Off-Model: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"I wish the art was good throughout the whole series, not just in the final episode."''

''"These days, anime has [[Animation Bump|good art]] in the first and last episodes, never in the middle."''

 

Animation is expensive. ''Really'' expensive. An average 22-minute episode of an anime costs around $123,000, when American shows tend to be about $300,000.<ref>It should be noted that most of this is not spent on the actual animation (depending on the show, some shows will have a separate budget just for the animation, like with Disney's and [[Warner Bros]]' works in the 80's and 90's), however. Considering it's done overseas (mostly for western shows), for the most part.</ref>

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqpJqq9U_ZA Every single one of the Pakistan Happy Meal ads]. All of the [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]] characters are missing defining traits and ending up looking butt-ugly, [[Crash Bandicoot|Neo Cortex]] looking like a creepy terrorist (and missing the N on his forehead), [[Hello Kitty]] looking fat and '''having a mouth''', and so on.

** And then notice how the [[McDonald's]] mascots keep changing their looks throughout each commercial.

* This commercial for [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdwB6LikUes a Korean Nintendo ad]. Not only does it manage to make this the video game commercial equivalent of [[Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue]], the animation studio ([[Dai Won]]) manages to screw up [[Street Fighter|Ryu, Chun-Li]], [[Super Mario Brothers|Bowser]], [[Dragon Ball|Krillin, Goku]], [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Raphael]]... Pretty much everyone except Mario and Buster.

* As if the show, comics and toys were not enough, the commercials of Transformers G1 also end up falling into this trope. Two in particular stand out; [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-7RjhFzpM the very first one], using entirely different models for The Ark, Megatron and the Seekers. And [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEEncGeu8s this one], which truly showcases how much of an [[Expy]] [[Super Dimension Fortress Macross|Jetfire]] was. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGj8B5xNEno&#t=0m29s This Chile commercial] also contains a grutatious amount of this trope, though this is because neither Toei or AKOM provided the animation.

** An Italian ad gave Yellow a set of teeth.

 

* A lot of well-animated anime (or individual high-budget episodes of otherwise cheap shows) tends to feature looser artwork than usual, as a way to show off the style of each individual animator and give the scene more of a "soul", so to speak. These inconsistencies as a result of animation directors treating individual animators as artists as opposed to mere cogs in a machine is often seen as "low quality" or a "lack of budget" by anime fans, who tend to value detail-per-frame and consistency above all else. A lot of "notoriously bad" episodes are actually the impressive work of an above-average good staff.

* ''[[Spirited Away]]'' features this intentionally, as the proportions of Yubaba's head continually change depending on the mood of the scene. Miyazaki has said being able to go intentionally off-model is one of the things that appeals to him about traditional animation over CGI.

** Mugen's sword would change in length, width, and curvature, sometimes it'd almost be a [[BFS]], other times it'd look like a scimitar.

** ''[[Ergo Proxy]]'', also a Studio [[Manglobe]] project, suffers from this same problem.

** Incidentally, the entire second half of episode 9 was animated in a different art style from the rest of the show (Compare Shinobu's eyes, chin, and hair from the first half). Incidentally, the artwork was actually somewhat ''better''. It might have been done to simply see if anyone noticed.

* ''[[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water|Nadia]]'''s infamous "Island/Africa" arc resulted from a decision to extend the show. Like most filler, it fell victim to a slipping animation budget and rather bizarre "cartoony" visuals in [[Mushroom Samba|certain episodes.]]

** Sadly, after the success of the Ala Alba OVAs, the animation (and quality in general) went severely downhill in the second ''Mo Hitotsu No Sekai'' OVA. The third one was definitely better.

** For examples see [https://web.archive.org/web/20140913010232/http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/archives/negima-sakuga-tracker-asuna-version/] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20140928060323/http://bluemist.animeblogger.net/archives/negima-sakuga-tracker-yue-version/], as well as the infamous six-fingered Makie pictured above.

* The DVD sales for the second season of [[Minami-ke]] got cut in half by the power of QUALITY among other things.

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' had extremely varied animation quality. During the Saiyan Saga and most of the Frieza Saga, animation was high quality up until around the point Goku goes Super Saiyan. After that the animation style and quality begins to vary significantly and is most noticeable during closeups of Trunks upon his first arrival and throughout most of the Cell Saga. The quality of animation continued to vary throughout the the rest of the series (going from pretty bad to very good) but was less varied in the Buu Saga and ''[[Dragon Ball GT]]''.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieQDLa8pxMg The opening for Dragon Ball Kai somehow manages to forget the spots that appear on Krilin's forehead 22-27 seconds in] Also, since this is the third opening, the same mistake happens again towards the end. Some [[Sarcasm Mode|animation upgrade huh Toei?]]

* The first ''[[Hellsing (anime)|Hellsing]]'' TV series was notorious for this. Despite only being 13 episodes long, any episode that wasn't an excuse for awesome vampire battles was done pretty shoddily.

* The Greed Island Final [[OVA]] of ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'' is noticeably Off Model, with lots of still frames and scaling of static "sprites" replacing actual animation.

* ''[[Moetan]]'' lampshades this in its first episode's ending segment, when Pastel Ink teaches the viewer how to say "[[Surprisingly Good English|It's great that the animation staff go all out with the quality of an anime's first episode.]]"

* ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' suffered terribly from Off-Model animation.<ref>This is the result of having a series co-produced by [[TMS]] and [[Studio DEEN]]</ref> Not only do the characters' faces and hair length change from show to show, a character's sunglasses are at one point drawn off-model and subtly shift back to a more accurate design as the scene progresses. Characters wearing single earrings frequently have them switching from one ear to the other - or even to ''both''. The show seems to take a demented delight in going off-model to the extent it becomes distracting, and not only does the art quality vary wildly from episode to episode, it randomly degenerates ''in the middle of episodes'' as well.

* ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' is generally a very good-looking show, but the animation takes a hit in a few episodes, such as the final confrontation with Caster. And no discussion of "off-model" in the context of anime is complete without [https://web.archive.org/web/20071008195340/http://www.avg-hotgame.net/blogview.asp?logID=185&page=1 this ghastly Chinese figure of Saber], which fans have nicknamed "Sader". Much fun has been had with the idea of Saber encountering this thing. In fact, there's a whole [https://web.archive.org/web/20120224131849/http://www.freewebs.com/aortic/fatekaranokyokai.htm doujin] about it ("Variant Tabi J").

* More than a few scenes in the [[Black★Rock Shooter (band)|Black★Rock Shooter]] OVA suffer from missing details, misshapen faces and stubby limbs being common symptoms.

* In ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', the ending theme had a problem with Minto's height. This is fixed starting episode 12.

** The animators also have a continuous problem of forgetting that Ichigo's garter is on her right leg and everyone else's garters are on their left.

* ''[[Welcome to The NHK]]'' suffers from this in places.

* The entire thirteenth episode of ''[[The Third: The Girl with the Blue Eye]]'' is incredibly poorly animated compared to the fairly high quality of every other episode.

* The ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni|Higurashi]]'' anime often suffers from off-model. For one, the characters' heads always seem too large in comparison to their bodies. The second season fixes a lot of the mistakes of the first season, but towards the end of the season you can clearly see mistakes (though, in the final episode there aren't many). The third season is on-model, but it ''is'' just five [[OVA]]s. However, there are some errors in the OVA's. The most noticeable is that Mion is missing her tattoo in the first one.

** Some episodes, like 26 of the original series, featured intentionally ugly, psychotic facial drawings and animation courtesy of popular animator Seiya Numata which, like most popular examples of "bad animation" in anime, were mistaken for animation errors due to their loose nature despite the fact that [[Fan Dumb|they were completely fitting within the context in which they were used]] (literally characters going insane).

** The Umineko manga also has some really strange artwork in places.

* ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' had some QUALITY issues starting with episode 10, where some characters' faces would be drawn out of alignment (particularly noticeable during Shizuru's battle against Midori, and especially bad in one scene during episode 16, where one minor character's facial features are almost non-existent). Episode 20 (the one with the {{spoiler|Tomoe/Shizuru bedroom kiss}}) was a mess across the board, though some of the issues were fixed for the DVD releases.

* Like most [[Toei Animation]] long-running series, ''[[Digimon]]'' has a bit of a problem with this trope. The extent varies drastically depending on the series in question; ''[[Digimon Savers]]'' is the most notorious for it, with wildly different art styles, the Digimon regularly but not consistently depicted with thicker outlines, and with the girls literally spontaneously [[Gag Boobs|going up a few cup sizes]] in some of the worst-animated episodes. Also, ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' has the misfortune of having been whacked with the Off-Model hammer for its final episode, resulting in Dukemon in particular having some pretty ridiculous proportions at times in what otherwise is a fantastic climax.

** And in ''[[Digimon Xros Wars]]'', by the time of the Death Generals arc, they start combining this with [[Art Shift]]. It's so bad it hurts to watch.

* ''[[Persona 4]]: The Animation'' is of generally good quality, except where background characters not meant to be viewed closely are concerned. In one case, Yosuke's entire face is drawn very badly; in another Chie is in the background making a face that looks to be taken directly from Hiimdaisy's famous parody comic.

** Near the end of episode 13 during the summer vacation watermelon eating scene, look at Chie. She's sitting outside on the deck with Nanako and the Protagonist... [http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxcjyaNvrz1qlo9bgo1_500.png and she's sitting inside next to Rise.]

* In the ''[[Berserk]]'' anime during the infamous scene in the Eclipse where Femto appears before Guts and {{spoiler|rapes Casca}} you see Guts pupils briefly being out of sync with one another.

** Also, when a bunch of demons approach Casca after {{spoiler|Judeau dies}} we see her pupils also go out of sync.

 

* Artists Randy Elliott and Stuart Sayger received much criticism for their work on [[LEGO]]'s ''[[Bionicle]]'' comics. Randy notoriously drew humongous shoulders on many of his characters, sometimes gave them very small and thin heads, and in the case of two of the Toa Metru gave them obscuring visors instead of bothering to draw their eyes (which weren't even the right colours). Sayger, on the other hand, practiced a unique, sketchy style which—while probably very serviceable in any other work—simply did not work well with the types of intricate character designs present in ''BIONICLE''. He proportioned the characters in so many different ways that a whole Off-Model gallery could be filled with them. And in one instance, he literally used the wrong model for a certain character—instead of Mata Nui's correct, originally planet-sized, bulky and blocky robot body, he drew the mortal form that he took on one hundred thousand years later, which (apart from also being a humanoid) looked absolutely nothing like his former body.

** There's also a panel in the last 2008 comic (drawn by a different artist, Leigh Gallagher, whose work is far more well-regarded) in which Turaga Dume is drawn based on his design from the second movie, whereas everyone else is modeled after their toys. This would have been acceptable (because it was really well-drawn) if Elliott hadn't drawn Dume based on his toy back in 2004 (incidentally, that too was also off-model in that it wasn't even the right colour).

* At one point in Volume 9 of ''[[The Walking Dead]]'', Rick's hand somehow magically grows back.

* Poor, poor Bart Allen. After he became [[The Flash|Kid Flash]], a lot of people started coloring his hair red, like he was Wally, despite one of his main physical traits being that huge poofy brown practically-a-non-curly-afro on his head.

* [http://amomentofarchiesonic.tumblr.com/ A Moment of Archie Sonic] is a [[Tumblr]] site devoted to showcasing Off Model shots in [[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Archie's Sonic]].

** For a time, ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' took [[Depending on the Artist]] to such extremes that there's a rumor going around that until recently the comic's quality control was turned off to speed up production - though with panels like [https://web.archive.org/web/20140727130033/http://amomentofarchiesonic.tumblr.com/post/15880298049/i-really-really-cant-decide-if-i-like-his-broken this] going from pencils to printing apparently without comment, it's hard to tell whether it's true or not.

 

== Film -- Animated ==

* Just about every single Disney deleted scene ever made (with the sole exception being the [[Horny Vikings|"Viking prologue"]] from ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire]]'', for obvious reasons) will all inevitably suffer from this.

** Speaking of ''Atlantis'', pay very close attention to Kida's bracelet. When she loses it at the very beginning of the film as a result of her mother the Queen pulling it off her wrist so that the Crystal can sacrifice her, the beads are arranged as pink, blue, pink. When she finally retrieves it at the end of the film shortly after saving Atlantis from a lava flow and transforming back from her crystalline form, the beads on her bracelet are now arranged as blue, pink, blue (similar to the feathers attached to the backs of the tiaras worn by the queens). Also, during the finale the patterns on [[The High Queen|Kida's]] dress actually shift just right after the stone face representing her late father flies away in the sky, and the sash hanging down from the front of her dress mysteriously vanishes shortly afterward.

* ''[[The Secret of NIMH]] 2: Timmy to the Rescue'' features a scene where Timmy hugs his mother in a way that would only work if Mrs. Brisby's neck had the ability to be stretched back while her head and body stayed in the same place.

* ''[[An American Tail]]'', of all places, does this briefly during the scene where Fievel finds himself in a bottle. Right after Fievel sees a partially finished Statue of Liberty and before washing up on shore, he doesn't look much like himself and his fingers are bigger.

* [[Mulan]] starts off being drawn with long eyelashes and thin eyebrows, but when she cuts her hair to complete her disguise as a male soldier so that she can join the war against the invading Huns, her eyelashes disappear and her eyebrows grow bigger. When Mulan changes back into more feminine-looking clothes for the final battle against [[Big Bad|Shan Yu]] in the Imperial Palace, her eyelashes grow back, but her eyebrows still remain huge and bushy.

 

 

== Film -- Live-Action ==

* ''[[Jurassic Park]]'''s lead T-Rex has a slightly squarer jaw between the CG model and animatronic.

* In the first scene of the rock scorpion battle in the 2010 ''[[Clash of the Titans]]'' remake. Said rock scorpion's missing part of its tail.

 

== Literature ==

* The entire body of Toa Vakama on the [http://images.wikia.com/bionicle/images/f/f0/Adventures-4.jpg cover image] of the ''[[Bionicle]]'' movie adaptation novel, ''Legends of Metru Nui'', is seriously disfigured, and the head is especially misshapen. Surprisingly, the two characters in the background are both perfectly on-model. As a comparison, [http://images.wikia.com/bionicle/images/5/50/BIONICLE_2_Lengends_of_Metru_Nui_cover.jpg here's] how he is meant to look, as seen on the movie's poster.

 

* In-Universe Example: During the "Into the Comics" serial of ''[[Ghostwriter (TV series)|Ghostwriter]]'', the gang is able to identify that the comic they are to analyze for contest clues is, in fact, a fake by noticing differences in the art-style from the previous installments.

* An odd example not involving artwork or animation: in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' serial ''The Power of the Daleks'', the Dalek army is represented by [[Off-the-Shelf FX|Louis Marx toy Daleks]]. The problem was that Marx's Daleks [http://doctorwhotoys.net/marx_mysterious_dalek%20copy.jpg were a subtly wrong shape], which became more obvious when intercut with the three ''real'' Daleks.

* In season three of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'', Titanus was reintroduced. Though as there was no footage of the character in the series footage was being taken from (''[[Ninja Sentai Kakuranger]]''), Saban used [[Off-the-Shelf FX|the toys of him, the Ninjazords and Shogunzords]] whenever featured. [[Special Effects Failure|Unfortunately, they never took into consideration that the Shogunzord used by the White Ranger in the original was repainted pink for America.]]<ref>It's explained in more detail on the [[Special Effects Failure]] page.</ref>

 

== New Media ==

** Unfortunately, some of that stuff still happened canonically. Vladimir seems to have been [[Killed Off for Real]]. Moira and Louie have been having some sort of light-switch relationship since then. So as long as we have plot coming out of that damn thing, there are going to be people who have to watch it for that material... unless, of course, Gaia has it remade as a manga in their usual art styles (hint, ''hint'', Gaia staff).

* ''[[Mad]]'' used to let several different artists draw the front cover, which almost always has mascot Alfred E. Neuman on it. Once, they let movie poster artist Drew Struzan do a cover, which turned out [http://madcoversite.com/mad379id.jpg nightmare-fuelingly] off-model. [[Sergio Aragones]]' two covers didn't fare much better.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* In a couple of ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'' strips, Rat's nose was much longer than usual.

** Pearls Before Swine also [http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/04/22 parodied this once], in which the colorist deliberately colored the last panel wrong to be an ass to Stephen Pastis.

 

== Toys ==

* ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' may have had a reputation of being this trope in both comics and cartoon, but it should also go with saying that the figures themselves are not immune due to their heritage of being from different lines:

** Ironhide and Ratchet for instance, have proper heads in all non-toy related material, but their original action figures don't. This is because the original figures were made in Japan for a different purpose- ''before'' the concept of Transformers came into play. Those figures were meant to be "armor" used by human pilots, but the idea was shelved when the toys were re-worked into transforming robots. In fact, there are even Bot-con and fan surrogate modifications that can be applied to these toys to give them actual heads.

* Even though this was intentional, the characters in the first three ''Bionicle'' movies (touched upon above) look nothing like their original releases.

* Usually invoked with [[Everything's Better with Plushies|Plush toys]] due to their chibiness. Often shown with a lack of a nose or simplified eyes. Still played straight sometimes though.

 

== Video Games ==

* Burgerpants from ''[[Undertale]]'' is deliberately drawn off model for each one of his facial expressions

 

* Parodied in ''[[Buttlord GT]]'':

{{quote|'''Snowflake:''' ''You fool!'' Do you realize what you have ''done??''

* A number of the ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'' Sunday strips appear to be colored completely differently from the dailies. In addition to the colors appeared noticeably flatter, many of the characters where the wrong colored outfits or in the case of Kell and Rudy, go from brownish-grey fur to bright beige. This has persisted to some of the book covers as well (such as Honeymoon 2.0).

* ''[[Misfile]]'' has a few instances, while most of these are in the earlier parts of the series. Some still tend to pop up, like these [http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=1774 two] [http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=1775 pages].<ref>For those wondering, look at Logan's hand.</ref>

 

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Neko Sugar Girls]]'' is basically a [[Stealth Parody]] of this trope. ''Everyone'' is off-model, and it's done to an extent (combined with [[Gratuitous Japanese]], hideously annoying voice acting, and nonexistent plot) that the whole video series is obviously a parody.

* If it's not traced, then the animation in [[Elemental Goddess]] is this.

* In ''[[Pre Game Lobby]]'', a question about why the characters armor keep changing between scenes, with armor changing when the local Troll keeps asking when he's ever changed his armor. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etzQ-HR_uVg&feature=PlayList&p=612EC0EB6808E6AD&index=11 Can be seen Here.]

* The entire point of [http://dumbrunningsonic.tumblr.com/ Dumb Running Sonic], [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|in which internet artists animate]] [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|doing an incredibly stupid walk cycle.]] [[Tropes Are Not Bad|The end results]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|must be seen to be believed.]]

* Quasi-intentional in a few episodes of ''[[Extra Credits]]'': occasionally Allison Theus (the main artist) is unavailable that week, and they get another artist to draw it, who will usually have an entirely different style.

 

== Western Animation ==

** In [[Non Sequitur Episode|The Mechanic,]] near the end, Batman's mouth suddenly wrenches open and his eyes dilate, going in opposite directions. This lasts a good second or two.

* The ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series was prone to this, especially the "[[And Knowing Is Half the Battle|Sonic Sez]]" segments at the end of each episode.

** The worst episodes, animation-wise, would have to be the first one ("SSSSS Squad") and the second-last one ("Robo-Ninjas"). Their animation was quite grotesque.

** A glaring instance from the episode "Over-the-Hill Hero"; [http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj141/1downpoison/w-1.png Sonic's mouth area disappears entirely for one frame].

** Also, the show itself switched to Flash, leading to a large-scale shift in animation.

* A frequent problem with shows produced by [[Filmation]] in the 1970s. A specific example: many of the musical scenes from ''[[The Brady Kids]]'', on account of the heavy use of [[wikipedia:Rotoscoping|rotoscoping]] to save time and money on animation. Note especially the clip to "I Believe in You," where close-ups of Jan's face make it appear as though [[Nightmare Fuel|her right eye has caved in!]] Their microscopic budgets should have come as a warning.

** It even happened in their later works, as several of them were sent to many different studios (Tom and Jerry Kids, for example, was farmed to [[Wang Film Productions]], Fil-Cartoons, and Mr. Big Cartoons).

* The short-lived ''[[Gravedale High]]'' sometimes looked this way. In "Frankenjockey", Hoover, the horse that escaped in the episode, switches between white (his actual color) and brown. In "Fear of Flying", Max Schneider is wearing a lab coat, but in the first act, the animation switches between the lab coat and his usual beige jacket.