Women’s breast are a big deal among male artists. You’d be hard pressed to find a heterosexual one that hasn’t drawn a pair or two for his own amusement. I don’t think you could name a subject better covered in the visual medium, actually. My fascination lately has been the way breasts have been portrayed in cartoons for the past century. One thing that strikes me is the overly obvious influence of breast implants.

Excessive female nudity after the jump. Don’t tell your parents!

It never really made sense to me why an artist, who has a blank canvas and an endless amount of possiblities, would mimic the style of a fake breast when he could easily imagine a large and perky natural looking breast just as easily. We can see in work prior to the 1970s and 80s that that’s just what cartoonists were doing. In the past 30 years, however, a shift to less natural looking breast has become more common. Brilliant character designer and cookie-based cereal aficionado Dean Yeagle talked to me about his style of breasts. His take:

I suppose implants are actually cartoons, too…they are the breasts that look like we think breasts should look, but don’t. They are an icon, rather than reality. An image of an ideal.

This makes a lot of sense from a certain perspective, especially since our media is saturated with implants that are fast becoming the norm even outside of pornography. The reality, however, is that implants look the way they do because cosmetic surgery simply hasn’t had the ability to reproduce a natural looking breast. More recent “tear drop” shaped implants show an effort to get closer to the real thing. So basically the implant look is a symptom of medical inadiquicy, not idealism.

As a kid my poor little eyes were inundated with fake looking breasts, both in the porn I was watching and the comic books I was reading. I don’t think I ever saw natural breasts until I was faced with them in person (or had them pressed against my face – which ever you want to imagine). My drawing style reflected this ignorance. So I’d like to create a little guide for our beginning artists on how to identify fake tits and how to make your girls more natural, and in my opinion, more sensual. Oh yeah, and it gives me an excuse to draw boobies.

The above chart shows three common examples of natural looking breasts and two sets of implant inspired breasts. They’re labeled A-E, but don’t take it as a pun on their cup size.

Type A – The Pinup Breast

This is the type of breast you’ll find in just about any graphic medium prior to the 80’s. The example to the left is from a 60’s pulp comic and the example on the right is from a 40’s Captain America cover. The sizes are different but the shape is the same. A gentle inward slope that rounds off on the end with the nipple on the center line of the breast. You may also find it interesting from the above example that in the age where TV producers were putting real women’s bosoms into unnatural bullet shaped bras, artist were not doing the same with their images. The proportion of breast to body frame may be exaggerated, but the shape is mimicking nature.

Type B – The Painterly Breast

This is the most natural breast in the list, and to me the most sensual because it’s the shape you’ll find most C and D-cups come in when attached to actual ladies. Pierre Renoir – who tied a brush to his dick when his hands began failing him in his old age – loved this breast the most. Boris Vallejo, who paints with his dick just for the sake of it, also loves this breast because (gasp) he uses real women as models. Oddly enough this is also the shape most Hentai breasts come in ( when you can see them through all the splooge and tentacle penises). The shape is completely rounded with the nipple slightly below the centerline. Its the shape that shows weight and mass the best, which is probably why the Japanese like it so much. They bounce well.

Type C – The Itty Bitty Titty Committee

There may be no god, but there is a Bruce Timm and that’s good enough. After so many decades of super heroines looking like transvestites with boobs bolted on, Timm came along to bring femininity back to mainstream comics. Women can be powerful and heroic without having to take on masculine forms. Timm’s women are athletic, but also soft and delicate, and so too are their breasts. This shape works best when its size is kept in check. The slope from the collar bone ends at the nipple itself instead of rounding off like the Type A. The weight of the breast hangs below the nipple.

Type D – The Pamela Anderson

Look out, boys! Them titties is filled with Hepatitis C! Here begins the section on shapes you avoid if you’re going for a “maybe she’s born with it” look, because nobody could possibly be born with the above. This breast is completely derived from the cosmetic surgery culture that has developed over the past two decades and that we, as men, are mind-fucked into believing we are attracted to. The breast is completely spherical, jutting directly out of the rib cage at a 90 degree angle. The nipple is actually above the center line of the breast mainly because the surgeon never knows where it’ll end up when he’s stretching the skin out. These are the types of breasts Michelangelo sculpted onto his work because he used male models and added the breasts on at the last moment… and because he was gay. This is also the most favored breast on Tiny Toons. Bravo, American children’s entertainment! I’m sure the 5 year olds in the audience really appreciate how accurate the jiggle on those things are!

Type E – The Super Boob

This one takes the cake, folks, because it isn’t based anywhere in reality at all. It’s the hell that Bruce Timm saved us from, and its the image that has ruined so many preteen conceptions about femininity. The breast doesn’t jut out at the second or third rib, like the Type D. That’s just not perky enough, damnit! The things actually come straight out of the collar bone! I can’t image how these girls don’t choke on the their own tits. And they look so hard – like muscles! I think it’s pretty safe to say this is all Jim Lee’s fault and he should be beaten within an inch of his life for it. Have you ever actually looked at a woman Jim? No? Then stop drawing them!

So ends our titacular lesson. Remember, kids, boobs are sacred. They fed each and every one of us for a time. Slicing one open at the nipple and then stuffing it full of silicone isn’t cool, and neither is copying that travesty down on paper. Viva las big naturals!