Good looking cartoons

Genndy's designs are generally very structured and very polished. How is he responsible for the "declining point of art in animation"? Outside of the WB shows and a few random shows like Ren and Stimpy, how many well-animated American TV cartoons were there? If anything, the number has increased since Dexter's Lab started up. And while I get that you don't like his character design style, one thing that Genndy's shows have been pretty undeniably excellent at since at least Samurai Jack are background design, and except one all of those Symbionic Titan images were showing off that. Can you honestly say you find those backgrounds ugly?
 
I really love the look of Powerpuff Girls. There's nothing wrong with clean and simple and fluid. Not everything has to be a detailed but stiff, stylized and limited anime.

This thread is starting to confuse me. Is it a thread for characters you want to have sex with or a thread for art in cartoons you find aesthetically pleasing. The topic creator clearly intended for it to be a perv fest. I'm really surprised we didn't get lots of love letters to Gadget Hackwrench, because she seems to be the locus point for a good portion of the Internet's sexual energy. But then it seemed to get derailed invisibly into an aesthetic discussion
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Anyway, to cover both bases, as a boy I was really intrigued by the figures of Daphne Blake, especially in her purple jumpsuit, and Firestar, the first time I've noticed that superhero characters are basically drawn naked and their costumes are colored in. I've always like redheads from then on, in cartoons, comics and real life.

Aesthetically I really thought the first season of Justice League Unlimited could be beautiful, with fluid animation and sweeping vistas. Also, Batman Adventures had a very unique style because of putting the drawings on black and the pilot episode is very lovely.
 
I actually find Timm's progressively boxy and sharp edged designs less appealing than the earlier BTAS designs.

In general, I don't know why designers these days shy away from softer edges and less angular designs. It's like Americans think korean/overseas animators are so inept they can't animate anything unless it looks like a diagram. In addition, sharp corners and straight edges often exacerbate the flaws of a design.

You know, for all the flak John K gets, I agree with him on one thing: a lot of the old 60s Hanna Barbera cartoons still beat the pants off many of the stuff made in the past 20-30 years in terms of pleasing design work.

Anyway, anime, while stiff and overly detailed sometimes (Hello Lodoss Wars) has had a number of shows featuring outstandingly, beautifully "streamlined" designs that just flowed gorgeously on-screen too. Giant Robo, for example (also imo, still the best team superhero show I've seen...even including JLU).
 
The problem with alot of modern design that seperate it from Genndy's functionaly stylish designs is appeal, and actualy being able to move it. Several modern designs are just animators moving disfunctional ugly characters around horribly uninspired backgrounds. Genndy's backgrounds in ST are good, but I'm rather disapointed by his most recent character designs. Boring, flat, sharp. You are right about the more simplistic in design, the harder it is to draw
 
There were quite a few that looked nice, or at least decent, back then. Now it seems like people focus on making it look as cheap and quickly as possible with a complete lack of detail or regard for anatomy. I just dislike how a lot of shows follow the 'noodle limb, big head' approach, like Flapjack, Adventure Time, or Fairly Odd Parents (though Butch Hartman uses a more angular style than noodle style. Shows like Total Drama Island and Johnny Test also apply to this) If we go into the 'attractiveness' area, then I'm also not sure how anyone could find those characters attractive (I know there's people who do, believe me, but I'm just saying.)

Judging by those shots, they look better than Samurai Jack's (which I found too bland and simple), but they don't look too terribly impressive either, there's a lot of flaws in them (like certain objects not being colored, or colored outside the lines, or lacking those defining lines to begin with. Not to mention it still looks flat and detailed on certain objects; like those melons in the fruit stand one, or how the apples just mesh all together with squiggly lines. And maybe it's just an aesthetic preference, but I dislike how the lines look grainy and unfinished, rather than crisp and polished) Though production art looks different than from when it's in the actual show (sadly, it looks worse in the show usually) so we'll see how it is in the actual show with the characters in them as well.

One reoccurring gripe I see is lighting (not just with those, but a lot of series); it seems to be a hard thing to do for a lot of people. Lighting seems to come off very flat and not as vibrant as it should. Scenes like this and this show of some decent radiance, or this for a sunset. Again, using the fruit stand one as a comparison, that lighting seems more flat and artificial, despite a clear line where we should see the light. (And those are just random caps I have from a random episode I picked; I'm sure I could find better if I actually looked for good scenes, but they also show off some decent background work as well so I picked them)

My cousin who's 11 can draw Adventure Time exactly on-model; and he's really not that good of an artist; so I'm going to place that to the fact the designs are so simple. Looking at Flapjack and similar shows, it seems there's rarely an 'on model' considering how much they squish and stretch their bodies at random time, so I'm not sure what you mean by messing up.

Takahiro Kagami is a really nice director; I saw a tribute video to him one time and really adored it. A personal favorite artist/designer of mine is Kenetsu Satou, who draws awesome characters and background designs, which translate very beautifully into animation.
 
Oh, yes that was the point. But the thread got so off and whatever.. discussion is discussion. It's technicly still on topic though.



Yeah me too.

Back in the day when I was a kid, I sometimes rented cartoon shows from a film store. That's how I got to see alot of anime shows back then. Some, alot of people don't know about.

Speaking of anime, Space Adventure of Cobra displayed naked women from time to time. Right now it does not seem very pervy, but when your a kid.... thats really dirty.

Space Cobra... had ALOT of chicks in it, most dressed in tight spandex.
I liked everyone. Except for the villian chick with an eyepatch. She was hot, But frightening at the same time.
 
What good-looking shows are you talking about? Name names and maybe post some pics.



http://www.harley.com/art/abstract-art/images/(vangogh)-irises.jpg

The lines aren't perfectly crisp, and several objects don't even have defining lines. That Van Gogh was one lazy artist, wasn't he?;)



The squash and stretch is probably an advantage to simpler designs. How many shows with more "detailed" designs even attempt it? Of course if you can have both detailed designs and fluid expressive animation, like in a Disney movie or in FLCL, that's definitely a plus, but if the choice has to be one or the other as it often is on TV budgets, in some cases it makes sense to go the expressive route.
 
Well, there's always imitators. Look at all of the "anime styled" shows out there. To the untrained eye they appear to be from the land of the rising sun, but it becomes abundantly clear very quickly that the creators of the show don't actually know how it works, and are only copying the most obvious parts of the visual language and making no effort to make it their own. The shows that DO work are clearly influenced by Japanese animation, but aren't trying to outright copy it.



He's being painterly about the backgrounds, keeping it loose. That one comes down to personal preference, really. I like the rough look of the lines, the use of texture and light and color and the simplicity of the characters. But that's me. *shrugs*



Can he? Kids can be very good at copying. Is he just drawing what's in front of him, or is he mixing it up, creating his own scene's? And are you sure it's perfect? Do YOU know what's on model for Adventure Time? Can you find the model sheets to compare? How do you know he isn't simply tracing? If you set them side by side, can you tell the difference? You'd be surprised by how you remember things. What you might think is "perfect" might actually be close enough to how you remember something looks to not think much of it, but set it next to the original...

And how can you tell if an 11 year old isn't that good of an artist? O.o
 
I agree with you on this. When it comes to the human anatomy, I can list a lot of today's cartoons that I don't find pleasing rather than a list of those I do. But at least with Adventure Time nothing is supposed to be normal, so I'll give them that. Avatar came as a breath of fresh air because not only were they...well, human, but the landscapes were great to look at and the bending was most of the time very fluid. I guess the simplistic style also comes from a lot of cartoons being animated in Adobe Flash or something like it. It gets tiring, so while the show can be good I don't think of the characters as "attractive."




Everyone has a different style of animation, but as someone that wants to become an animator, I spend a little too long making sure each of my drawings is perfect, and it makes me disappointed that some of the designs today are so...simple. It's probably one of my faults, when I think about it. But with shows like Flapjack and Adventure Time, they don't really care at all at being anatomically correct, whereas Genndy's characters, although a different style, at least still hold true to the basic human form.



Hm, I'll definitely have to check these guys out.
 
While I don't doubt Takahiro Kagami's credentials (Death Note was well-animated, and being an animation director on Mushishi doesn't hurt either), it'd be nice if someone could link to the tribute video that was mentioned.

On the other hand, I looked up Kenetsu Satou and while of course this is just my opinion, I wasn't very impressed. :shrug: The character designs in "Seikon no Qwaser" are generically over-complicated anime designs that lack personality, and the animation just seems mediocre. Sorry, but I can't quite see the appeal, maybe it needs to be explained to me. A lot of anime suffers from staying too on-model (which causes stiffness) and the painful accuracy to character designs eliminates a lot of functionality. Of course, there are detailed character designs that work (like HG Revolution mentioned) but there's a reason why simpler character designs are preffered. I think it's easy to confuse nice character designs with nice animation, but they're really not one in the same.

And those Sym-bionic Titan pictures look gorgeous.
 
Just about anything with a better art style. Any of the DC/Marvel cartoons had more detailed art than Dexter's Lab, for example. Not the best, but better at least.

You're comparing a painting to television animation, that's a faulty comparison. (For the record, yes, I do prefer other artists to Van Gogh. Technology has come a long way since then)

"Why should they attempt it?" is a better question. Humans don't exactly do that either in real life, and if we're going for a more realistic style, it would seem out of place compared to a talking oval dog.


Well yes, Avatar would fall under that imitator umbrella, but even if it's not as good as the original it's still leagues better than everything else out there right now.

He doesn't trace he just draws whatever's on the TV. It's not that hard, I mean, Jake's just an oval with some noodle limbs. I say he's not that good because If I gave him a more complex design he probably wouldn't be able to do it and it's just something he does on the side.

Unfortunately the video was taken down awhile ago. It was called "Beautiful Finger", since it focused on the way he drew hands.

Not really much to explain, I just like the detailed, crispness, and overall aesthetic of the designs and art direction. The opening does a good job at highlighting them. The girls are probably the best part, but I suppose that's to be expected. Not sure how they lack personality, though, you can tell a lot of thought went into designing them.
 
More detailed doesn't equal better. Superfriends may be "more detailed", but it's fairly hideous compared to the more streamlined DCAU cartoons. Ditto Spiderman:TAS vs. Spectacular Spider-Man (I'm not a particularly big fan of SSM's art style, but in terms of dynamic animation its leagues above a lot of stuff).



It's not a faulty comparison. I'm comparing paintings to paintings, just some of those paintings are used in backgrounds for cartoons. The backgrounds themselves aren't animated much or anything. And, technology? So artistic quality is a matter of technology? Van Gogh had more technology than Da Vinci and yet Da Vinci was able to pull off the realism you seem to crave quite excellently.

Just wondering, what do you look for more in terms of videogame graphics: processing power or artistic style? Me, I'd take something bold and creative visually like Okami or Madworld over a billion technically well-rendered but all the same-looking FPS games.



Humans do move with a bit of squash and stretch. Not as much as cartoon characters, but between exaggeration of human expression and lack of it, the former can be effective in many cases.



What's this "original" you're talking about with Avatar? Avatar isn't exactly imitating one style; it takes influences from many different anime series and movies and makes it its own. Sometimes it exceeds its influences, sometimes it falls behind them, but it's not really just an imitator.
 
A lot of the backgrounds in old theatrical cartoons are eye candy. I especially like the ones by Boris Gorelick, Phil De Guard, and Richard H. Thomas, who all worked on Looney Tunes. Whether the quasi-realistic style or the abstract style, it's all good stuff.
 
You're trying to say that, for example, the first very ugly season of the Iron Man animated series or the X-Men animated series with its lumpen characters and its numerous animation errors is more attractive that Dexter's Laboratory. I think you've now taken this "detailed is always better" thing into the realm of lunacy.



It's just putting paint on canvas. It hasn't changed that much at all.
 
Teen Titans. Facial expressions that actually changed quite a bit. Poses that were different from fight to fight. Emotional scenes that actually registered at least on a visual level. It had quite the talented director/storyboarder crew. It made Justice League look like crap up until Joaquim dos Santos' talents were put to good use.
 
I especialy love old cartoon backgrounds. Look up Boop Cinderella (a now public domain cartoon) and you will se amazingly beautifully backgrounds and animation

Now, about squash and stretch. I think every cartoon should have some on some level. Even anime could be somewhat more lively with a little squash and stretch.
 
Detailed is not always the answer my friend. Because you could have one greatly detailed, but bland painting next to a very creatively abstract beautiful painting. Which would you prefer? And your notion on squash and stretch Is ridiculous, there is more to animation than anime bud, hate to tell you. Besides, do you have any idea how boring it is to watch a tediously detailed character move.

I'd much rather watch Felix the Cat squashingand stretching, skipping his way happily around. Than a rigid detailed human stand straight up and talk. Be honest, are you really that anti cartoony? Because which would you be more entertained by if you turned the sound off? ;)

Because, personaly, I'd rather watch Felix.
 
We're talking art, not animation, so yes. Dexter's art is just ugly. I don't really like the other two shows, but at least they put more effort into the art. Something like Gargoyles puts Dexter's Lab to shame.

Computers and digital painting more specifically. An undo button is probably the most useful addition going by my works. :sweat:

Another faulty comparison, Okami and Madworld look just fine and plenty detailed and beautiful. Stuff like Flapjack and Adventure Time don't.

The creators mentioned they wanted an "anime" art style since they felt it fit the style of the show. It's not as refined as you'd see in actual Japanese series (the lighting is again something I never found impressive in Avatar) but it's one of the better things we've put out and pretty good. Definitely quite a few steps up from Chowder and Flapjack that CN was making, or Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom on Nickelodeon.


I like plenty of 'cartoony' shows, I just find it lazy when the character designs and art is hastily thrown together and made to look as cheap as possible. Flash is probably one of the worst things to happen to our industry. What can I say, I guess I just have a preferences towards the detail and style done in anime and like the work they put into it.
 
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