#interest in Betty Boop that ive had since childhood lmao but yeah visual infantalization is FASCINATING highly recc Dr Rega's research lol

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

the western animation nerd in me wants to commission an editor (alas: i am broke) to edit together an amv of Taylor Swift's "Clara Bow" where

the Clara Bow section: would have a montage based off of Betty Boop. Because she was a caricature of Clara Bow (and also Baby Esther since Clara Bow copied her scat + baby-voice gimmick) and heavily influenced the infantilization of women in animation (for anyone who doesn't know: Betty Boop was purposefully designed to have a baby head and an adult woman's body to reflect her voice. infantalization in animation of women is based similarly off of "baby proportions in head" + "adult woman body" via peanut-shaped heads, big eyes, and facial spacing (space between nose and lips, a small bottom of the nose as well as a short height of nose, and many more) mixed with an adult body with breasts) Betty Boop, through globilization, famously impacted how Osamu Tezuka drew children and women (along with other influences, of course, but Betty Boop was one of them). So she impacted both Japanese animation and USA animation through trickle-down influences, but her biggest impact was probably on the iconic Ariel of the "Little Mermaid"

the Stevie Nicks section: would have a montage based off of Ariel from "The Little Mermaid". Betty Boop influence Glen Keane in his designs for her as he was trying to differ away from Disney's past princess designs (where you'll see stylization, yes, but also more adult-modeled facial structures) and one of the sources he looked for how to draw this 16 year-old girl was the design conventions (aka: infantilization) of Betty Boop, another famous teenage girl(? Betty's age is complicated and in constant flux depending in what age range best suits the story, but teenager is her classic statis) in western animation. From then on, seeing Ariel explode with popularity, they carry the same design philosophy to Belle and so on to success after success leading to the "Disney Renaissance" period. You can see other studios start to take note of this global success, as Dreamworks changes (it's wild seeing the facial differences between "Prince of Egypt" or "El Dorado" compared to any contemporary human-female characters from the studio) and you can even see Japanese animated properties start to change away from designing adult faces in its animated women (That generalization specifically is likely be correlation and not causation, I will fully admit, but globalization of media has lead to some fascinating influences and trends). Betty Boop was the start of this animation design trend of visually infantilizing women, but Ariel is the one who really catalysted and popularized the trend. Like. To the point that you'd be hard-pressed to not be influenced by her impact of not her, or "the Disney Princess Style" directly lmao

the Taylor Swift section: I'm not sure. I waffled between several different styles and properties ("Avatar: The Last Airbender", "Frozen", Miyazaki specifically from Studio Ghibli, "How to Train Your Dragon", "Steven Universe",... I think you could make an argument for having the Taylor Swift verse just be a montage of a bunch of properties) but I think for the infantilization throughline + chronology (as "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" came out before "The Little Mermaid") + western (USA specifically) animation stylizations of how women are designed... I think I'm going to go with the "Into The Spider-Verse" series? And say to cycle that tiny final verse with shots of all the series' female characters. because it truly has changed animation as we know it. Yet it still keeps with infant baby-heads for some of its female characters. Thankfully, not all of them as I think that would've been reductive to the movie series message about "Anyone can be Spider-man"; though even all the female adults have bigger eyes than the adult males which is one of the traits of infantalization. But it makes sense for both the teen boys and teen girls to have some infantilization in their faces since they are in-between childhood and adulthood. But yeah, the infantilization is the most prominent in Gwen and Penny. But it's cool. I don't see visual infantalization as bad btw, I just see it as a design choice that I like tracking the family tree of since it's a design choice that can be done in any style lol But I'm not confident in my choice of "Spider-verse", because it's female characters are not the main characters and I kind of want that to be an over-arching theme as well. But Gwen does sell a LOT and this series has impacted the animation industry's stylization in general (and hopefully also itd depictions of women and diversity ♡). So maybe I'll change my mind, maybe I won't. But the parts with Clara Bow/Betty Boop and Stevie Nicks/Ariel? I love that part of this concept so, so much, I'm cemented on those verses, and I am on CUSP of something with this idea lmao

like?? do you see the vision? idk, man. maybe i'll animate something or edit it myself (i won't; i'm too sickly rn lmao rip)

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

ill eventually make a proper, pretty intro-post

but hello, hi, i am Kaiden-Shenandoah Knapp

also, yes, Kaiden-Shenandoah is my first name. the hyphen is optional, but you still have to type/say the whole thing. no, you may not call me "Kaiden". yes, i am aware it is a mouthful lol

(probably gonna change my surname is "Knapping" in a few years. i wanna distance myself from some shitty family while making the Indigeneity in my surname more apparent. dont be surprised when that happens. im just putting it off bc i got a lot on my plate rn lol)

(also if you knew me as "Kayleen", hi, hello, i no longer go by that childhood nickname. it is retired, wave goodbye, better to have loved and lost and all that)

this is my messily mindless "welcome to my head" blog, we do things very casually here. im making it my new Main (as of 24 March 2024). my professional/art blog is @kaidenshenandoahknapp

but the real point of this post is: i am not a bot lol

and also, stuff is on a queue (until i do a mass-reblog binge but, typically, i am on queue)

everything in my queue is now 2 post per 24 hours (as of: 20 April 2024)

ive been on tumblr before, but since this is a new Main, im just going through my favorite content-creation blogs i know and mass-queueing loads of the op's projects. (if you are one of those said blogs and find this nth new notes a day from me annoying, please let me know; and i will just spam them all to Post Now so i can get out of your hair asap) i'm also just not good at regularly keeping up with creators' new stuff week-by-week, so instead i generally mass-queue because i assume mass-reblogging is a bit more overwhelming, idk, maybe im just overthinking lol

tags guide: (mostly for me, ngl lol i need reminders of what i tag what when i do my mass-queues)

#me - me posting something

#relatable - "omg that is so me" at someone else's post

#aesthetic - me just really liking the vibes, which sometimes just also happens to be pretty to look at lmao

#canines wolves and werewolves i love - i know what i am about. ill probably have more "niche My Special Interest tags" as i find posts that fit them

#nutty nutcrackers / #the nutcracker - another Special Interest tag. pretty self-explanatory, i like The Nutcracker a lot lmao

#betty boop - you would think this belongs with fandom tags, but no. part of why i am obsessed with her (and have been since i was, like, 14) is because she was the popularization of the very next tag's trend

#infantalization in animation - it's when you apply baby facial proportions to an adult bodied character, it's most often done in female characters. i'll be using this tag outside of animated stuff btw. but yeah, anything that examines that visual design choice i am all 👀 over lmao

#other people's art - any individual person, not counting final version of studio work (like ill tag "Lilo and Stitch"'s exploratory concept art with this, sure, but i wont tag stills of the "Lilo and Stitch" film)

↳ #animal art

↳ #background art

↳ #oc art - is all "my original character in a canon piece" kind of ocs, not the "my original character in my original story" type

↳ there are also specifically listed artists here and there if they have influenced me/my style in the past or recently (such as but not limited to: #rvsa). almost all of them are indies with social media (aka: no Van Gogh, no Hayao Miyazaki. if they have their own fandom, i tag said fandom and not the specific artist, usually. it depends. there are some gray areas)

#brushes - the (digital) brushes people i like use

#art tips

#writing tips - is about actually doing the practice

#on writing - is the philsophy about the practice

#[insert fandom here]

#[insert fandom here] analysis

(here are the tags i chose for some fandoms that had multiple possible tags. this is not all of my fandom tags)

● #studio ghibli, #[insert studio ghibli title here] (i tag both the movie itself and studio. because sometimes i want something from the original movie, so i go into those tags; and i also go to the studio to look at overarching things since the studio has such a strong overall aesthetic/visual brand)

● #[insert disney title] (here, i do tag the specific movies and i dont just use the studio. because im usually looking for specific things this one disney movie has)

● #moomin (as opposed to "moominvalley", "tales of moominvalley", or the like)

● #my hero academia (so many different options for one work)

● #trigun (so many different branching creations from one source lmao im just gonna lump them together)

● #into the spiderverse (i dont use "across the spiderverse" for simplicity's sake, and i don't use the hyphen/space between "spider(-)verse" also for simplicity. its easier for me to be consistent if i just go "nah, its all one word")

● #marvel comics (i do not tag the mcu specifically)

● #dc comics, #batman (i tag both. but i dont tag any other dc comics property. i just know im esp obsessed with the batfam enough that, sure, they should get their own tag)