A Plethora of Animation Styles!

Hey, do you guys remember Chalkzone? It was a rather obscure cart that aired on Nickelodeon in the mid 2000's. The thing that always interested me about this show was the shift in art styles when they left the natural work and when into the “Chalkzone”. Granted the main characters never changed they appearance but the world around them after they the charted go through the portal turned into this chalk drawn world.

Although this show has been on for a while and is for children yet again, The Amazing World of Gumboil is surprising with its animation style. Although I would assume the set style is that of the main character, each secondary character carries their own animation style with them, ranging from flat 2-D to 3-D and everything in between. The great thing about The Amazing World of Gumball is the way they incorporate as many different animation styles as they can and the result is somewhat disorienting as well as charming! (But again keep in mind this is a children's show so yeah be wary.)

Shuffling Around Animation Styles

Usually when you think of a cartoon, you expect that all the characters and background will be in some kind of unified style. But that is not the case with a popular cartoon that currently runs of Cartoon Network, The Amazing World of Gumball.

The main character, Gumball, and his family are a typical 2-dementional cartoon, though the world that they live in is rendered in 3D. And it's not just the difference between the main characters and the background that makes this show unique. Many of the supporting characters are also in differing animation styles. There are some characters rendered in 3D, like the Tina T-Rex and Bobert the Robot, and a others are made with realistic CG, creating real world objects like a balloon and a piece of toast, just slap on a face and they are characters.

It's a quirky little show, and if nothing else, it is really interesting to see the different animation styles interact with one another.