I'll admit I'm pretty heavily biased to simplistic character designs combined with incredibly-stretchy movement. It is the main reason I've enjoyed watching a lot of CG animated movies, particularly from Sony Animation, this past decade--seeing otherwise-rigid 3D models stretch like putty, especially in real-time video games like Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart, is more impressive to me these days than a new CGi movie looking slightly more photoreal than what came before. Finally, you can probably guess why I like the animation in most Studio Gainax and Studio Trigger productions over 95% of the Japanese animation industry, although I kind of feel that 95% still has the edge in the writing/storytelling department.
On/off model is like any "rule" in art - it doesn't tell you to always or never do something. It tells you what doing so will evoke in or convey to the audience. It's up to you to decide whether you want to evoke or convey it, and use appropriate timing.
I was literally thinking about drawing an expression sheet for my character when I saw the notification for this video. This is like the third time this has happened… How?
I think a devastating consequence of the criticisms levelled at off-model drawings is that it makes it difficult for beginner artists like myself to muster up the courage to experiment (as you say in this video), and actually draw. I used to have a habit of messing with drawings for hours because I wasn't satisfied with how they looked stylistically, and it took a lot of time away from the genuine practice I could have put in to increase my skills and eliminate my need to tweak my drawings so much in the first place.
Reminds me of how I have turnarounds for characters in my comic, but the way I draw them in the comic is a lot more varied and "off-model" because it just..looks better in a lot of panels. I have a personal set of "rules" for what parts I can mess with and what parts have to stay consistent for the sake of keeping the character recognizable.
after reading this comment, i got curious n went to your profile to check out your comic- ur art style + color choice is rlly pretty n i love the world building!!!!
The critics who criticize blur effect panels or nit picks at this stuff shows they don't get the extensive work it takes to make a 5min animation let alone a feature length. I can't see a person who uses these criticisms as a valid judge of effort. Laziness is commenting sour comments without quality plusing to the process. I'm happy in art but I see the process and respect it more. I would like to one day do a light box celluloid paneled animation, but first I got master animation first lol. *in progress*
I’ll admit, I’ve often worried too much about my characters being consistent from drawing to drawing, however, I’ve realized a lot of my favorite animation is better able to focus on acting by simply not worrying about the model sheet. “Staying on model” should be regulated to the clean up stage.
I recently got a Reddit comment asking "animation can be TOO smooth?" And this is exactly what I meant with too smooth. Always staying on model can look very unnatural. Especially when moving faces and limbs are involved.
I don’t know if this exactly fits into this topic or if it’s something that belongs in a different video, but both in professional works like the Mickey Mouse shorts to RU-vidrs like TerminalMontage there has been a trend that I like where off-model (sometimes extremely off-model) versions of a character’s body and face are used for comedic effect. Like a super simplistic character design would for one scene be drawn almost hyper-realistic. And kind of the opposite has been true for manga/anime where normally realistic (or as realistic as most manga/anime designs can be within the style) will be drawn chibified or with goofy expressions to convey a certain emotion. In both instances they’re going VERY off-model, not in the sense talked about in this video where it seems more like a consistent design choice and something used for smears and in-between, but something deliberately to catch the eye usually for the purposes of comedy. I can understand why some might not like that, especially since it could be said that it is a “trend that’s getting obnoxious” but… well, my two cents on it - particularly within the context of RU-vid content creators - I think everyone realizes that they can only work with limited time and resources. TerminalMontage’s extremely simplistic style of character design might seem unappealing, but it benefits Jeremy and everyone else because they are very quick to draw, leaving more time to do stuff like create backgrounds and render more in-depth action scenes. I think everyone knows that simplicity or even ‘wrong’ designs have a certain charm to them because people know that there’s not much else they can do with their resources. Having a few frames here and there of them “putting in the effort” on a character then acts as a bit of a jumpscare or jumplaugh when it comes about. It’s kind’a like those older cartoons where for a certain frame to show if something is gross, they show a single still-image of a more highly-rendered part of the body [EX: the Spongebob “I Don’t Need It” meme). Pardon me if my thoughts sound disjointed on this; I’m on mobile which is odd to type out and keep my thoughts straight. But yeah I kind’a what folks’ thoughts are on that. Because… yeah, I for one find that kind of off-model-for-comedy stuff to be funny and sometimes pretty charming given the context.
Oh man, I hadn't thought about that in relation to being off model! I remember disliking Ren & Stimpy as a kid because it would splice in those disgustingly detailed illustrations. Of course, that shock-value juxtaposition was exactly what they were going for!
My favorite instance of the pausing thing was that Wander Over Yonder short where Lord Hater tries to film himself destroying Wander but his camera keeps freezing and the animators made sure to make the freeze frames go as ridiculously off-model as possible.
Nothing makes me feel more rage than when people refer to a cartoon or even my art as ‘calarts style’ Just because it’s not realistic or semi-realistic- ?? It drives me up the wall 😭
It's such a nonsense phrase anyway. That school never produced a singular style and have had a ton of talent go through them. One of those odd trying-to-make-something-thats-actually-a-compliment-into-an-insult
@@CharacterDesignForge absolutely, and I find the only people who say it are total buzz kills who don’t know much about art at all and refuse to enjoy modern media because it’s being ‘ruined’ by ‘lazy artists’ 🙄
It weirds me out that people lump Teen Titans GO, The Flintstones, and Steven Universe into the same style category (I googled CalArts style and all these and more came up) because some of these are sort of UPA style and others are almost a simplified anime style. Also CalArts is literally the name of an esteemed animation school.
@@CharacterDesignForge I think it comes from noticing similarities in head-shapes and mouth-shapes between these shows, with the implication that CalArts only teaches you to draw/animate in that particular style. Not having been to CalArts, I'm not going to make a judgement on something I have no experience with, but I have noticed some of the mentioned similarities - maybe it's just a generational thing.
@@syweb2 one big flaw in their argument, is that out of all the creators who get lumped into this style, most of them didn't even go to calarts. Another big flaw, is that just because two artists draw kiiinda similar faces, does not mean they have the same art style or that there is no variety. Nobody with working eyeballs should be confused as to whether a given still shot is from Gumball or Gravity Falls. They are quite distinct and easy to tell apart.
The Animation Survival Kit has a section that's all about "breaking the limbs" of a character to force a pose more. These people who are overly fixated on being on model have no idea what they are talking about
I try to master BOTH 2D and 3D animation and in my studies, but I have personally found that it is most efficient to do organic characters with tons of squash and stretch in 2D while doing more mechanical or rigid props/characters in 3D. Obviously it's not impossible to do stretchy, fun characters in 3D--The Hotel Transylvania movies immediately come to mind--but it is EXTREMELY expensive and time-consuming to do it in 3D, what with the added tasks in the pipeline like retopology, UV Mapping, rigging, and other extremely technical and boring tasks that frame-by-frame 2D animators don't even have to think about, and are much more easily done with rigid 3D props. For the sake of my sanity these days, I usually only do a small handful of high-quality AND squash-and-stretch-friendly characters for my portfolio a year while doing most of my indie animation with simple 2D characters and complex 3D backgrounds, leveraging the advantages of both mediums while also minimizing their weaknesses.
@@CharacterDesignForge Honestly, I basically stole that process from the 2019 Netflix film Klaus. That's a prime example of using 2D for stuff that is supposed to squash and stretch a lot while using 3D for things that are supposed to be on-model at all times like the Sleigh. Of course there is also a lot of 2.5D After Effects trickery mixed in as well.
@@CharacterDesignForge the only reason this has any dislikes is either sheer spite to people being happier than them or they just want attention, probably like the comment above this
I only learned what smear frames are recently, and I find them to be a really interesting method of animating. Yes, they can look a bit funny, but you make really good points in the video, about how they can add to the liveliness of the animation.
When in doubt, just because you dislike something doesn't mean you have to be overly critical of it. It's ok and good that people have different tastes. It's just a matter of being respectful of each other! I love elasticity and I'm glad you've put a word to it!
The problem is that many people critesizing just put everything going off model into the same category. Steven Universe for example had many places where going off model was great, but it also had scence where charcters hights were messed up making Steven look half his normal hight. I think something like that can be distracting and is probably the result of a drawing beeing based too much on the storyboard.
True. I don’t actually mind most of SU‘s off-model stuff, but there are a handful of instances that shouldn’t have gotten past the boards, like Tiny Garnet in Room for Ruby.
I think the bigger problem is people blaming artists, when this stuff is clearly the fault of management. Issues like SU's were the fault of unreasonably tight schedules, not the artists being unskilled.
@@myrmidion44 Yes, that's another problem. If you don't get enough time to fix mistakes, you can't fix them. Even the best artist makes mistakes and even the best artist can't put out their best drawings on a time limit.
So many good thoughts in this, many of which I hadn't considered before! I really dig off-model expressions when they're deliberate, which is probably why I was such a Spongebob kid. Those characters go off-model to emote all the time, and it rules!
"Dont rush to a model sheet/final design" hey Brookes how did u get my address to come to my house and call me out to my face? As an admitted former critic of off-model animation, particularly in terms of proportion, knowing more about the process now has definitely tamed my feelings a lot lol
Brookes have you ever watched/researched Motorcity and Titmouse's animation work on it? They did the opposite of your stormfeller plan, which is rigged faces for dialogue and fully hand animated bodies. They still would hand animate faces to break model and emphasize emotion. I really enjoyed the fluidity of the work and it falls in line with a lot of what you talked about today
I think it really depends on the character, or kind of story you’re making if you should go off model or not. MCU Thanos for example is more rigid/realistic facially because he’s a more serious character. It also makes him feel like an unmovable threat. Even when you hear the hidden emotion in the tone of his voice, his goal isn’t gonna change, even if it means killing an unimaginable amount of people, or dropping his most loved ones off a cliff. Going off model more usually works when the tone of the story isn’t too serious.
Not gonna lie, everyone making fun of Steven Universe for randomly being off model (rightfully) kinda scared me straight into drawing more consistently and I would get my head bit off if I draw a bang incorrectly in one frame, thanks for reminding that I can get away with this kinda stuff!
It failed critically, box-office it completely dominated the 1994 Lion King several times over and is one of the most profitable "animated movies" ever made. I'm sorry to tell you this, but there is obviously a clear divide between what pleases more discerning audiences and what actually makes tons of money from less discerning audiences.
@@JeffreyThrash The fact that Cyberpunk 2077 made profit... I don't think there is an "audience" anymore, it's just "consume product" now... the people who complain are just the ones who can see through the skin-suit. Thanks for the correction.
@@DL-idk I am fully aware of that, and it is the main reason I study 3D animation even though I personally find it more efficient to use 2D for characters and 3D for props, backgrounds, robots and other things that are supposed to be animated in a rigid manner. I unfortunately have to split my time and attention between making expensive-looking 3D stuff for employers (despite not exactly being rich--thank God for Blender), and making mostly 2D stuff that is actually popular on social media.
I feel like a lot of the teasing is mistaken for "not wanting it". I love making fun of those frames, and i don't want people to stop making those frames. Its great entertainment, along with the rest of the show. Asides from the sonic one. That instilled the fear of God into me
Great thoughts, Brookes! I like how certain cartoons go off model with metaphorical gags, like if they're so mad their hair lights on fire or if they're surprised and fall to pieces. Tom & Jerry did this a lot, but also Teen Titans and anime. I personally struggle with staying consistently on model for my webcomic because I'm still learning and evolving pretty quickly. I feel like sticking to a model of how I was drawing last year would be detrimental. My compromise is to block out "seasons" and try to do the redesign deliberately, all at once.
I feel like having a bit of rigidness adds to the realism in some styles, and can sometimes turn something from looking overly goofy to serious. Now in traditional american cartoons having that stretchiness is a good thing, as those are usually meant to be lighthearted types of shows. But for most anime, having that rigidness adds to the atmosphere and seriousness of it. Of course there are anime which are meant to be more goofy and unrealistic. One piece is a good example of that, especially luffy as he literally has elastic powers lol. One punch man is also a show with a lot of elasticity to its' animation. The original teen titans and Justice League are also generally decent examples of american cartoons which took themselves more seriously.
glad i happened to catch a newer upload! ive been watching your content on character design while doing character designing on my own, and a lot of the tips you give in them have been a huge help in giving me a better understanding, and even teaching me some new stuff. tysm for putting all these out!!
i seriously love your videos and have been binge watching whatever ones that get recommended for the past week or so !! i really think your channel deserves so much more love with the passion you put in and love these videos are filled with they're the perfect thing for me to listen to while i do commissions, dreaming and planning about my little work in progress comic : >
Also, one thing not mentioned is that in live action, there is a bit of squash and stretch, as well as smear frames - some things are actually squishy, and motion blur is a thing!
Yeah I just wanted to say thanks. I've recently discovered your videos and find them not just informative (which is what brings me to RU-vid) but encouraging and full of kindness ("kindful"?).
Tbh I've never understood that specific criticism about steven universe. The elasticity of the style allowed for deeper personality and storytelling to shine through. I always admire cartoons that try to be inventive with their animation. One of my favourite cartoons right now is Tuca and Bertie for that reason, it has some of the best visual storytelling I've seen in a cartoon. There's a place for consistent on-model animation of course, but there should be a place for off-model too.
For me, it wasn't that the characters went of model with that show, it's animation they obviously should, but rather other smaller inconsistencies, like characters heights changing constantly. It gave the feeling like characters don't really belong in that world
I guess as a friendly argument, I guess the only thing I could think of is if the animation is of a source material not originating from animation. Something like comics or manga for example. The anime One Punch Man had an incredible 1st season, which although there was plenty of good squash and stretch, the art is very faithful to the manga. The second season is also faithful, but with development issues it looked choppy and not well animated. On the other side of the coin, Naruto had a weirdly animated fight at the end of a really big arc, and in it the artstyle itself changed to the point where characters went from your typical shonen action series to something almost out of loony toons. It was still great animation, but I could see why someone really wouldnt like that fight scene if they enjoyed the ones before it. I can see both sides of the argument, but either way im just glad to see the great work animators make!
I think part of the reason why people have issues with those examples is because they both broke their "promises" with their audiences. While they were both adaptations, they also established their own styles of animation from episode 1 of both series, thus giving an unspoken promise to the audience that the animation is generally going to stay that way throughout their runtimes with occasional bumps in quality. So when the style suddenly changed, it broke the suspension of disbelief for a big chunk of the audience. What should've been a climatic, cathartic fight in Naruto turns into a fountain of "My pain is greater than YOURS!" memes. That isn't to say creators can't switch animation styles like this, but the creators need to keep their fingers on the audiences' pulse to avoid knocking them out of moment. Anyway, thanks for pointing those issues out!
I’ve been watching this channel for years! This has been one of the most consistent channels for me, and I’m not even sure if I’ve left a comment before! Thanks for all the entertainment and help with my art.
Am I watching this instead of working on my commissions or character art for my personal project... Yes.. but I haven't drawn in days and learning makes me feel like I'm doing something..
There is consciously going off-model for the sake of action or expression... and then there is Steven Universe. Where characters change their height between frames (in relation to other characters, for example - Amethyst beeing once taller and once shorter than Steven which makes no sence).
I cant afford cal arts so to me theyre literally satan incarnate (/joke) I agree with all the stuff in this video and knew about most of it already, but the advice about testing expressions while designing is DEFINITELY something im going to try while redesigning my OC, so thanks!
There are a lot of obnoxious people on the Internet who make comments about things they don't even try to understand, but I feel artists can mitigate the inevitable stress of sifting through genuine criticism and troll comments simply by not feeling compelled to upload every single doodle they do online. Like, do these exploratory character design sketches on your own time in a private sketchbook that you don't even show to your friends and family, but then feel free to show the polished final results of those exploratory sketches to the public online. A lot of beginner artists feel worried they need to maintain a CONSTANT social media presence, myself included, but 1) you shouldn't work THAT hard for Likes and Shares that have no monetary value and 2) The ultimate goal of any artist's social media presence is to eventually get paid for doing what you love, and once that does happen you will have zero time to even look at your accounts unless you end up unemployed for a long period of time in the future, starting the process of getting noticed online all over again. Sort of like how PsychicPebbles' and Michael Cusack's RU-vid channels have coincidentally dried up as soon as Smiling Friends got picked up as a series...
@@JeffreyThrash were you trying to reply to me? Im not totally sure how your comment relates to my post lol I dont worry about social media presence at all haha--my only goal with my art is to make cool stuff, and if it doesnt get likes, oh well. Im not actually that eager to turn my art into that career, to be honest--im okay staying a hobbyist as long as my work is sustainable. Thank you anyway.
I will never forget when the Naruto Shippuden Pain battle episodes dropped. People went WILD saying so many bad things because the team behind the animation really all out with big expressions and stretch to show the high velocity and absurdity of the battle.
Yeah, that part of Pain became literally a meme of over the top wild off model animation. I don't blame the head animator, he has to choose really wild gestures and action in intense speed but with a limited time and budget or play it safe and and stick to a more easily rendered poses for the CU and IB to easily draw, he choose the former.
I love going through my smear frames and making fun of them. I know its intentional and what i planned but i think its funny to send to my friends with no context
You said if I paused the video on you talking, you'd be making a dumb goofy face because you're not posing as a model But when I paused the video at 7:09 it looked exactly like the faces I've seen actual magazine models making
At most I add motion lines or do a cartoon blur. Like I think there's a sort of feeling from realism in motion that you don't get from live-action movies or AAA games, like I can't appreciate real life cuz it takes no effort, and I can't appreciate a AAA game cuz it's just motion-capture.
@@CharacterDesignForge thinking about it, depending of what your doing it can probably help you get muscle memory for drawing a character (it would probably help with the hair of one of mine)
I was all on board with you, Brookes, up until you mentioned Steven Universe - that show has some SERIOUS off-model problems and not the "she emoted too much" kind, let's be honest here
I think there's a difference between going off-model for purposes of an exaggerated facial expression or a whacky or otherwise extreme movement, and going off-model when the character is just standing there. How obvious is it, and is there some action justifying the elasticity? IOW, if the only people complaining that a character is off-model are the artists or art students who are scrutinizing individual frames, I think that chunk of animation is probably just fine. OTOH, I remember seeing one or two Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was a kid that were clearly off model. Bugs just didn't look like Bugs, even when he was just standing around listening to another character talk. Someone lost the model sheets, *and* gave the art job to some completely differen team at Warner Bros. that week. I forget what show I was watching, but it was a kids' show with a host and a phone line, and toward the end of the show, the host said that some kids had called in to ask who that other rabbit was in the cartoons; he insisted it was Bugs Bunny. Ummm, yeah, no. If a bunch of 4-6 year olds are noticing that you're off model, you've got a problem. If it's just a matter of a character literally crying his eyes out, or if she ate hot peppers and is bouncing around the environment like crazy? Some elasticity is fine, and TV-style animation would look weird under those circumstances without it.
This might be irrelevant I think but I’m trying to draw Boston Terriers, or at least their heads, but I can’t find any good reference. I’ve tried google, I’ve tried Pinterest. Do you have any advice for finding good reference?
If you're still looking for a place to find good references in general, I recommend "Wikimedia Commons." It's the repository for all of the media used on Wikipedia and associated services. For some topics, searches there give far better results than Google Images.
In the case of steven universe, Steven is almost entirely different in height and sometimes look and skin tone in several episodes. It's one thing when it's frame to frame its another when the character changes from episode to episode.
I think going off model is fine, but doing so should be intentional. If I can tell that 5 different people animated the same character, the inconsistency is an artifact of that process and not an intentional element of scene or design. If the animators can't stay on model when needed, they need to work out a different system. I.e. having one character per animator or having the same guy do all the keyframes. Squeeze and stretch is one thing, bad oversight is another.
The only thing I'm really aware of when it comes to this "controversy" is specifically Peridot from Steven Universe, whose height, body shape, and even whether her limbs are connected or floating is known to be rather inconsistent.
Though i definitely don't agree with the creation process of Adventure Time, im glad that they did what they did for Jake's model sheet and general "rules". Unlike Adventure Time, Steven Universe had no real model sheets and the show suffered many times with just generally off looking episodes and characters.
Steven Universe absolutely had model sheets, you can find lots of them online quite easily. There were also established rules for the board artists to follow (these are a little harder to find as they're in the art books). While I have opinions about some of the art choices made for Steven Universe, there was absolutely a lot of pre-production that included model sheets.
I have an issue with characters being off model when the character is in a neutral pose and expression. Ive seen shows where the characters are literally doing nothing but standing there but their height and proportions just change in the next scene for no reason.
glad i happened to catch a newer upload! ive been watching your content on character design while doing character designing on my own, and a lot of the tips you give in them have been a huge help in giving me a better understanding, and even teaching me some new stuff. tysm for putting all these out!!
