TBH looking back at some of these pics it's obvious these guys have some talent regarding drawing and anatomy...I dunno slight power level but If I had some of their own talent since I just suck at drawing I wouldn't be stuck doing shitty redesigns just to get asspattings from tumblr and seem "progressive" to outside folks. It's just a waste...
Really, It's less powerlevel and more just raw confusion and/or pity at just how toxic tumblr can be to self expression. these people clearly know
how to do what they do, but they don't seem to know
why.
I think it can more be boiled down to the why. these people intentionally halt their artisic development. this might be retarded, and I could put in some strawman question about why they would do that, but everything I've seen points to that many of the elements they include as being "non-traditionally beautiful" are quite simply utterly unappealing when sufficient detail is added. nobody wants to see hair, stretchmarks, or otherwise at the level of a professional artist. they don't want to face the harsh reality of how excess skin can droop, or how lumpy adipose tissue can become, nor how it builds on the skin
they're trying to excuse them as cute by drawing them in cute, simplistic styles where you can just sort of dismiss them as extra lines, and not look at it and face the harsh reality that the only way the character would look appealing is with actual self care...but that goes against dogma. hence, an endless line of "Generic POC brown" re-edits with Rosecea inflicted koala noses, crudely effective lines depicting "cute fat" and anatomy that's barely there enough to count.
Quite honestly, even if these people could paint like the masters, they wouldn't.
