Post-Alola art style

[Cresselia92]

Why not a blend of the original and SM art style, though? Like, have some style that allows some animation fluidity while not sacrificing details and oversimplifying things.

 

[kantoskies]

It's tricky because the original art style evolved throughout OS-BW. A lot of this is due to different ADs, but there have been general trends over time. The "early Kanto" style that was close to the original model sheets faded out around midway through that saga:

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This might not be the best comparison, but if you watch earlier Kanto episodes everyone looks a bit more gruff/has smaller eyes. Both shots done by Izumi Shimura.

and characters were drawn with wider-spread eyes around the end of Johto:

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Both drawn by Masaaki Iwane.

I think characters started being drawn with pupils around late Johto/early AG.

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An example is Moe from EP267:

And of course Shu and Harley:

I'm guessing Haruka wasn't drawn with pupils, despite debuting after this change started, because they weren't used for everyone. Certain characters throughout AG were still drawn in the old style:

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By Diamond&Pearl they seemed to be the norm, but of course older characters weren't updated. And since it wasn't anything really new I would hesitate to say it had a different art style than Advanced Generation outside of the backgrounds used. Best Wishes didn't really update the overall style much, it just made everyone consistent. We just think it was a big overhaul because Satoshi, Musashi, Hanako, and the rest all looked so different. You'll notice Hikari wasn't updated like the rest, because she was already drawn in that style:

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Even some of the biggest changes like the cel to digital switch or the SD to HD upgrade happened mid-series. Best Wishes was the first series that really had a consistent art style from start to finish, and XY was really the first series to update the entire art style at the beginning, and even then it wasn't a huge jump. Characters were just drawn a bit taller and more attention to detail was used. Sun&Moon is really the first series to change everything drastically, so it's anyone's guess what will happen after.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that there wasn't a consistent art style from EP001-XY140, but you can't really split it up series-by-series like you can nowadays.

 

[Gabo2oo]

@kantoskies That's a great analysis, I never realized characters had the "modern" pupils so early on.

I still digress in that BW didn't introduce a new artstyle as much as it simply updated old characters, though. The bubbly backgrounds are different enough to give it a distinct style from previous series, and the head-to-body proportions were also twisted (which was thankfully short lived since XY took care of that again). The differences are clearly not as much as SM, but I think BW was when they begun to change the artstyle every series, even if the first two times weren't that noticeable.

If you say the XY series is the first one to update the artstyle, then the Hikari argument doesn't work very well since Dento looked pretty much the same both in BW and XY.

 

[Diamond & Pearl]

I must inform you that the reason I classified BW and XY(&Z) as 'original' is because there's no way that the art philosophy of OS - DP, which is reminiscent of BW and XY(&Z) to a certain extent (the only major differences are the color scheme, eye redesign, anatomy…), will ever come back (and that's the reason I didn't make an apart section for OS - DP, which I think is a shame, because I was really fond of that art style). So with the original art style you needn't take OS - DP (and even BW) into account. That's because if the original art style were to come back, it would probably be most similar to XY(&Z).

 

[KrspaceT]

I think the SM artstyle has potential, they just have to finetune with it a bit, and for the love of Shudo do more battles with it.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

I still digress in that BW didn't introduce a new artstyle as much as it simply updated old characters, though. The bubbly backgrounds are different enough to give it a distinct style from previous series

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Doesn' t look that different to me.

and the head-to-body proportions were also twisted (which was thankfully short lived since XY took care of that again).

Still, differences between BW and XY is bigger than the differences between DP and BW.

 

[EscLucy]

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Doesn' t look that different to me.

Still, differences between BW and XY is bigger than the differences between DP and BW.

I would disagree. I think that the transition from DP to BW made everything become sharper and it was well animated. DP was still quite blurry and not detailed enough. I think that they just went even further with the detail in XY which made its art style really good. I think the turning point was DP to BW as XY, in my opinion, was just an enhanced version.

 

[marshiyanmisuta]

I would disagree. I think that the transition from DP to BW made everything become sharper and it was well animated. DP was still quite blurry and not detailed enough.

I disagree. For example, trees from the DP picture I posted looks more realistic and detailed than the BW one. BW is just more shinier. Compare it to these trees from the AG:

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[Gabo2oo]

Still, differences between BW and XY is bigger than the differences between DP and BW.

Hmm... I guess that's where one's perception makes the difference. To determine BW's style as different from DP, I focus on the shape of the pupils and the light marks on the hair for most characters. What XY did was tweaking the proportions from the BW style, albeit more noticeably than BW tweaked them from DP. It wasn't only the head-to-body ratio either, for example, Ash's eyes and cheek marks take up less space on his face than before.

As for the backgrounds, I do think BW is as different from DP as it is from XY. Here are some pics of Delia's house from each series (two for OS, cel and digital), for comparison's sake:

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BW stands out to me here; looks they're trying something slightly different, rather than just expanding on what they had before. XY looks more similar to DP, with the "realistic" look on the trees and clouds and whatnot; still, that's once again a noticeable jump from the previous series.

I can see AG making a difference as well, but the characters themselves didn't look too different from late Johto, hence why I personally don't perceive the overall style as changing as much as it did in BW.

 

[Ricbolog]

By Diamond&Pearl they seemed to be the norm, but of course older characters weren't updated. And since it wasn't anything really new I would hesitate to say it had a different art style than Advanced Generation outside of the backgrounds used. Best Wishes didn't really update the overall style much, it just made everyone consistent.

Interestingly, Karena, a character from early Best Wishes, still used the old eye style. Has it been dropped completely as of today?

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[Rainbow-Rain]

Journeys art style is really weird to me.

It's like a complete blend of the SM, OG-XY, and Ken Sugimori's art

 

[Enzo]

I disagree. Actually there is very little difference between DP and BW's art-styles other than the coloured irises they gave to Satoshi, it's only shinier and better animated. Differences between BW and XY is much more noticeable, everyone is looking taller and much more anatomically correct.

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(I know this is a over 3 years old post before anyone tries lol)

I have never noticied how much the anime stepped up it's shading game from DP to BW before...

 

[Gabo2oo]

I have never noticied how much the anime stepped up it's shading game from DP to BW before...

To be fair, Trip's shot there is going for a "Rembrandt lighting" style, which isn't used as a general rule but rather depending 100% on each scene. So it's not really fair to compare it to Paul's shot from the other image.

 

[Enzo]

To be fair, Trip's shot there is going for a "Rembrandt lighting" style, which isn't used as a general rule but rather depending 100% on each scene. So it's not really fair to compare it to Paul's shot from the other image.

Oh, that makes sense.

But still: they seem to be using shadows to make more defined shapes after DP. It's not as obvious as that shot, obviously, but you can notice it if you pay attention enough.