Man, do I love the word "Tiddies." It gives so much, it implies and centrifuges a world of shame, an implicit situation where you just had to use that word didn't you? It just gives off a little extra, y'know? Like we have all of this connotation that you did not want or even need, but the cost for extra carry-ons is how they get ya. The way that big time animation studios and cartoon designers use, to put it bluntly, tiddies, and makes it so "extra" the designated driver in the anger car of the cocktail that is my sanity.
To put it even MORE bluntly; STOP PUTTING T**S ON DUCKS.
Ducks, bugs, reptiles, mice, even worms (worms for Christ's sake) have all succumbed to the designer's easy out- putting socially-implied accessories on a female to make it look like a "woman". For example, how many shows have you watched have included a female character, but had her overall design to prominently feature traits such as makeup, long eyelashes, red lips, detailed/feminine eyes, and/ or breasts when they're not necessary? Congratulations, you've named almost every major cartoon or work of animation within the last 50 years.
From a design standpoint, it somewhat makes sense, but then their argument falls apart coming closer to the 00s and 10s. Cartoons back then had to rely on tropes such as castle, knight, dragon and princess because they couldn't tell a story using words or most sounds, due to technical limitations of the time. They had to give caricatures of characters (say that ten times fast) in order for the viewer to understand the story that was going on. However, as technology has advanced, so have our stories, but interestingly enough the way we view half of our population.
The first reason why having inherently sexual female designs is bad because it teaches children and anyone consuming the media that all females are to be seen really as only the prize, a sexual object, or background. Characters who are often "prettied up" have no essential role in the plot, and are usually a throw-away for the hero to save in the end. This imprints on us that females are lesser, and will never be involved or change anything in a dramatic way. As soon as you put boobs on a character, all this shit happens.
The second reason is it's just bad design. As soon as I see mammaries on an animal that has no need for mammalian reproduction/child raising, I'm immediately taken out of the story. The audience wants to see things relatable to them, but not in the extremes- taking a real-life animal such as a lizard and giving it breasts does not conform to what the general populace knows about lizards. You've lost your target, and they're not thinking about the story any more, they're preoccupied with the notion that you decided to put a dragon in makeup.
I'm sure I'm missing out on actual good design, but that's the point- I can't name any outstanding design off the top of my head because the examples are so few and far between. This is my open invitation to cartoonists everywhere; Give us what we need, and no more.
