Most detailed 2d animated character designs

S

shahab29inch

New member
I've been doing some analysing and from the looks of things 2d animation hasn't reached it's full potential, nor advanced as much as I want it to. Despite this fact alot of studios have broken away from the the 2d format and gone for the 3d style, which is a bit of a shame because I would absolutely love someone to take 2d to next level and create something that looks like a beautiful painting or illustration come to life.

Anyways, what 2d animated movie or series has the most complex and detailed character designs and do you believe that animators will try to make improvements, or will it be left neglected in the future?
 
Well 2D animation looking "like a painting", and being "detailed and complex" are two different things... namely that "Painting" is entirely subjective, and you don't need to be detailed and complex to make a beautiful painting... there can be a lot of beauty in simplicity.

If however you are talking like complex and detailed, more in the sense of a realistic 2D rendering, then you are talking about something that simply can't be done without a huge budget, huge staff, and a lot of time. 2D animation requires drawing individual frames over and over again, essentially redrawing and re-painting the same very detailed characters over and over again. If it takes a half-hour to draw an individual frame then it would take FOREVER to finish an animation. Really the more time an animator has to dedicate to an individual frame, the less time they can take on the animation itself. So you either have the animation that moves at a low frame rate, cuts HUGE corners, or uses techniques like cut-out animation (which is like making 2D models to animate with and thus not requiring constant redrawing, but cut-out animation doesn't look nearly as nice as traditional animation)...

but again, i would say that there can be a lot of beauty in simplicity and you don't need heavily detailed character design and what-not. Really a simply character design can often times look much more appealing than a detailed design. There's a certain art to brevity.
 
2d animated movie or series that have the most complex and detailed character designs... hmm.

Well a few movies come to mind for me really

Fantasia by Disney for one thing. If you look at that movie, and then realize it was all traditional hand drawn animation, yeah.

Allegro Non Troppo (aka the Italian version of fantasia) is another great example. I mean if you consider that most of the stuff in that movie was also hand drawn. Really, the guy who made that movie (Bruno Bozetto) is, in my eyes something of a genius.

Really any of the movies Done by Ralph Bakshi. The quality of the animation of the movies he's done (the likes of Fritz the cat, Heavy Traffic, and Street Fight (aka coonskin) come to mind) may not be the best, but its DETAILED! These movies really give you a feeling of animated characters living like real people.

Now as for quality 2D animation, There have been a bunch of movies that stand out, as far as quality goes. One of the best IMO would be "an american tail". Probably one of the most beautifully done animated movies i've seen.

There are many other great examples of 2D animation, But you have to y'know get out there and search!
 
Actually a recent thing that just came to me. If you want to see a film that is like a painting come to life, i suppose one example that comes to mind would the The Old Man and the Sea. Each frame was painted so it has a real beautiful look to it. but as i said this quality comes at the price of the animation itself
 
As has been said before quality over quanity. A horendously detailed character takes really long to animate and thus sucks the magic out of animation for me. A better way of moving incredibly detailed characters is a process known as rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is when animators trace live action footage. A good example of this is Uncle Sam in the Merrie Melody, Old Glory. If you want great paintings watch Fleicher's Boop Cinderella, or Rainbow Parade's Felix the Cat in Bold King Cole.I prefer simple characters that move in an entertaining way over detailed characters moving stiffly.
 
While not technically characters, I'm amazed at both the level of detail and the quality of animation for mecha scenes in Gundam 00, Gurren Lagann and Star Driver, as well as the finale to the old OVA The Five Star Stories. I look at those, and I honestly can't figure out how they did it.
 
I never did like rotoscope... I can almost always tell when something was rotoscoped, and quite frankly, i think traditional animation looks nicer. Something always seems so off with rotoscoped animation... It's rather odd when you consider that rotoscope is technically more realistic than the other... Just goes to show that just because its realistic doesn't mean its believable.


Well it's been a while since i saw some of those series, but looking at a quick fight in gundam 00 i can see A LOT of held frames... The gundams look to be moving, but they are actually just holding a single pose but being moved around, a simple adobe aftereffects trick; one frame of animation that's just moved, rotated, resized, blurred and what-not... They do some animation when they need to make complex movements but otherwise you might just have a single pose with particle effects as they fly and shoot. So essentially, they cut corners like other anime... though it is easier to get away with when you are dealing robots since they are suppose to be pretty stiff
 
It was the first fight between Celestria being and the thrones
... though i wouldn't really judge something like the very last fight; afterall, the season finale is where the break the budget and is not indicative to how the rest of the series was animated
 
Monstro in Disney's Pinocchio looks to be drawn and painted more in the style of the backgrounds of that movie than in the style of the other characters. In other words, it must have taken a VERY long time to animate him.
 
Back
Top