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A black cat stands in an awkward profile pose, on hind legs with one front paw raised and one lowered, looking directly into the camera while holding a small red fluffy toy in its mouth. Caption: Basically, any European coat of arms…
(alt text by @dgar@aus.social)
They mostly drew stuff like that because it was popular at the time. People knew how to draw more realistic pictures since, I think, Ancient Greece. At least, they knew about perspective and stuff. But that only resurfaced during the Renaissance, when ancient stuff became popular again
Hahah man, styles have changed a lot. Thank you for your informative reply, I'm headed down a Wikipedia rabbit hole 😁
Another consideration is recognizeability and reproduction. When you want hundreds of banners, or maybe even put the image into thousands of metal armors, you don't want a superrealistic picture.
That doesn't really answer why they drew it like that though.
Surely there's a reason why that particular style became popular.