Monsters "Humanizations"

Pixar's Feature Films Monsters, Inc. / University
#1

Since we have threads for WALL-E and Cars on the subject, I figured that we should have one for the Monsters franchise too.

Having done extensive browsing of fanart, I have seen three different categories of humanizations that the Monsters characters seem to fall into:

  1. Pure Human - This means that the characters are look like completely normal humans. The only exception is that they may have colorful hair, but there should be no unusual features like wings, horns, tails, claws, etc. Within this realm, Mike is always featured as a human with hair over one eye, an eyepatch, or simply two eyes and sometimes winking one of them (though one artist here has a two-eyed human Mike with a blind eye). One feature that varies in this category is if Terri and Terry should be separate beings or born Siamese twins.

  2. Kemonomimi - This comes from a trend in Japanese anime/manga that features characters that are human but with minimal animal features; most popular are nekomimi (cat person), usagimimi (bunny person) and kitsunemimi (fox person), among several others. Humanizations in this category will feature horns, tails, wings, claws, as long as they do not alter the basic human appearance (the animal features just serve as additions). Examples would include Sulley (and Johnny) with horns and tail, Hardscrabble with wings, Randall with fronds and tail (sometimes a lizard tongue), and (in some rare cases), Celia with her snake hair, but still covering one eye.

  3. Hybrid/Mutation - These are not true humanizations, and are usually a literal fusion of human and monster features that drastically alter the human appearance. Some of the examples I’ve seen on the net include:

  • Cyclops-based mutations, including Mike, Celia, and Chet

  • Unnatural skin tones (blue-skinned Sulley, green-skinned Mike, etc.)

  • Sulley with paws

  • Celia with Gorgon hair and multiple legs (with a giant cyclopic eye, of course)

  • Randall as a four-armed human (sometimes with gecko fingers), or even shudders, a lizard-centaur (human face and torso imposed on lizard lower half)

  • Art with thick, giant split legs, short body, and tiny arms

In my opinion those are some of the weirdest “humanizations” (if they can even properly be called that), but there are people who like them. Personally, I think the kemonomimi-styled Monsters humanizations are really cute, and of course, the “pure human” ones always deserve a high honor, since they strive for complete human-ness.

So, what do you guys think of it?

#2

I will be bluntly honest-I do NOT like the humanized Monster characters! That especially goes for the stylized Anime/Manga-inspired “Bara” and “Gijinka” styles or whatever they’re called, that make all the monsters look like redneck lumberjacks or cadaverous zombie-like things. I can understand someone drawing the characters as humans IF that person is just not comfortable trying to draw non-human characters, and feels more at ease drawing humans, but most of the time, that’s not the case. It’s more of wanting to draw those stylized Manga-type characters combined with a desire to “improve” upon the looks of the characters by making them more human-like. Most of the Randall humanized drawings especially make him look more like something from “The Walking Dead” than a MI/MU character, this gaunt, skeletal thing with sharp teeth and purple hair. I know that some people are into that, and it’s their right to enjoy it, but it’s also my right to not like it, and I don’t. I don’t think that the looks of the characters need improving upon. I know that there will be people who disagree with me on this, and that’s fine-to each their own, but this is my honest opinion of humanized MI/MU characters.

pitbulllady

#3

pitbulllady: I’m totally cool with that. Same with WALL-E; not everyone likes them to be human either (mainly because they think making them human defeats the purpose of robots falling in love). I’ll admit, although I’m a fan of humanizations, I too am picky about them. For example, I am turned off by WALL-E characters as cyborgs and Finding Nemo characters as mer-people. For me, the whole “humanization” thing is more about it being a “what-if” scenario (AU) and getting a chance to let your imagination run wild and see what kinds of character designs you can come up with.

BTW, “gijinka” is a Japanese term from anime/manga, and it means to make a non-human object into a human.

Now, back on topic. To get some other members on this thread, here’s a few of my own humanization concepts to get the ball rolling. Mine are kemonomimi-based, meaning that they do have minimalistic animal features added to their human form:

Mike: Short (about 4’7"), bright green hair in a bowl shape (think Coconut Head from Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, if anyone here has ever seen that show), has two eyes but covers one of them with his bangs, and has two short horns. He often wears a green work jumpsuit, gloves, boots, and company hard-hat.

Sulley: Tall (over 6 feet), with a muscular athletic build and substantial body hair (he does have polka-dot hair), and has ridged horns, hump-spike fur tail, and claws (while in human form, they are short, but grow slightly when he transforms). Always dresses in comfortable (sometimes frumpy) polka-dot clothing, such as loose jeans and hoodies.

Randall: Average height (a little over 5 feet), with a slender and trim figure (NOT gaunt or sickly), delicate porcelain face, polished jade eyes, and flowing (lower back length) amethyst hair styled into a layered cut framing his face and gathered into a ponytail (has three cowlicks on his head tipped with soft magenta, and the ends of his locks are a shimmering turquoise). He has no visible unusual features, except when he hisses, which is when he reveals his water monitor tongue. He prefers to dress in stylish, classy clothing, often with combinations of sublimated patterns (including damask, stripes, argyle, dots, chevrons, snakeskin, zebra, scroll, paisley, etc.), and some of his favorite accessories include watches, cross-ties, and stylized cufflinks. Sometimes, I do imagine Randall having a bit of fragrance too, since in my parody, he is often associated with lavender and sometimes moonflowers. (Flowers are going to be a motif in my MI/MU spoofs, with Boo also having a flower association)

So, let’s see what other ideas people can come up with here. :smiley:

#4

I love humanizing, for both the creativity part and often the fact I can’t draw some characters as their monster/vehicle/robot selves, but for a long time I didn’t know how to do that without the MI/MU characters losing their monster-ness. My cure was the Monster High approach, basically they stick to a basic human form with their original hair color, skin tones based off their color, and monster-y features like number of eyes, tails, etc. This worked really well and a lot of people liked them. I’d gladly show some examples, but the site they were posted on (Disney Create) is shutting down in a few weeks, once I get them on dA I’ll post some links. A part of me would really like to try modifying MH dolls to look like my drawings :slight_smile: Though certainly I think JSWeC and little_chef have some of the best humanizations I’ve ever seen! Same for Create artists Skellington_Rox and Artsprarxx, who go the normal-human-with-colorful-hair approach.

#5

OWP: Why, thank you! I’m so glad yo love my humanizations, and yes, little_chef has some awesome Oozma Kappa stuff herself. Originally, I wasn’t planning on doing any fanart for the movie, but once I saw her human MU and the backstories she gave them, I thought, “Why not?” and ended up doing the six main teams, along with Brock and Claire, characters from the original movie, and I do plan on doing more over the summer.

And in regards to your comment about making dolls that would look like your characters, they actually do sell Monster High customizable doll packs at the stores. I do remember one pack with pale pink skin, so she could make a good Ms. Squibbles (you would just need to find some extra stickers that look like eyes to give her all 5 of them, and you could maybe look for doll clothes that would look similar enough to fit on them. The only downside is that all the packets are for making female monsters (probably 2 pinks, 2 blues, and 2 purples, along with pink, magenta, and purple doll wigs, could make great PNKs!), so you may not be able to make a Mike, Sulley, etc., unless they make packs for creating male monster dolls too.

#6

Lizard centaur sounds so ludicrous it almost wraps around into being awesome. Can you link one?

#7

Villainess: Here’s some I’ve seen:

[url]http://monstersfanart.tumblr.com/post/58420436531/x-by[/url]

[url]http://24.media.tumblr.com/ee7537ab162c0f3ea8b5b50e195f5458/tumblr_mr6xgzQYRZ1re1fogo1_1280.png[/url]

[url]http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=38785490[/url]

The ones by that last artist creep me out the most, actually. I shared the portfolio that is least creepy, for some of the other work portfolios by that artist depict the human/monster-hybrid Randall in a downright disgusting manner (not anything that explicit, but drawn in “sexy” poses that are just plain creepy and weird, and not at all attractive)

Again, I don’t have a problem if you’re interested in the concept. Personally, it just weirds me out to no end.

#8

JSWeC: Yeah I’ve seen the customizable packs and I might give those a shot sometime, though I’ve also considered buying some of the guys and doing some modding. The only problem there is that many of the MH characters don’t have horns or tails in the same manner as the MI/MU charries… meaning I’m going to have to get creative and get some sculpey and make my own. We’ll have to see; it’d be a lot of fun to try!

#9

OWP: That’s a great idea! In fact, people on Deviant Art do take already-made dolls and modify them sometimes and put up their pictures of their customizations.

And now, here’s another horrendous “Randall as a lizard centaur” drawing! (no offense to the original artist and if anyone likes it)

[url]http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=38591687[/url]

#10

I rather enjoy humanizations, especially ones that don’t just mean to portray a character as pretty. I’m a big fan of when they embrace diversity and stay close to the character’s character, especially.
Can’t say I’ve seen many humanized Monsters Inc/University characters, but I remember Tumblr user Kitpocket having some really good ones.

//quietly goes back into hiatus