What Are The Worst Character Designs You Have Ever Seen?

Bread Fetishist said:
What the fuck is this?
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I wish I knew, looks like anything Nick or CN would be buying up quickly.

Pokemonquistador2 said:
I once found a Twitter thread on a now defunct account that showed cartoon drawings from a student about to enter CalArts. The student was an extreme SJW, but their artwork had character and a distinctive style. It looked like something made by a person with actual talent.

The thread then posted work that the student had made AFTER attending CalArts for a year. It was of the same characters the student had drawn before, only now everything had that "beanmouth and noodlearms" CalArts look to it. All personality had been scrubbed from it. Apparently CalArts makes it a point to erase all trace of individuality from their student's works so they can be more easily animated on a Korean assembly line.

When I see the garbage that Uncanny Valley posted, I see a bunch of design elements that can be swapped around to create a lazy, workshoplike product. It would be different if it were a single animator using animation shortcuts to tell a richly written story (or a topical story with a definite shelf like a la South Park,) But this is clearly just a bunch of hipster-produced low effort trash.
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These people don't deserve to be called "animators".
 
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Pokemonquistador2 said:
I once found a Twitter thread on a now defunct account that showed cartoon drawings from a student about to enter CalArts. The student was an extreme SJW, but their artwork had character and a distinctive style. It looked like something made by a person with actual talent.

The thread then posted work that the student had made AFTER attending CalArts for a year. It was of the same characters the student had drawn before, only now everything had that "beanmouth and noodlearms" CalArts look to it. All personality had been scrubbed from it. Apparently CalArts makes it a point to erase all trace of individuality from their student's works so they can be more easily animated on a Korean assembly line.

When I see the garbage that Uncanny Valley posted, I see a bunch of design elements that can be swapped around to create a lazy, workshoplike product. It would be different if it were a single animator using animation shortcuts to tell a richly written story (or a topical story with a definite shelf like a la South Park,) But this is clearly just a bunch of hipster-produced low effort trash.
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I feel sorry for today's kids because they're the ones saddled with all these look-alike cartoons. Which isn't to say that there have never been generic-looking cartoons before now. But all the most memorable shows (in a good way) from when I was growing up all had different styles to them, even the older ones. Even the ones that looked similar were the ones that came from the same studios/creators and still didn't look shows from different studios/creators.
 
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Shadfan666xxx000 said:
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Check this bullshit. Literally FEMC but now also kohai uwu.
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What the hell is wrong with its eyes, what a bad fucking pose.
Anyway, here's an image describing the belts of Tales of protagonists.
talesofbelts.jpg
 
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AbyssStarer said:
What the hell is wrong with its eyes, what a bad fucking pose.
Anyway, here's an image describing the belts of Tales of protagonists.
View attachment 890695
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Loving the trend of unnecessary belts on gloves, though the Sorey guy easily takes the cake. The criss-crossed belts on his gloves and boots just look ridiculous (how the hell do you even do that in the first place), and the belt on his neck doesn't even look attached to his outfit.

Velvet just gets worse the more you look at her.
 
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Pokemonquistador2 said:
I once found a Twitter thread on a now defunct account that showed cartoon drawings from a student about to enter CalArts. The student was an extreme SJW, but their artwork had character and a distinctive style. It looked like something made by a person with actual talent.

The thread then posted work that the student had made AFTER attending CalArts for a year. It was of the same characters the student had drawn before, only now everything had that "beanmouth and noodlearms" CalArts look to it. All personality had been scrubbed from it. Apparently CalArts makes it a point to erase all trace of individuality from their student's works so they can be more easily animated on a Korean assembly line.

When I see the garbage that Uncanny Valley posted, I see a bunch of design elements that can be swapped around to create a lazy, workshoplike product. It would be different if it were a single animator using animation shortcuts to tell a richly written story (or a topical story with a definite shelf like a la South Park,) But this is clearly just a bunch of hipster-produced low effort trash.
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If the student in question was called Rory their art was shit long before going to CalArts. Going there just made it even worse.
 
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MysticMisty said:
I feel sorry for today's kids because they're the ones saddled with all these look-alike cartoons. Which isn't to say that there have never been generic-looking cartoons before now. But all the most memorable shows (in a good way) from when I was growing up all had different styles to them, even the older ones. Even the ones that looked similar were the ones that came from the same studios/creators and still didn't look shows from different studios/creators.
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And with that... I'm glad you understand exactly why "CalArts" is such an easy insult to make. And a pretty much justified one, too. I may not be into 80's cartoons like most of you are, but it's not hard to see why people are quietly pining so hard for something on that level to make an unlikely comeback, which we could honestly use with how sad things are getting for us dirty Murricans...
 
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Darwin Watterson said:
Bob’s Burgers is one of the ugliest shows I’ve ever seen.
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Pokemonquistador2 said:
It's Golden Age Disney when compared to Big Mouth, but whereas Big Mouth's ugliness is part of its point, I don't really see any reason for Bob's Burgers to be ugly, other than "Well, all crudely animated comedy shows with a family in them have been ugly since the Simpsons, so I guess we have to be ugly too."
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It's a real shame too, since Bob's Burgers is actually really good. I refused to watch it for a long time because it looked like shit and the characters looked like spazzes. Turned out it's got a good niche that's separate from all the other adult cartoon dreck.

Take away the ugly and you get a show that's got more in common with King of the Hill than with anything else...
 
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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
It's a real shame too, since Bob's Burgers is actually really good. I refused to watch it for a long time because it looked like shit and the characters looked like spazzes. Turned out it's got a good niche that's separate from all the other adult cartoon dreck.

Take away the ugly and you get a show that's got more in common with King of the Hill than with anything else...
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I never actually managed to get into it. I’ll leave it on if it comes on and I’m too lazy to change the channel, but it isn’t something I’d go out of my way to watch.
 
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As I've said earlier in the thread, I think Rugrats, its spin-off All Grown Up, and Rocket Power are among Klasky-Cspuo's better-looking shows. Heck, I think the Klasky-Cspuo art style in general isn't too awful on its own (although I may be a little biased since I've grown up with a majority of their animated shows.)

However, there's just no defending this abomination known as Rugrats Preschool Daze. Thank God it was canned after just 3 or 4 episodes were produced.
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Bonus - not long ago, I found this early promotional art for The Wild Thornberrys, back when its working title was Animal World. Eliza especially looks horrifying here compared to her final character design in the show! (I've read that Klasky-Cspuo insisted on keeping her ugly, or at least not conventionally attractive while the execs disagreed. I suppose her final look was a compromise.)
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Pokemonquistador2 said:
I once found a Twitter thread on a now defunct account that showed cartoon drawings from a student about to enter CalArts. The student was an extreme SJW, but their artwork had character and a distinctive style. It looked like something made by a person with actual talent.

The thread then posted work that the student had made AFTER attending CalArts for a year. It was of the same characters the student had drawn before, only now everything had that "beanmouth and noodlearms" CalArts look to it. All personality had been scrubbed from it. Apparently CalArts makes it a point to erase all trace of individuality from their student's works so they can be more easily animated on a Korean assembly line.

When I see the garbage that Uncanny Valley posted, I see a bunch of design elements that can be swapped around to create a lazy, workshoplike product. It would be different if it were a single animator using animation shortcuts to tell a richly written story (or a topical story with a definite shelf like a la South Park,) But this is clearly just a bunch of hipster-produced low effort trash.
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calarts1.pngcalarts2.png

We can blame CalArts for this, but there is also really, really bad with these people and their sense and perception of reality if they think they're actually improving.
 
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Tasty Tatty said:
View attachment 948085View attachment 948086

We can blame CalArts for this, but there is also really, really bad with these people and their sense and perception of reality if they think they're actually improving.
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The good news is is that Rory will never have a career in animation. Her attitude is vile, no one wants that in their workplace. Hell, fellow CalArts students avoid her like a plague.
 
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Brit Crust said:
As I've said earlier in the thread, I think Rugrats, its spin-off All Grown Up, and Rocket Power are among Klasky-Cspuo's better-looking shows. Heck, I think the Klasky-Cspuo art style in general isn't too awful on its own (although I may be a little biased since I've grown up with a majority of their animated shows.)
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Rugrats is helped by the fact that the style for that show is better overall than their actual in-house style that came later, not to mention it's cast is more average rather than straight up ugly. At worst Chaz and Betty are merely unfortunate, compared to Nigel Thornberry who is just straight up butt-fucking-ugly. There's less balance in their other shows too, which just make it all the more pronounced.

And speaking of butt-fucking-ugly Jesus fucking Christ proto-Eliza was horrible. Like, her final design is not great looking by any means, but goddamn I had no idea how much worse it could've been. Thank god they gave in and changed it because nobody would have watched with that design as the main character.
 
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