Art Shift: Difference between revisions

Can overlap with [[Show Within a Show]], [[Deep-Immersion Gaming]], [[Disneyesque]] and [[Super-Deformed]].

See also [[Stylistic Suck]], a phenomenon used to visually distinguish a show-within-a-show from the work that uses it.

** And Ogiue's [[Yaoi]] fantasy episode with the guys Art Shifted to [[Bishonen]].

* ''[[Lucky Star]]'' makes frequent use of art shift as part of its many anime and video game parodies and [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] -- everything from Konata imagining an athletic competition as ''[[Track and Field]]'' for the NES, to Konata changing to a more "refined" appearance to match her ''[[Mariasama ga Miteru]]''-influenced behavior, to a rather lengthy ''Initial D'' parody done entirely in its art style.

* Nagasumi of ''[[Seto no Hanayome]]'' is especially fond of doing this, turning from [[Ordinary High School Student]] to musclebound icon of manliness whenever his fighting spirit kicks in (see page picture above).

** This is most likely a visual [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]''.

** Hell, ''everybody'' in this show does this, all the time. It's rare to go more than a few minutes without a completely different animation style popping up.

* ''[[Minami-ke]]'' loves switching from its normal style to ''[[Bible Black]]''-esque art during close-ups on character's faces. It is... somewhat disturbing. Probably intentionally.

* Episode 7 of ''Zoku [[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei]]'' has the show art shift to [[Magical Girl]] style, complete with the show's remarkably realistic [[Hair Colors]] turning into a [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|rainbow of phenotypes]].

** Another segment in the same episode is completely dedicated to this trope, with the art constantly shifting to styles such as silhouette animation and [[Claymation]], finally climaxing with an actual video of a pair of hands flipping through a flipbook.

* In ''[[Doctor Slump]]'', Senbei Norimaki often changes from a fat, short, ugly man into a tall, handsome, muscular one... and then back in a matter of seconds. "He's like [[Ultraman]]... kinda."

* In ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'''s eleventh episode, Gamblers and Gallantry, Shino, the woman with whom Jin falls in love, is drawn in [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s style in the beginning and in the end, but not in the middle when she works in the brothel. Why? You guess...

* ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'''s strikingly detailed character designs and animation give way to animation that looks like cardboard cut-outs when a character is sent to a [[Lotus Eater Machine]].

** The art style shifts about in more subtle ways throughout the series, complementing the characters' delusions and breakdowns.

* Washizu Vision and Tsubasa Vision in ''[[Asu no Yoichi]]!''. The first one brings out the [[Bishie Sparkle]] and the [[Love Bubbles]] on Ibuki and turns Yoichi into an evil stick figure, while the second one depicts Washizu in a flowery shoujo manga style.

** The manga also uses an Art Shift to a style evocative of ancient Japanese artwork when describing the [[Town with a Dark Secret|history of Hinamizawa]].

* In ''[[Saikano]]'', the art frequently shifts to [[Super-Deformed]] when Chise and Shuji are talking with their friends, especially when Chise gets embarrassed or Shuji gets mad.

** Later, in episode 6, the backdrops for the scenes where Light is lying to Naomi Misora are almost photorealistic, in a clear divergence from the usual style.

* In ''[[To Aru Majutsu no Index]]'', when the [[Freaky Friday Flip]] situation is hitting its peak before Touma figures out what's going on, he sees [[Barack Obama|Kuroku]] giving an address of [[Gratuitous English|Yes! We! Can!]] and temporarily shifts into a crudely drawn cartoon figure.

* In ''[[Change 123]]'', in which the characters are generally drawn very realistically (at least from the neck downwards), various chibi versions of the main female character are used throughout the series to indicate certain visible moods of hers, but always with a sense of good measure, varying the degree of chibiness. Also, sometimes the artist uses a different line style (a soft pencil style or a charcoal style) to indicate various internal emotional states of characters.

* ''[[Ode to Kirihito]]'' by [[Osamu Tezuka]] uses an art shift to denote a character's descent into madness.

* Makoto of the ''[[Futari Ecchi]]'' manga whenever he feels "desperate" in having sex.

* Happens often in ''[[SEX]]'' whose art fluctuates between normal "manga" and realistic styles as a [[Rule of Cool]] effect.

* In ''[[Berserk]]'', elves, Puck especially, seem to exist in their own personal Art Shift dimension, appearing as chibi more often than not. [[Bratty Half-Pint]] Isidro gets his fair share of super-deformed moments as well.

* ''[[Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt|Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt]]'' loves this trope. In addition to the default [[Thick Line Animation]] style, it frequently shifts into [[Super-Deformed]] Flash-style animation during the comedic bits, detailed anime art during the fanservicey moments, and even a realistic style that's reminiscent of [[Satoshi Kon]]'s work. It also uses rotoscoping in a couple of (more) surreal scenes, live-action sequences with the blown-up models of the defeated Ghosts {{spoiler|and with the pair of feminine legs stomping on the [[Big Bad]] at the end}}, and intentionally half-assed Flash animation in the Sanitarybox shorts.

== Comics ==

** Similarly, Suzie Derkins's fantasies (seen on the rare occasions that Calvin plays with her) are illustrated in the style of a soap opera comic strip. One excerpt from Calvin's comic book collection is shown in a similar style.

* This ''[[Mad|Mad Magazine]]'' parody of the classic comic ''[[Bringing Up Father]]'', pictured [http://pics.livejournal.com/dr_hermes/pic/000e3gaw/s640x480 here] and [http://pics.livejournal.com/dr_hermes/pic/000e2ezx/s640x480 here] (courtesy of [http://therainer.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html here]).

* Also done in ''[[Archie Comics]]'' style is ''[[Hack Slash]]'' #6. This time, however, the purpose is to contrast ''Archie'''s clean, light atmosphere with ''[[Hack Slash]]'''s massively violent slasher action.

* Most of ''[[Transformers|Spotlight: Kup]]'' is drawn in a scratchy style to represent Kup's deteriorating mental state. The art shifts to a cleaner style when the point of view shifts to {{spoiler|Springer and his rescue mission}}, and both styles are used together when the two plots converge.

* If Fred Hembeck appears in your comic, it is a fact that he will appear as drawn by the man himself in that signature goofy style of his, no matter how much it might clash with the style of the rest of the characters.

* In the [[Alan Moore]] run of ''[[Supreme]]'', the story became involved with the history of comic books and comic tropes. When Supreme flashbacked to the 1950s, he entered into [[EC Comics]] artwork, first from their horror and SF comics and finally from [[Mad Magazine]]. In the lens of Mad, Supreme transforms into something very similar to their old parody, "[[Super Duper Man]]".

* The entire point of [[Osamu Tezuka]]'s short film ''Legends of the Forest'' (along with a [[Green Aesop]]). It shows the long, epic story of a forest's slow cannibalization by humans, showing the passage of time by shifting through the different styles of animation. It starts out by panning across realistic-looking woodcuts, moves into an early, B&W Disney style, and then turns to color, [[Termite Terrace]] influenced style, and then into a more lush, ''[[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]]'' style, and finally into something similiar to ''[[Fantasia]]''.

** MW uses art shifts, often as tribute to classical works. And then there's a chase scene, where a still cartoony looking [[Reused Character Design|Shunsaku Ban]] is being chased down by a grotesquely realistic attack dog.

* The song "I Just Can't Wait to be King" from ''[[The Lion King]]'' featured stylized character designs and backgrounds based on traditional African fabric patterns.

* The story in the middle of ''[[The Nutcracker Prince]]''.

* Used in ''[[The Heroes of Olympus]]'' series via book cover art to highlight and visually accentuate the cultural differences between the Greek and Roman demigods.

* [[David Macaulay]] won a Caldecott medal for his picture book ''Black And White,'' which tells four overlapping stories simultaneously, [[Everything's Better with Cows|mostly about cows]], using four markedly different styles of illustration.

** In Season 4, Jeff and Shirley engage in a game of table football which is shown in anime. There's no real explanation - it appears to be for no reason other than the fact that they couldn't think of a better way to make table football suitably dramatic.

*** More likely Harmon was playing on the fact that anime tends to contain a lot of [[Mundane Made Awesome]].

** "Walter: Bellie, why are you a cartoon?"

* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', Season 5 ep 19 "Vegas" has an alternate universe Shepard in a CSI-like cop show, complete with recurring camera-zoom-in to a close-up of the evidence he's talking about at the moment. The crime he's investigating turns out to have been committed by a Wraith who is on a covert mission on earth.

* ''[[Farscape]]''. When Harvey turns out to be [[Not Quite Dead]], Crichton sees him as [[Film/Nosferato|Nosferato]] in a scratchy black & white film.

* ''[[Hustle]]'' does this for certain exposition scenes. A description of a very old con trick is done via a B&W silent movie, and an explanation of fugu fish preperation is done via anime.

** The ''Zero'' and ''[[Mega Man ZX|ZX]]'' games in general have a different art style from the ''X'' series. Likely to accommodate the transition from TV screens to tiny handheld displays.

*** Both the ''Zero'' and ''ZX'' character designs were done by Toru Nakayama. The original and ''X'' series was still done by Keiji Inafune.

* In [[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years]], although most of the game's sprites have a FFVI-esque appearance, flashbacks will show them with the same dwarfish proportions they had in the original.

* The developers of ''[[Killer 7]]'' hired two different anime studios to create brief, fully animated cutscenes for some of the game's more bizarre levels, one level featuring what look like flash-based animations while another level is filled with more traditional cel animation, which serve as a welcome break from the game's usual in-engine cutscenes.

{{quote|"Also, [this NPC's] pants look funny."}}

* In ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'', Maria asks Alucard if he has seen Richter Belmont. Maria has a thought bubble depicting a [[Sot N]] style Richter sprite. Alucard responds with a remembering of when he fought alongside Trevor Belmont, who he remembers in the form of the NES Trevor Belmont sprite.

* ''[[Rayman Origins]]'' looks a lot different to the previous games. The game features 2D environments with enemies from the first game, but with a somewhat darker colour scheme much more similar to the 3D games. Other than this, the characters have much more exaggarated character models, possibly as an homage to wacky, ''[[Ren and Stimpy|Ren & Stimpy]]'' esque cartoons.

* ''[[Fate/hollow ataraxia]]'' occasionally switches to intentionally bad chibi figures for the main cast at different times such as Ilya's castle or certain bonus scenes.

* Due to being a [[Dolled-Up Installment|dolled-up version]] of an unrelated Famicom game, ''Super [[Spy Hunter]]'' has a completely different art style.

* ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' uses real-life photos with special effects mixed with in-game footage, sometimes together at once.

* [http://elftor.com/elftor.php?number=112 This Elftor strip].

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' switches to more detailed shading and exaggerated perspective when [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=402 Kat narrates a flashback] to her childhood, and when Annie [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=514 uses the Blinker Stone to see.] And it switches to stylized, Native American-inspired art whenever Coyote [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=490 tells] [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=276 stories].

** And then the epilogue for the series was done in handrawn art by the artist who worked on [[Brian Clevinger]]'s [[How I Killed Your Master|other webcomic]] [[In The Style]] of Akihiko Yoshida, the man who made the official artwork for the remake of ''[[Final Fantasy III]]'', [[Mythology Gag|the original being where most of the sprites used in the comic came from.]]

* ''[[Suicide for Hire]]'' uses a shift into poorly-drawn cartoons with scribbly shading [http://suicideforhire.comicgenesis.com/d/20090618.html here] in a flashback sequence; the character narrating the flashback is telling very flimsy lies, and the listeners know exactly how untrue his allegations are, hence the art being, in the artist's words, "as poorly composed as his story".

* In ''[[Digger]]'', the art switches to extremely simplified "cave painting" style when Ed tells a hyena legend about She-Is-Fiercer{{spoiler|, and later when he talks about his exile.}}

* In ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'', [http://yafgc.net/?id=674 comic #674] is a [[Homage]] to ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'', with the art changing to its characteristic stick-figure style.

* In ''[[Slightly Damned]]'', happens [http://www.sdamned.com/2004/11/11182004/ several] [http://www.sdamned.com/2004/11/11192004/ times] [http://www.sdamned.com/2006/03/03082006/ during] [[Dream Sequence|Dream Sequences]].

** Also, [[Flash Back|Flash Backs]], like when Kieri reads through {{spoiler|Darius's}} [[Fictional Document|diary]], are done in the same style. Another recent flashback is for {{spoiler|[http://www.sdamned.com/2010/08/08212010/ Kieri's past.]}}

** Less stylized artwork with more realistic proportions -- if anything the characters become [[Noodle People|more willowy]]. Referred to as "hero mode", used when the characters are intended to be taken more seriously, in combat and some moments of high emotion: for example, high passion or grief. Also possibly because it looks totally awesome.

** A shaded form of the above, featuring a great deal more detail [[The Noseless|(and noses, for the first time!)]]. Possibly this is purely an exercise in style. This is sometimes referred to as "Hussnasty mode".

* ''[[Nicktoons Tales]]'' does this occasionally, but the most notable shift is in the [[Halloween Episode|Nicktoons Tales of Terror]] segment, ''[http://nicktoonhero.deviantart.com/art/Nicktoons-Tales-10-part-2-139873582 When The Crickets Cry]''.

* The comic ''[http://doodlediaries.comicgen.com Doodle Diaries]'' is made by three different people, who draw eachother in very different styles.

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'', "[[Rashomon Plot|The Bare Facts]]": Scenes narrated by Buttercup are done in sketchy green, black, and white stills, scenes narrated by Bubbles are done in a kid-drawing style, while scenes narrated by Blossom are done in the normal animation style but tinted red.

** Also, in "Substitute Creature", the [[Imagine Spot|(imaginary) scenes]] of the monstrous-looking but [[Reluctant Monster|ultimately harmless]] substitute teacher wreaking havoc are done in a black-and-white comic book style - with the kids drawn as adults, for some odd reason.

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'': "Legends of the Dark Knight" featured scenes told by children about what the "real" Batman was like. One featured a 1950s-era story done in the style of Dick Sprang, and another showed a scene taken almost word-for-word from ''The Dark Knight Returns'', done in Frank Miller's art style.

** A more blatant art shift occurred when ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' was first being produced, the budget for ''BTAS'' was being reduced and the decision was made for both shows to be more streamlined (i.e. the were made to look more like Bruce Timm's work). While this presented a debatable drop in quality for ''Batman'', it lead to the formation of the [[DCAU]].

* Done brilliantly in ''[[Chowder]]''. In the episode "Shopping Spree", Truffles falls ill and Mung, Chowder, and Schnitzel take the money box and blow all the money on plastic surgery, cool dude sunglasses, and a robot. Later when a food delivery is made, Mung realizes that there's no more money, and frantically asks, "No more money? Do you know what that means?" Following that he says, "No more money...", the animation quits and cuts to live action, showing the voice actors in studio as Mung's voice actor continues, "...means no more animation!" Everyone continues, in character, and after a carwash fundraising montage, they go back to animated, because they got enough money to get the animation back.

* ''[[The Pink Panther]]'' used this trope twice; [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6LmC7Kc4ak here], in the episode ''Hamm-N-Eggz'' and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo34DNaQ19k here] in ''The Texas Toads''.

* In the animated adaptation of [[BattleTech]], some mech battles switch from traditional art, to CG when someone activated enhanced imaging.

** In the episode "A Friend In Deed," Pinkie Pie's internal thought process is depicted with felt cutouts.

** And in "MMMystery on the Friendship Express," Pinkie's [[Imagine Spot|Imagine Spots]] each have a different art style.