Comment on Lackadaisy Expressions by tracyjb

Dude, chill. She said those expressions aren't necessarily wrong, which means it's not a bad thing to use them but it doesn't hurt and can be helpful to learn other ways of expressing emotions. The anime expressions aren't being called a medical plague, just that they spread like one and thus used and seen a lot. I like this expressions too, but they are generic. Why? Because they are very simplified (nothing wrong with that). But she's pointing out that a problem with too much simplification is that it doesn't allow the artist to include the unique facial features of a character which leads to every one's face looking the same. Similar to how in some animes every or almost every character looks the same in face, and chances are, in body too. Or how in some animes a character looks 16 but the artist intends them to be 30 years old (Ex: Clannad). So again, while there's nothing wrong with simplification it does has its cons. That extends to the C- mouth. It's a great way to emphasis emotion but it gets boring seeing the same expression over and over again.

Using anime as an example, a character can look angry with his brows furrowed, his eyes completely white, the red vein popping sign, and it's teeth clenched and strangely extended outside the face. But the same character can also look angry with his pupils smaller (no completely white eyes), lines between the brows, the face is contracted and within the face. These different ways of expressing the same emotion is appropriate depending on the mood of the scene. Google Natsu from Fairy tail to give visual examples.

As for the flounder face disorder, whether it's a style or not is not the point. The point is, style or no style, it's anatomically wrong. Even cartoons with exaggerations follow basic anatomy. If the line separating the lips connect to the mouth then it would be ok. And there is never an excuse to avoid learning expressions in any profile or angle. Will it get you by, maybe, will you expand and improve as an artist? Not very likely. The whole point is that while sticking to the same stuff is fine, it's always a good idea to learn new stuff because it'll help you in ways you know and don't know. What I've said earlier also goes for the swarm brow. There are different ways to express the same emotion. And repetition can makes things not very lively. Look at anime, is the same expression for anger, joy, sadness, confusion, etc used everytime the scene/situation calls for the emotion? No, it can range from toony to serious.

If you disagree with the tutorial, fine. Every artist as a way of looking at things and have their own opinions like yourself. But you can learn something from every artist, amateur or professional. And at some point an artist will come to the conclusion that there are some "rules" that should always be followed like using (even if simplified) correct anatomy no matter the style.