Very interesting article @alcy . I'm replying in the context of the comment challenge hosted by @danielsaori so I appologize in advance if I missunderstood any concepts you presented in the article.
Although I have no experience in drawing or character design at all, I can say that this totally makes sense from a viewer's perspective. It isn't something we are conciously aware of when we watch a show or play a game but I can totally see how even just using different shapes to build a character (or a set piece) would influence how we percieve the characters as being either friendly or evil/dangerous, etc.
One obvious example that comes to mind is mario vs bowser. Mario is so rounded, his nose, fingers, feet, ears. everything about him is smooth and round wherease Bowser is full of spikes. Then I notice their stances are very different, bowser has a really agressive stance compared to mario's bouncy, chill stance. As for the levels of readability (correct me if I'm wrong), I notice Mario is sort of funny looking, with a very commical vibe to his character (this would relate to acting as well), compared to Bowser's massive bulky, angry vibe.
This was a good excercise for me to really appreciate the amount of thought that has to go into character designs and how fortunate we are that there are people out there that are dedicated to getting all the little details just right so that we, the viewers/gamers can have the best experience.
Cheers,
DE
Thanks for your comment @digitalengineer, You're right about the first level for Mario and Bowser, One is the guenuine, innocent hero while the second is clearly evil. Also you can easily relate the story to the Round Table or King Arthur kind of, where the knight saves the princess from the dragon. And you can see that everywhere. Like in the marvel movies where designs are really informative (Thor vs his brother Loki is really, really obvious).
Thanks again for your time ! cheers !