just like Mickey Mouse; it's simply a way to describe the fact that they are inanimate or otherwise non-human subjects which have been given human traits to a certain degree. You can have anthropomorphic animals drawn in anime style; you can't have anime drawn in anthropomorphic style, as that makes little sense.
Your comic's characters are anthropomorphic. To a small degree, certainly, but they are none the less. The question is not so much where the line is (because it's extremely vague), the question is how much you should let it bother you and how much it matters at all. Animals do have their own category, they're just tucked further away in the system, and let's all agree that that system is flawed to such a degree that it's actually laughable. In my opinion Anthro and Anime/Manga should be placed further away in the categories just like Animals rather than the other way around. The system should ideally be as following; "Type of art - Technique - Subject" and that should suffice. I don't get why Anthro or Anime have a special "main" category at all and I certainly don't think Animals should be up there as well.
This is like saying half-animals half-humans are the same as humans because they have arms, legs, walk upright, speak English and create things. In fact, a lot of these have -more- in common with humans than animals.
The reason there is confusion is that English does not have a proper word for half-human half-animal hybrids. There should be!
If a gorilla is taught to use sign language, and starts wearing a hat, does that mean he is no longer a gorilla? He's just an anthro? Does that make Alex the parrot (the parrot who knows 5000 human words and can communicate fairly well) an anthro too?
Do you think if Alex the African Grey had a baby parrot, and that parrot could start to reason much more like a human than alex did, would he cease to be considered a parrot or sub-species of African Grey? Would he now be considered 'part-human'?
What about a creature with a human body and a parrot head walking around? ...IMO that is far less believable.
Human-animal hybrids seem to have little plausibility aside from in genetic experiments, therefore making them no longer Canine or Feline or whatnot, because they now have more human DNA than animal. An animal evolving reasoning abilities doesn't seem that much of a stretch, honestly. It also doesn't have to involve humans or human DNA at all.
So while 'anthropomorphizing' does have the connotation of putting human characteristics on an animal, it assumes that reasoning is a solely human characteristic. It is now, but will it always be?
Yes, you could be technical. Yes, my animals are "technically" anthropomorphic. But, humans are "technically" animals, but we don't put them in the animal category for a reason.
Do you really think we'd find no difference between a talking, reasoning parrot and a parrot with arnold muscles walking around?
I also disagree on the categories. You make a valid point, but the purpose of categories is to be able to easily find things you want to look at. About all the categories are good for right now, IMO is sorting out photography and tutorials. Otherwise, they seem useless to me, and some are downright confusing. Why can't I look at animal artwork without having to decide if it's traditional or digital or illustration? Or if I'd like to find animal comics, there's no category for that.
At the same time that everyone is arguing that anthro animals of all degrees are the same, I've tried submitting DD suggestions to the anthro category and have been told that an image isn't "anthro" enough. I submit to the digital art category and never get a reply because they are probably swamped with beautiful, concept-art style images.
IMO, there should be a button that suggests a work as a DD to the right gallery mod. I'm sure they don't do that because mods would then get swamped, but I still think it'd be better than just noting them :/ They could even have a system that 'polls' to see which pieces are suggested the most, and have a 'random' button that sends the mod to a random submission... Ah well.
I do agree about the categories, but you'll simply have to accept that it can't ever work equally well for everyone. Personally I'd say make the submission system as I previously suggested she the browsing/search system sortable by subject first and technique second, but then you'd have the problem of how many subjects that should be and how broad they should be. It's difficult to please everyone though I think the majority will agree that right now the system is pretty sucky.
I also don't think there is really anything but advanced reasoning abilities that set us apart? Wolves communicate, memorize and feel emotions just like humans - sure, humans are able to do all of those things with deeper complexity, but in my opinion (and plenty of others), that is only due to our higher reasoning ability.
Thanks for putting forth these questions, it helps to be able to further explain my reasons. Sometimes it's difficult to be objective when gauging if your writing has come across as intended.
You're welcome, I quite enjoy discussions myself and I'm glad you aren't taking my words the wrong way. I obviously mean no offense but people tend to be easily ticked off online nowadays.
The second one, I'm talking about the word that classifies them. Humans are animals according to our own language. The reason there is a muddy distinction between talking animals and human/animal hybrids is there is no English word for each of them. Four-legged talking creatures, man/animal hybrids and humans, to me, are each very distinct. If what you say is true, that man are separated from animals because of their advanced intelligence and reasoning abilities, then by that same logic, we must group anthros in /with/ humans because that is /also/ the only thing separating them from normal animals.
And lastly, yes! I love discussions.
I agree the problem is that we don't have a word for it. We just have "anthropomorphic" which is basically the overarching term for any kind of non-human subject with human capacities, as said in a different conversation, we should start using terms for the different degrees of "anthro" within that term. Problem is who will introduce them and will everybody tolerate it? Will it work at all? Guess you'd just have to start somewhere and hope it takes off well. Perhaps if you think of a descriptive term for your characters and start naming them so, others will follow after?
I wouldn't call myself a philosopher (that would be an insult to the term) but I do find myself thinking about things a lot and enjoying discussions
I'll leave it at that considering I don't know anything about it concept ideals and such, Like I don't even know what some of these subjects about furrys even are. Just Like the time someone gave me an Ipod, never new one could have so many songs in such a tiny device.
Either way good luck, hope for the best, Unless leading to violent conflict.