Steven Universe - Now a Griefing Thread

[starborn427614]

If you’re talking about those fully colored sheets and turnarounds from the first season that get passed around occasionally as a gotcha, those aren’t actually model sheets. Or at least not the kind that would actually be helpful for in-betweeners that people are usually talking about when referring to model sheets.

Sugar’s entire philosophy about model sheets seems to stem entirely from her misunderstanding what a model sheet is and what it’s supposed to do in the first place. Model sheets are not this rigid set of design proportions that need to be followed to the letter with no deviation, they’re a set of guidelines that breakdown the underlying structure of how the stylistic choices of the show’s art direction works. A great example of these are pretty much the art bibles of any show by Craig McCracken; particularly WoY where most of the model sheets are breaking down the general motif the entire show follows of emulating the symmetrical push-pull flow of a lava lamp - and the results speak for themselves with how it sports some incredibly vibrant character animation.

Steven Universe didn’t even have head measurements for any of its characters, can you imagine working on a show and never knowing if the main character is supposed to be three or four heads tall? The fact that this actively hurt the animation quality because the Korean sweatshop in-betweeners had to constantly adapt to the individual storyboard artist’s “style” with no reference to fall back on alone should be enough to indicate Sugar’s methods were an abject failure.

Is this not a model sheet?

 

[One Man Bland]

Is this not a model sheet?

No, these are model sheets:

The thing you posted is a turnaround, which is mostly to show the details of a finished model or prop at different angles for the clean up artists to use. It’s not even a complete one either, since usually these turnaround models include a base character (usually the main character) for scale to keep sizes consistent, but all of SU’s turnarounds don’t.

 

[starborn427614]

No, these are model sheets:
View attachment 1907151
View attachment 1907154
View attachment 1907157
View attachment 1907159
The thing you posted is a turnaround, which is mostly to show the details of a finished model or prop at different angles for the clean up artists to use. It’s not even a complete one either, since usually these turnaround models include a base character (usually the main character) for scale to keep sizes consistent, but all of SU’s turnarounds don’t.

Well how do you like that. Animation is so fascinating.

 

[keyboredsm4shthe2nd]

There are model sheets, the animation department is simply instructed to follow the boards more closely.



If you're referring to The Answer, Blue's design wasn't finalized at that point IIRC. She didn't even have her hair loop thingy.

No I'm referring to the zoo episode, or maybe the trial episode (her hips are pretty slim).
From Gem Heist:

From the wedding episode:

 

[starborn427614]

No I'm referring to the zoo episode, or maybe the trial episode (her hips are pretty slim).
From Gem Heist:
View attachment 1907226
From the wedding episode:
View attachment 1907235

Those are two different boarders IIRC so it makes sense one would look different from the other. This is a nitpick on a universal scale (ba dum tish), but that's That Will Be All, not Gem Heist.

 

[Private Pyle]

Sugar's powerlevel and knowledge of anime/cartoons doesn't stop the show she made from frankly being quite ugly. Blue Diamond is one of the gems I like more and even then I don't how inconsistent she looks like everyone else in this cartoon, or how her classic SU sausage lips deliberately knock a peg off her design for no real reason other than to stop her from being conventionally attractive.

I think a lot of this phenomenon has to do with how a lot of the anime SU rips off- sorry pays homage - were art styles that benefitted from more detail and softer, more flow-y line work that just wasn’t within the range of the storyboard artists’ skill level or the show’s established art direction.

Which probably why the Diamonds always ended up looking better in either the mire stylized flashbacks and background art depictions and that 1 second appearance in a promo than they did when they actually showed up. I remember thinking that it was a clear marker that SU had royally fucked up with the Diamond designs specifically because of how detailed fanart depicting them as intimidating yet ethereal immediately dried up in favor of shitposts and memes.

It seems Rebecca and Ian (especially Ian) suffer from being fanboys in animation. Oh sure, they can talk your ear off about their knowledge of animation but when it comes to applying it, they fall short.

Being conventionally attractive is overrated.

What a tumblr as fuck sentence. Especially ironic considering the Diamonds (more so Blue and Pink) are as close to conventionally attractive as the art style allows.

I'd put BD way at the top of the leaderboard when it comes to waifu-tier characters and I've seen similar comments everywhere from /co/ to reddit and tumblr beyond.

...I’m not sure why on earth you’d bring that up as if it were a positive thing or that it would help your case.

No, these are model sheets:
View attachment 1907151
View attachment 1907154
View attachment 1907157
View attachment 1907159
The thing you posted is a turnaround, which is mostly to show the details of a finished model or prop at different angles for the clean up artists to use. It’s not even a complete one either, since usually these turnaround models include a base character (usually the main character) for scale to keep sizes consistent, but all of SU’s turnarounds don’t.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I too used to think the turnarounds were actual model sheets, not helped by SU fans referring to it as such. Though even then I never bothered using it as a gotcha because of the off model philosophy.

Those are two different boarders IIRC so it makes sense one would look different from the other.

Which is something they noted and mocked in their original post. As you can see, people here don’t settle for that excuse.

 

[One Man Bland]

I’m embarrassed to admit that I too used to think the turnarounds were actual model sheets, not helped by SU fans referring to it as such. Though even then I never bothered using it as a gotcha because of the off model philosophy.

I normally wouldn’t even get into such semantics like that since turnarounds are one part of model sheets, but so many fans would whip those out to try and shut down criticism that a lot of people got confused. Those particular turnarounds are also specifically for the cleanup artists and colorists to reference so they know what lines they are supposed to erase - which isn’t helpful for an in-betweener looking at a wonky storyboard panel trying to decode the intent with no references to fall back on. SU’s turnarounds are also weird in that not only do they not feature a head size chart for proportions or inserting Steven for scale, but it appears they basically took stills of the characters from the first season and pasted them in a semi-straight line, and then recolored them whenever there was an outfit change.

A lot of people tend to focus on the ever changing heights and proportions, but another thing I noticed about Sugar’s off model philosophy is that it meant the storyboarders and animators seem like they were SOL whenever it came to a lot of the stylistic problem solving that should’ve been figured out by the first season. They never really figured things like what to do about Pearl’s nose if you wanna do any angle other than standard, or how to make Greg look younger without just recoloring Steven, or how to do any sort of top down angle without giving everyone bobblehead proportions; and it seems like their solution was to simply not try.

Actually a great example of this comes from Sugar herself. After Peridot lost her limb enhancers, Sugar talked about how she was a little frustrated with the boarders because she envisioned the floating fingers being a source of creative gestures and expressions, but the boarders only ever wanted to treat them like regular hands and complained all the time about how them not being hands meant they had to force them to act like hands. Sugar had to flat out instruct them to make Peridot’s fingers turn into an arrow and shit in the last episode they appeared because the boarders never figured this out on their own even with infinite freedom. But alas, even when faced with direct proof that her methods weren’t working she didn’t take the hint.

 

[starborn427614]

I normally wouldn’t even get into such semantics like that since turnarounds are one part of model sheets, but so many fans would whip those out to try and shut down criticism that a lot of people got confused. Those particular turnarounds are also specifically for the cleanup artists and colorists to reference so they know what lines they are supposed to erase - which isn’t helpful for an in-betweener looking at a wonky storyboard panel trying to decode the intent with no references to fall back on. SU’s turnarounds are also weird in that not only do they not feature a head size chart for proportions or inserting Steven for scale, but it appears they basically took stills of the characters from the first season and pasted them in a semi-straight line, and then recolored them whenever there was an outfit change.

A lot of people tend to focus on the ever changing heights and proportions, but another thing I noticed about Sugar’s off model philosophy is that it meant the storyboarders and animators seem like they were SOL whenever it came to a lot of the stylistic problem solving that should’ve been figured out by the first season. They never really figured things like what to do about Pearl’s nose if you wanna do any angle other than standard, or how to make Greg look younger without just recoloring Steven, or how to do any sort of top down angle without giving everyone bobblehead proportions; and it seems like their solution was to simply not try.

Actually a great example of this comes from Sugar herself. After Peridot lost her limb enhancers, Sugar talked about how she was a little frustrated with the boarders because she envisioned the floating fingers being a source of creative gestures and expressions, but the boarders only ever wanted to treat them like regular hands and complained all the time about how them not being hands meant they had to force them to act like hands. Sugar had to flat out instruct them to make Peridot’s fingers turn into an arrow and shit in the last episode they appeared because the boarders never figured this out on their own even with infinite freedom. But alas, even when faced with direct proof that her methods weren’t working she didn’t take the hint.

This is actually really interesting, I didn't know anything about the difference between turnarounds and full blown model sheets before this. The thing about Peridot's limb enhancers being hard for the boarders to manage is something I was aware of, but not the complaining comments. I followed a few crewniverse blogs back in the day and never really heard anything along those lines.

 

[AnOminous]

A lot of people tend to focus on the ever changing heights and proportions, but another thing I noticed about Sugar’s off model philosophy is that it meant the storyboarders and animators seem like they were SOL whenever it came to a lot of the stylistic problem solving that should’ve been figured out by the first season.

I always knew this show looked like shit, but thanks for explaining exactly why.

 

[One Man Bland]

This is actually really interesting, I didn't know anything about the difference between turnarounds and full blown model sheets before this. The thing about Peridot's limb enhancers being hard for the boarders to manage is something I was aware of, but not the complaining comments. I followed a few crewniverse blogs back in the day and never really heard anything along those lines.

It wasn’t from the crewniverse, it was from an interview with Sugar following the episodes where Peridot got poofed. It seems like the interview itself is buried (I think it might’ve been from a filmed q&a panel since the sources I remember quoting it were tumblr blogs which HA HA good luck trying to reverse search a Tumblr post) but basically Sugar was always going “Look! Look! You can do some many neat things with her limb enhancers!” and the crew mostly ignored her advice until she finally told them what to do with the fingers in the last episode she had the limb enhancers.

 

[starborn427614]

It wasn’t from the crewniverse, it was from an interview with Sugar following the episodes where Peridot got poofed. It seems like the interview itself is buried (I think it might’ve been from a filmed q&a panel since the sources I remember quoting it were tumblr blogs which HA HA good luck trying to reverse search a Tumblr post) but basically Sugar was always going “Look! Look! You can do some many neat things with her limb enhancers!” and the crew mostly ignored her advice until she finally told them what to do with the fingers in the last episode she had the limb enhancers.

Yeah, searching on tumblr's a crapshoot. I'll take your word for it.

 

[One Man Bland]

Yeah, searching on tumblr's a crapshoot. I'll take your word for it.

Found it: https://steven-universe.fandom.com/f/p/2717775101428245342

I’m not gonna watch the whole thing just to find the exact quotes, but the comments confirm it has Sugar talking about how she personally had to board the last scene Peridot has with her limb enhancers during Catch and Release because none of the other boarders ever knew what she was talking about when trying to describe using her limb enhancers for expressive body language, and she’d never get an opportunity to use them to their full potential otherwise.

Which considering this is supposed to be a show that‘s supposed to driven by the art team and deliberately avoided model sheets to theoretically allow the widest range of creative freedom, is just sad.

 

[starborn427614]

Found it: https://steven-universe.fandom.com/f/p/2717775101428245342

I’m not gonna watch the whole thing just to find the exact quotes, but the comments confirm it has Sugar talking about how she personally had to board the last scene Peridot has with her limb enhancers during Catch and Release because none of the other boarders ever knew what she was talking about when trying to describe using her limb enhancers for expressive body language, and she’d never get an opportunity to use them to their full potential otherwise.

Which considering this is supposed to be a show that‘s supposed to driven by the art team and deliberately avoided model sheets to theoretically allow the widest range of creative freedom, is just sad.

I don't fully buy into the "Rebecca is a pushover" meme that /co/ likes to push, but she's also not the most assertive type either. This Peridot stuff is just one example of that.

 

[starborn427614]

Sorry to double post, but Grumpyface just announced that Unleash the Light will launch on consoles and Steam next week. I assume future DLC will do the same.

Source:

https://twitter.com/Grumpyface/status/1360302751972872195

 

[BroccoliBrain]

I think a lot of this phenomenon has to do with how a lot of the anime SU rips off- sorry pays homage - were art styles that benefitted from more detail and softer, more flow-y line work that just wasn’t within the range of the storyboard artists’ skill level or the show’s established art direction.

Sorry, I should clarify that I'm not saying she's inconsistent for standing out against the other gems, I'm saying she's inconsistent like the other gems due to that dumb storyboarder thing. But yeah, her Leiji-inspired design does not mesh well with SU's complete lack of line weight for instance, either. @keyboredsm4shthe2nd 's comment is basically what bothers me - is she a droopy willowy waif or not??

Being conventionally attractive is overrated.

Being conventionally attractive sells. Doesn't matter if some imageboard anons are cooming over their waifu, uncanny/awkward designs do not make for good merchandise or toys. Because this is supposed to be a children's cartoon. I enjoy and appreciate twisted ugly things all the time (cough) but as a kid I'd be thinking "lol what, weird puffy blue woman".

If you're referring to The Answer, Blue's design wasn't finalized at that point IIRC.

>not having a finalised design for your major antagonist
>still haven't finalised it after their first appearance
oh shit sugar what r u doin

edit: I enjoy the work of that one Japanese animator they got on board occasionally (and it's pretty funny how the work of this sole person is visually leagues above the sweatshop animation) but I fucking hate how he draws Steven's eyes slightly lower and further apart on his face, it makes him look inbred stupid and even uglier.

 

[starborn427614]

Sorry, I should clarify that I'm not saying she's inconsistent for standing out against the other gems, I'm saying she's inconsistent like the other gems due to that dumb storyboarder thing. But yeah, her Leiji-inspired design does not mesh well with SU's complete lack of line weight for instance, either. @keyboredsm4shthe2nd 's comment is basically what bothers me - is she a droopy willowy waif or not??


Being conventionally attractive sells. Doesn't matter if some imageboard anons are cooming over their waifu, uncanny/awkward designs do not make for good merchandise or toys. Because this is supposed to be a children's cartoon. I enjoy and appreciate twisted ugly things all the time (cough) but as a kid I'd be thinking "lol what, weird puffy blue woman".

>not having a finalised design for your major antagonist
>still haven't finalised it after their first appearance
oh shit sugar what r u doin

edit: I enjoy the work of that one Japanese animator they got on board occasionally (and it's pretty funny how the work of this sole person is visually leagues above the sweatshop animation) but I fucking hate how he draws Steven's eyes slightly lower and further apart on his face, it makes him look inbred stupid and even uglier.

Personally I can't be doing with Lamar's style of boarding. You'll probably know his designs if you saw them: Extremely tiny and extremely off model. Either that or gigantic hair.

Edit:
New PSA dropped featuring Best Gem.

https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1361729580139184131

 

[Archeops]

New PSA dropped featuring Best Gem.

https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1361729580139184131

Fucking HELL, I was just about to post that.

I do find it funny that it goes for its usual anti-racism schtick and then mentions that comparing fictional races to IRL ones renders the entire message void.

But that’s the case, then why bother making these things AT ALL if you’re going to use fictional characters as philosophical/moral mouthpieces?

 

[woowie queen]

Edit:
New PSA dropped featuring Best Gem.

https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1361729580139184131

it's okay to say that i'm waiting jlongbone's roast over this? the others over those psas were golden.

 

[NSJAP]

New PSA dropped featuring Best Gem.

https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1361729580139184131

https://boards.4channel.org/co/thread/120952400#p120952529

Some anon had enough.

 

[starborn427614]

Fucking HELL, I was just about to post that.

I do find it funny that it goes for its usual anti-racism schtick and then mentions that comparing fictional races to IRL ones renders the entire message void.

But that’s the case, then why bother making these things AT ALL if you’re going to use fictional characters as philosophical/moral mouthpieces?

They're marketable characters, plus the PSA's aren't about them per se. It's not canon either way so I'm just ignoring them at this point.

it's okay to say that i'm waiting jlongbone's roast over this? the others over those psas were golden.

I like J's stuff, her roast of Lily Orchard's "writing tips" was great.