Does Anybody Know Why Fantasy Artists Do This?

I'm used to seeing the horned god so I notice right off.

 

well at least some fantasy art, is just to create things that look good to the artist. personally i don't care much for human faces. oh there is a reference. this is dionesis, the greek goddess of the hunt. sort of makes sense, as representing the masculine aspect of the feminine. you see that in classical midevil fantasy. my own ideas of fantasy are a little different then that. there are many species, though deer are not one of them, in which the female do indeed have horns. and of course with made up species, or even species that could have evolved and live on some other world, something female, deerlike and with horns, would not be unreasonable.

 

I'd imagine its to emulate depictions of satyrs

(or, in the case of the first image you posted, to differentiate them from centaurs)

 

It took me a minute to figure out why this was a questions, but I get it now. Male deer don't have them. Honestly, it never occurred to me. I just know it looks cute as hell. Artistic license means sometimes that's all the justification you need.

 

I'm just putting this here because I think it's interesting.

 

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Was I drunk when I posted this?? I meant FEmale deer don't have them.

 

I like that last one Aeri.

Yggdrasil has that awesome avatar of the irminsul and two deer either side and the antlers make up the Celtic knot work. I think it's beautiful and I've seen different recreations I just don't think it would work too well as a tattoo when it ages. =[

But I like that tree concept.

 

No, Ari. i don't know why people paint what they do. I never painted females with antlers....I do like #9 post animee one and #25 of the deer tree is just awesome!

I do like paintings and painting wings on people, however.
Some braided weird raised hair do's can look like antlers, i suppose.....

 

in my universe, the stranger combination of species the better, and any gender can have secondary characteristics of any other.

evolution on each life bearing world, follows its own course. there is a big universe out there, full of billions of them.

mostly so far away from each other, that the people of each might never meet.

yet we can imagine, and why shouldn't we?

some day, cosmetic use of regenerative d.n.a., will enable anyone to look however they want.

humans, being what we are, some will inevitably do very silly things when that time comes, as some always do.

and some will regret having done them, and some won't.

personally, i see nothing especially wonderful about the human form as it presently exists,

and many others far more pleasing aesthetically.

 

i think a half human/half deer is a stranger concept than a female with antlers.

that said, i assume the antlers are there because it would be hard to tell that they're supposed to be deer without them.

 

strange, is more often a good thing then a bad one. not saying that its always either. just the more often.

rather see a deer face with a human body, then human face with a deer body though.

and a modified deer, or whatever other animal type head, to make room for a human or larger sized brain.

just my personal aesthetic, such as it is.

a better body would be neither a deer nor a human, but something of an interpolation somewhere midway in between.

definately with fur and a tail though, and somewhat longer fur then deer generally have.

 

I noticed this 'trend' too. Not sure they are mainly 'fantasy artists' though, or mostly some kind of indie artists (whatever the fuck that means ). I guess they were, just like us, intrigued by the first time they noticed this concept in art and got inspired by it. Same with most other examples of these quirky focus on particular subjects in art. With the antlers on females thing, it has gotten old (yeps, I saw that much of it, it doesn't seem 'inspired' anymore, but more like hey let's do one of this theme too....)

 

Some species of female reindeer have antlers.

 

Yes, I'd read that.