Animatrix

If you are a fan of the movie The Matrix like I am as well as animation, you may want to check out The Animatrix (2003). The Animatrix consists of several different animated shorts that take place in the general world of the matrix films. Each one was created by a different artist and have very different art styles. It is really beautiful to see the variety of animations one after the other, telling different stories in the same universe, but with very different visuals. Watching this is a great way to not only appreciate different art styles, but to understand how each art style in itself creates a mood and feeling about throughout the story. These choices are important elements in influencing the viewers emotional response to your animation/film.

You can pay to watch the film here, or find the full film or pieces online somewhere for free if you're into that.

Boxed in by Curves

So a little while back one of my favourite online animators posted this image to his twitter.

He's a huge fan of 90's "He-Man" style traditional hand drawn cell animation, and he feels as though a lot of cartoons nowadays are getting less stylistically diverse.

When the cartoon "Adventure Time" first aired on cartoon network I remeber thinking it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. The style was a lot cuter and curvier than a lot of cartoons at the time and it seemed as it's creators had put a great amount of detail into the characters and world of the show. The aesthetic matched the show's pleasantly strange world and for the most part I thought that AT would be one of those cartoons that usher in a new wave of creative aueterism.

However as the years have gone by it seems as though a lot of the new cartoons on cartoon network haven't really branched away from the curvey cute adventure time style. Content wise I think that many of these shows are really well crafted, but I can't help feeling as though a lot of character artists are stuck in a sort of creative rut.

Take a look at the difference between pilot episode for one of Cartoon networks newer series "Steven Universe" and it's release version.

The pilot had a darker more muted color pallet that I thought looked really cool and would have worked well for the show. The final version isn't by any means bad but it seems a lot more kid friendly than the pilot version.
I really miss the stylistic diversity of a lot of early 2000's shows.