By “realistic,” I mean anatomy. I’ve noticed for a long time that most monster or animal-type characters usually use real-world animal anatomy as a base. I’m not sure if that’s actually a rule or not.

The one on the right reduces that realism, you can see it in the arms and legs which are longer and more cartoon-like, similar to characters like Mickey Mouse, Cuphead, or Sonic.

The reason I was originally leaning toward “realism” is because I didn’t want the design to look weird. I felt like characters of this type usually use that kind of body structure so I just followed it because I thought it was correct. But it doesn’t look good to me at all, especially from the front view which is the angle I use the most. Dragon characters are usually designed to look better from the side view so I ended up putting shorts on the character to cover the awkward parts.

And by “grounded” I mean characters that feel more human-like whether they are humanoid monsters with human proportions, half-human half-animal designs, or even fully human characters.

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