you know what pisses me off? the entire idea that a drawing is ‘impressive’ if it’s realistic. like if someone who doesn’t really knows much about art sees a kid drawing something realistic they’ll be impressed and tell the kid how talented they are, but if they see them draw something cartoony or stylized [in the same level of skill as they drew the realistic drawing], they’ll just treat it as a doodle
do you have any idea how many years of practicing and studying it takes to draw something cartoony and make it look good? if anything, it takes even more effort than drawing something realistic since you’re deviating from the references you have everywhere [real people] and creating something entirely new [your own style], of which the references you get to study are only other artists’ stylized drawings.
If anything, nailing a good cartoony style of your own also shows a level of mastery over many elements, including line, shape, anatomy!
i think @jwblogofrandomness should see this. He has a fantastic cartoony style that is actually REALLY hard to imitate and people will still call him lazy and claim they can do it in 5 minutes.