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Acebuckeye13 posted:you do realize that half the shows on that chart weren't on Cartoon Network, right. Way to deliberately miss the point. Very clearly, when I was showing a before and after of Steven Universe being picked up by Cartoon Network and said before and after being picked up by Cartoon Network, I was talking about how Steven Universe was changed by Cartoon Network. The others stand to demonstrate how the generic the style became, along with at no point claiming they were from Cartoon Network. If it was specific to Cartoon Network it would be the Cartoon Network style, not the CalArts style. quote:also also! the "calarts style" critique was coined by John K, who in addition to being a monster is also infamous for poo poo-talking popular shows that aren't his (such as claiming the Simpsons "succeeded despite the writing" in the early '90s), so you should really take that critique with a grain of salt None of this is even an argument, just a pile of fallacies. "If the person who coined the name is bad in a completely different way, so no-one is allowed to notice characters keep having same-face/noodle-limbs". "Irrelevant guy criticized other cartoons at other times, therefore you can't mention how people learning and overusing the same shortcuts have stunted them."
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Aug 22, 2021 14:24
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Pretty sure Rebecca said on the SU podcast that she chose to make them more cartoony on her own. They felt too much like drawings of people rather than cartoons, whatever that means
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Aug 22, 2021 14:28
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 And yeah, I'm not saying they're not similar, but it's pretty loving obvious the image has been made to argue disingenuously, and that can gently caress right off. They even gave steven brown hair so they could give the hair outlines. Twibbit posted:Pretty sure Rebecca said on the SU podcast that she chose to make them more cartoony on her own. They felt too much like drawings of people rather than cartoons, whatever that means I remember her at one point saying that one of the biggest stylistic influences for where they ended up were nintendo games, Yoshi's Island in particular.  I can see it. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Aug 22, 2021 |
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Aug 22, 2021 14:36
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Like, there is something to be said for how the success of Adventure Time spawned an entire generation of animators and popularized certain stylistic techniques, but the "Cal Arts Style" criticism misses the point hard by assuming it's taught to students and enforced by networks as opposed to something that evolved organically, and are present in the character designs of some shows but not others. Not quite - No one's saying that the students are taught the same exact cartoon outline, or that it's mandated by studios. CalArts teaches techniques to make things more easily animated - replicated hundreds of times by dozens of different artists. The students learn a cluster of techniques, then go out to different studios and use them in different cartoons. But because there's so many students and the techniques are visually distinctive, it pulls things towards similarity. Ovals are easy to copy. Oval eyes can easily be squished or lidded for emotion. Upwards oval easily distinguishes top of face and sideways oval easily distinguishes jaw. Now you've got bean-face. It's easy to see why the shortcut is used, but it's also easy to see when it's used. It's not a single, only way for a character to be shaped, but a bunch of distinct elements that get pulled out of the toolbox in varying amounts and, for a while, too often.
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Aug 22, 2021 15:00
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At the end of the day I care about whether the animation is well made and the artistic choices are good. The fact that some features of a particular show's style might remind me of a different show (because they use similar animation tools) doesn't bother me at all.
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Aug 22, 2021 15:33
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HelleSpud posted:people learning and overusing the same shortcuts have stunted them. what a bitter take
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Aug 22, 2021 16:13
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Yo, mate, not trying to be antagonistic here for real but it sounds like you're taking your personal gripes out and acting like their facts. Take a breath, relax, and evaluate your feelings.
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Aug 22, 2021 16:32
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The Amazing World of Gumball actually puts in a fair amount of effort filling the background and supporting cast with characters with wildly different visual styles while all existing in CG backgrounds to really get a similar feel to Cartoon Network's "cartoon city" bumpers. Steven Universe made an effort to let storyboarders' individual styles show through and drifted a lot from the model (not just in exaggerated off-model reaction shots like how most animation usually goes off-model). That got even more weird and sloppy when a lot of the animators moved onto OK KO, which was real fun. The biggest differences between Star Vs. the Forces of Evil and Gravity Falls is actually in the bodies and the eyes. Star Vs. has more detail and shows the length of characters' bodies, while Gravity Falls is more focused on the contrast between the smallness of the kids and the adults.   There's a lot of similarities driven because of technological reasons (simplified portraits, flat colors, usually posing at a 3/4 angle), some because similar characters will look the same (kids are gonna be depicted as small and squat, teen characters are gonna be long and skinny), and some similarities driven from just tone and people intending to deliver similar feelings will want similar styles. But there's still a lot of differences. And since the "calarts" complaints in that image are fairly old, cartoons have moved on since then.    And honestly even at the time of the complaints, there were cartoons that still looked wildly different at the time that were also made by CalArts grads. 
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Aug 22, 2021 16:49
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what about cgi styles, since my original light hearted jab was quoting a post saying new He Man kinda looked like Star Wars Rebels (which imo kinda looks like looks like the extremely wide and different styles of videogames Fortnight, Varlorant, Overwatch, etc)?
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Aug 22, 2021 17:01
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PhazonLink posted:what about cgi styles, since my original light hearted jab was quoting a post saying new He Man kinda looked like Star Wars Rebels (which imo kinda looks like looks like the extremely wide and different styles of videogames Fortnight, Varlorant, Overwatch, etc)? Honestly don't see the Rebels comparison.
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Aug 22, 2021 17:03
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My knowledge of Uncle Grandpa begins and ends with the Steven Universe crossover, why is there just a live action tiger?
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Aug 22, 2021 17:34
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Cattail Prophet posted:My knowledge of Uncle Grandpa begins and ends with the Steven Universe crossover, why is there just a live action tiger? Cause it's wacky and random. Not saying that as a bad thing, but that's the kind of show it was and it was definitely something you needed to have a taste for.
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Aug 22, 2021 19:20
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I still love that the Uncle Grandpa crossover is canonically when Steven develops his signature weapon and there is no alternative.
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Aug 22, 2021 19:27
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Cattail Prophet posted:My knowledge of Uncle Grandpa begins and ends with the Steven Universe crossover, why is there just a live action tiger? Originated as a gag in the pilot and for whatever reason they decided to have her be a main character Ghost Leviathan posted:I still love that the Uncle Grandpa crossover is canonically when Steven develops his signature weapon and there is no alternative. Agreed, also funny to contrast the flashback of Pearl attempting to murder infant Steven with her in Say Uncle screaming about her baby
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Aug 22, 2021 19:51
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uncle grandpa was overhated 👍
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Aug 22, 2021 20:37
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I am enjoying Amphibia, never thought I would see a a kid friend Game of Throne pastiche. The show does have serious pacing issues though. In another timeline this a 80's Jim Henson production and desperately want to see it.
side_burned fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Aug 23, 2021 |
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Aug 23, 2021 07:16
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HelleSpud posted:The show runners may not, but once it's in production the designs are shifted to be easier for the whole group to draw and adjusted through people who did go to CalArts and influenced by their teaching 
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Aug 23, 2021 09:56
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The United States posted:We got a live one boys Also probably not indicative of anything but the last person who I saw get this level of unrelentingly worked up about “CalArts Style” eventually wound up outing themself as a literal for real Nazi. Not that that’s going on here though. I’m just noting that that was literally the last time I heard anything about “CalArts”. Well, that and that one time a dude got arrested for plotting to walk into the school with an AR-15 and mow down as many people as he could in the name of saving cartoons from looking too stylistically similar for his tastes.
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Aug 23, 2021 10:18
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nine-gear crow posted:Well, that and that one time a dude got arrested for plotting to walk into the school with an AR-15 and mow down as many people as he could in the name of saving cartoons from looking too stylistically similar for his tastes. This world is so hosed up I can't tell whether this actually happened or not.
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Aug 23, 2021 13:23
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nine-gear crow posted:Also probably not indicative of anything but the last person who I saw get this level of unrelentingly worked up about “CalArts Style” eventually wound up outing themself as a literal for real Nazi. Not that that’s going on here though. I’m just noting that that was literally the last time I heard anything about “CalArts”. Not sure if this is a bit but I strongly suspect that a lot of the most fervent anger over the "CalArts style" has to do with the way modern cartoons try to depict more women/minorities/gay people and generally are somewhat less centered around the tastes of adult men than stuff in the 80s/90s. Basically this video but less intense and for children's cartoons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5DqmTtCPiQ E: Not calling that specific poster a nazi. Just saying that elements of the broader CalArts backlash are a bit sus. readingatwork fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Aug 23, 2021 |
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Aug 23, 2021 15:22
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i don't want to go that extreme on the poster, i just think that it's silly to claim conspiracy on networks forcing art styles when shows today are primarily creator and artist-driven. and the idea that people 'stunt' their growth by working on these shows implies a) that they do no art of their own outside of work, b) that a style is something you are locked/pigeonholed into, c) that calarts students are a singularity like there are people that go from working on family guy type shows to working on cute cartoons to working on big mouth... because they're good artists and can adapt to any production woooaahhh  https://vimeo.com/537572240 https://vimeo.com/541812386 https://vimeo.com/485217182 wow they all look identical loving calarts style!! how do i ever tell them apart e: this one's from a first year, like!! dang!!! https://vimeo.com/541687852
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Aug 23, 2021 17:07
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Applewhite posted:This world is so hosed up I can't tell whether this actually happened or not. Daily Dot: Shooting threat at CalArts may have been over cartoon controversy
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Aug 23, 2021 17:56
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The "CalArts style" thing comes from a place of serious visual and historical illiteracy, for sure. It has its origins in Kricfalusi griping about how anything that isn't a super pushed grotesque directly inspired by the 1980s Mighty Mouse revival is soft, weak girly nonsense, and got picked up from there by people who were generally uncomfortable with the gentle vibes of Steven Universe but didn't have the tools or the desire to articulate why.
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Aug 23, 2021 18:54
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The whole "CalArts Style" nonsense argument also kind of ignores the fact that CalArts is one of the most prominent animation schools in the US and graduates are typically drafted all throughout the animation industry, not just for TV animation. If this "style" is something ingrained in students by CalArts why aren't we seeing it in theatrical and CGI animation as well? Honestly, the major reasons for stylistic similarities between Cartoon Network shows from 2010-2016ish was mostly due to the fact that they had a huge amount of staff overlap over the course of their runs. SlothfulCobra posted:The Amazing World of Gumball actually puts in a fair amount of effort filling the background and supporting cast with characters with wildly different visual styles while all existing in CG backgrounds to really get a similar feel to Cartoon Network's "cartoon city" bumpers. The image using Gumball as an example of "CalArts style" is especially hilarious and inaccurate because creator Ben Bocquelet is not a CalArts graduate and was more heavily involved in the European animation scene prior to his work on the series. The show itself was also produced by Cartoon Network's European studio, which means a significant chunk of its staff had probably never set foot within 100 miles of CalArts... KingKalamari fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Aug 23, 2021 |
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Aug 23, 2021 23:24
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Keep your eyes open because Gobelins style is gonna blow up.
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Aug 23, 2021 23:32
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readingatwork posted:Not sure if this is a bit but I strongly suspect that a lot of the most fervent anger over the "CalArts style" has to do with the way modern cartoons try to depict more women/minorities/gay people and generally are somewhat less centered around the tastes of adult men than stuff in the 80s/90s. Yeah I've always felt that way a little, especially since the shows that usually get people griping on the internet about "CalArts!  " are the ones that are a little more progressive. Like, Gravity Falls and Gumball are on that meme image but you don't really hear that many complaints about those show. But Star Vs gets onto some racism stuff in later seasons and Steven Universe, the ~gay show~, whoa boy.But I think that's more a smaller subset and most of the rage you see online is from a large group of late 20s-to-early-40-somethings that are realizing they're getting older and retreating into nostalgia to a toxic degree, getting mad that anything might have gotten better since they were kids.
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Aug 24, 2021 02:09
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Something I'd love to see in Centaurworld season 2 is the Minotaur that Turpleton adopted becoming a regular cast member, after being looked after by a big weird giraffe man who could and possibly should have left him for dead but didn't. It would be fun to see him just a part of the group by the time the second season starts. Horse needs a warrior with her to help teach the Centaurs to fight after all (how can she teach them to use their arms, she doesn't have any :P), and he's the closest biped she has who knows how to fight (on purpose and properly, Wammawink is inconsistent with her magical abilities although getting better) I'm just hoping that that's more than just a last episode joke, given how much focus they gave it.
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Aug 25, 2021 20:33
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Apparently Arlo the Aligator Boy (which is flawed but fun if you haven’t seen it yet) has its own series out now which I didn’t even know was being made before seeing it on Netflix. Not sure if it’s any good yet.
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Aug 29, 2021 01:35
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFqBtmFA84
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Aug 30, 2021 11:04
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So I'm on vacation with bad internet and no DVR so I've been watching a lot of whatever's on basic cable at random times. All this is to say that I've been watching Big City Greens for the first time and it's pretty drat charming. Also there's no like, big running plot, but I like that it's a show that features divorced parents that actually have a still cordial relationship with one another. You don't see that often on kids' cartoons... or adult cartoons... or live-action TV/movies. If there's a single parent household it's usually because the other parent is dead or a lovely person.
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Sep 3, 2021 02:40
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Phineas and Ferb of all things comes to mind, plays into Dr Doofenshmirtz in a few ways- including that he funds his evil schemes primarily with his alimony checks. (His ex is loaded) And of all the terrible things highlighted to have happened to him, his divorce isn't dwelled on, and they're noted to be on good terms and his ex even still goes to Doof's family events. (and has a better time than he does, usually) That said, she is completely oblivious to Doof being a supervillain and considers the concept ridiculous.
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Sep 3, 2021 08:02
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Phineas and Ferb of all things comes to mind, plays into Dr Doofenshmirtz in a few ways- including that he funds his evil schemes primarily with his alimony checks. (His ex is loaded) And of all the terrible things highlighted to have happened to him, his divorce isn't dwelled on, and they're noted to be on good terms and his ex even still goes to Doof's family events. (and has a better time than he does, usually) That said, she is completely oblivious to Doof being a supervillain and considers the concept ridiculous. Even in the alternate dimension where they are both evil, the divorce is purely an act for tax reasons (and to protect Mrs Doofenshmirtz in case Heinz gets arrested) and they are actually pretty good friends.
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Sep 3, 2021 08:35
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BioEnchanted posted:Even in the alternate dimension where they are both evil, the divorce is purely an act for tax reasons (and to protect Mrs Doofenshmirtz in case Heinz gets arrested) and they are actually pretty good friends. They have a song about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNV_fVZx-zY
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Sep 3, 2021 08:44
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The new Adventure Time special is out and it’s pretty good! Was not expecting certain… surprisingly dark elements that happened towards the end. Also they left things open for more which I am totally down for if it happens. I particularly hope they stick with this short movie format since it seems to do a good job giving the writers enough time to tell a substantial story while also being short enough to keep the narrative under control (the original series did not do long term planning well).
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Sep 4, 2021 02:43
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readingatwork posted:The new Adventure Time special is out and it’s pretty good! Was not expecting certain… surprisingly dark elements that happened towards the end. Adventure Time's been killing people for years. Though I laughed at the implication that the one dude's head straight up exploded.
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Sep 4, 2021 02:51
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The art and animation seemed subtly different, but not in an unwelcome way at all. Also there's a stinger at the end that suggests why Choose Goose ended up in Super Hell.
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Sep 4, 2021 20:38
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I Am Fowl posted:The art and animation seemed subtly different, but not in an unwelcome way at all. I didn't sense that so much, other than perhaps a slightly higher level of detail that a lot of the series (but commensurate with the level displayed by the other specials). What were you thinking?
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Sep 5, 2021 01:38
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Dug Days is lovely. 
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Sep 5, 2021 01:48
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Not my usual thing, but it is quintessential dog ownership. The reaction of the squirrel surrounded by puppies made me cry laughing.
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Sep 5, 2021 14:39
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BioEnchanted posted:Even in the alternate dimension where they are both evil, the divorce is purely an act for tax reasons (and to protect Mrs Doofenshmirtz in case Heinz gets arrested) and they are actually pretty good friends. To be fair, it sounds like they weren't happy living under the same roof and legit sound like they're happier living apart and it actually helps their romance stay alive. Kind of strangely mature.
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Sep 5, 2021 16:43
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