TL;DR: Please stop this. Please.
Alright, I'm actually going to complain about something for the first time in the eight years since joining this site. Pay attention, it'll probably be another eight before I go on another rant like this.
I would like to introduce you all to the concept of cheating at muscle growth, as exemplified in the image above. I HATE this type of FMG with a passion. See, humans have a bunch of funny cognitive tricks going on inside their minds at all times. One visual trick that we have all learned unconditionally is head sizes in proportion to the body: If the head to body ratio is small, that must mean things are bigger. If the head to body ratio is large, that means things are smaller.
As a classic example, compare babies to adults. Babies are approximately 3-4 heads tall, whereas adults are 7-8 heads in general. Because we see this sort of effect for just about every animal in existence, we form a cognition that tells us that things with a low head to body ratio are bigger.
Enter the above image.
If you take a surface glance of this edited image, your brain would conclude that the rightmost Sakura is more muscular than the leftmost. After all, the rightmost Sakura's head is very small in proportion to the rest of her body, your brain says. Therefore, I have achieved a good FMG sequence.
Except this is bullshit.
I have seen multiple artists do this and pass it off as actual muscle growth. Usually they disguise this effect by putting said character in multiple different poses or angles. But this image has the advantage of being the same pose repeated, exposing why this approach to FMG doesn't work. In this "sequence", Sakura's head only shrinks- Her muscles do not change in size, shape or proportion at all. And THIS is what annoys the hell out of me.
A lot of people take the cheat approach to female muscle growth and essentially do what I've done just now- except disguise it with poses and panel shots of course. They take the same level of musculature throughout the entire comic, but then incrementally shrink the head during the supposed growth sequences to make it look like her muscles are growing. Problem is, as you can no doubt see from my own image, that isn't actually muscle growth. It's head shrinkage.
Sakura's muscles have not grown by a single kilogram in the image. All I did was incrementally shrink her head to trick you all into thinking her muscles grew. And that... that's just lame. Or it can be whatever expletive you want to insert in place of lame.
I ask the FMG community to please stop this. Head shrinkage is not muscle growth. Muscle growth is about muscles growing, not relying of cognitive kinks within the human psyche to make it seem like they are growing.
And yes, I doubt anyone will actually stop doing it. Some people actually like it. Others want to go beyond the normal limits of human anatomy without actually drawing muscles that size. But at the very least I feel better about myself, now that I have exposed what this practice looks like without the glitter and glamour.
Either way, you won't see me doing this, ever.
![thumbnail]()
Alright, I'm actually going to complain about something for the first time in the eight years since joining this site. Pay attention, it'll probably be another eight before I go on another rant like this.
I would like to introduce you all to the concept of cheating at muscle growth, as exemplified in the image above. I HATE this type of FMG with a passion. See, humans have a bunch of funny cognitive tricks going on inside their minds at all times. One visual trick that we have all learned unconditionally is head sizes in proportion to the body: If the head to body ratio is small, that must mean things are bigger. If the head to body ratio is large, that means things are smaller.
As a classic example, compare babies to adults. Babies are approximately 3-4 heads tall, whereas adults are 7-8 heads in general. Because we see this sort of effect for just about every animal in existence, we form a cognition that tells us that things with a low head to body ratio are bigger.
Enter the above image.
If you take a surface glance of this edited image, your brain would conclude that the rightmost Sakura is more muscular than the leftmost. After all, the rightmost Sakura's head is very small in proportion to the rest of her body, your brain says. Therefore, I have achieved a good FMG sequence.
Except this is bullshit.
I have seen multiple artists do this and pass it off as actual muscle growth. Usually they disguise this effect by putting said character in multiple different poses or angles. But this image has the advantage of being the same pose repeated, exposing why this approach to FMG doesn't work. In this "sequence", Sakura's head only shrinks- Her muscles do not change in size, shape or proportion at all. And THIS is what annoys the hell out of me.
A lot of people take the cheat approach to female muscle growth and essentially do what I've done just now- except disguise it with poses and panel shots of course. They take the same level of musculature throughout the entire comic, but then incrementally shrink the head during the supposed growth sequences to make it look like her muscles are growing. Problem is, as you can no doubt see from my own image, that isn't actually muscle growth. It's head shrinkage.
Sakura's muscles have not grown by a single kilogram in the image. All I did was incrementally shrink her head to trick you all into thinking her muscles grew. And that... that's just lame. Or it can be whatever expletive you want to insert in place of lame.
I ask the FMG community to please stop this. Head shrinkage is not muscle growth. Muscle growth is about muscles growing, not relying of cognitive kinks within the human psyche to make it seem like they are growing.
And yes, I doubt anyone will actually stop doing it. Some people actually like it. Others want to go beyond the normal limits of human anatomy without actually drawing muscles that size. But at the very least I feel better about myself, now that I have exposed what this practice looks like without the glitter and glamour.
Either way, you won't see me doing this, ever.
:origin()/pre00/2bda/th/pre/i/2019/133/1/1/cheating_at_female_muscle_growth_by_babermirza-dd6um1b.png)
