Drawing noses

[Blast]

What do you think of drawing pronounced noses? There's many artworks I come across where the character has no nose or just a little line to show they got the organ. With chibi art, kawaii style art this is particularily common but it's not limited to those drawings. Even Pokémon has some characters that go this route. Popular characters too. Cynthia comes to mind with her nose being just a line. It kinda makes sense since her design is supposed to be sleek and elegant. However, a more rugged character that looks like he should be in touch with his natural senses such as Alder is a "victim" of this phenomenom as well. Not to mention almost every character in the current Pokémon anime is like this.

You might be able to tell I'm not a fan of creators relegating the important facial feature the nose, that frames and shapes the complexion, to a small line, dot or leaving it out entirely. For some stylised works it makes sense to me, for most other artwork I think it's just a shame. Take the iconic manga Kaiji by FKMT, the noses of the characters are a vital part in their visual identity and personality. There's so much potential to get creative making distinct expressions that get lost for the sake of "cuteness" in many cases. Yes, FKMT's characters are ugly. Why not? Why can't they be ugly? In the same vein, why can't a prominently shaped nose be part of a character's beauty as well? What is your opinion on this issue and how do you feel about the noses you draw in your art? I'm curious to hear about it.

(Yes I know my avatar barely has a nose either lol)

 

[da man/man]

I honestly like it more when the nose is simplified. Artstyles that try to fit every facial feature in, really don't resonate with me since a big part of drawing humans is knowing where to cut corners with details, and not doing that has almost always led to a worse (to me, I'm sure plenty of others feel differently) looking end piece. A nose made of a single line, or even less, a single dot, is preferred for me. No nose is also fine. But rarely has a completely drawn and detailed nose, looked right to me.

Since I mainly draw sprites, I do noses even less than normal, since due to lack of space the head shape and lighting kid of just 'imply' a nose (which is why shading the head is very important), but I've also been trying single pixel 'dot' noses more recently, and that also works. I'm overall really not a fan of pronounced noses, but I'd be curious to hear others thoughts on it!

 

[Freckles]

I am going for cute and pretty when I draw, so I personally go for simplified noses... but not as much as seen in Pokémon, because those do look weird to me! doesn't fit my art style hehe

if I were to draw different things, like more realistic fantasy like Elder Scrolls or something inspired by say, the comic Astérix (and the massive variety in faces and bodies that implies), I probably would go for the appropriate noses... so that it fits the art style. that's important, I once drew my sona with a Disney-style nose but she still had animesque eyes, so the result was very much "I'm nooot used to this!"

 

[Palamon]

I prefer artwork with non realistic noses, tbh, and often just draw a dot for a nose myself. It's not something I really care for in art unless it's meant to be realistic, but I often prefer little to tiny simple noses, it's just better that way.

 

[theclaw]

In a nutshell the art design wasn't made for this. When these finer points are drawn on Pokemon characters (fur, scales, fabric...) the outcome is uh yeah.

 

[Croconaw]

Hmm, I prefer a non-realistic nose, but I haven’t really thought about this. I guess it just depends on the character/artstyle for me. I don’t draw, so I can’t say which one I personally prefer.

 

[Fraise]

Funnily, this was something my spouse and I were talking about a bit recently.
I'm in the camp that prefers to draw simplified (button-ish) noses on humanoids, since my general style and my characters are both on the cartoony side, but I have no particular feelings about how other artists render noses as long as it fits their style! I do agree that it would be interesting to see more shape variety and/or cracks at realism in some works, though, as while I can't come up with any specific examples at the moment, I'm sure there are plenty of cases out there in fiction with more stylized character design that manage to make realistic noses look fine without coming off as uncanny.

 

[kiadony]

Well, for my stylized stuff I draw simple noses (my pfp is an example) but for more realistic art I draw them in more detail, nostrils and all. Also depends on whether I wanna shade the face in detail or not.