A website dedicated to the chief animators

[Attitudefan]

Alas, it is in French (not a problem for me, since I can read, speak, and write French). However, the French used on the site is minimal since it is focused on pictures, and the French used is really just fundamental French.

What's great about the site is that it focuses heavily on the different years of the animators and their styles. I was looking for Maeda era references and was about to ask for some character sheets or references here on the forum until I found this. It's really perfect if you want to style your art after a particular style during each era of Dragon Ball. Personally, Maeda is my favourite era of designs for DB, but you can find yours here, I'm sure!

Here's the site

Here's a comparison of Piccolo (just to show what this site has to offer):

Maeda 1988 vs Yamamuro 1993




DISCLAIMER: I do not know if these shots were drawn by the chief animators themselves or another keyframe artist, it does however, show how different the character designs were throughout each chief animators time on the series and Toriyama's influence on their style for the anime

Another:



I know Jacob will love this one, since he seems to loath Yamamuro hehe

[dbgtFO]

Awesome find
I gotta ask those DBZ movie posters.. are the ones on the right fanmade to show the difference in style or have they really been redone that way?

[Attitudefan]

I think those posters are fan made re-imaginings which are based off the Yamamuro models. I guess they were made to keep continuity with the art post 2000s... possibly. They could have been recommissioned art for FUNimation's box sets. I'm not totally sure. Surprisingly, the re-imagined ones are more accessible today than the official ones for some reason. And it seems that people tend to do DB art on Yamamuro's designs. Personally, I want to change that trend.

But there is so much to explore on the site! Have fun browsing, admiring, and studying DB art!

There's also some fairly high quality art from the calendars and other promotional material for those interested:

[kei17]

Awesome find
I gotta ask those DBZ movie posters.. are the ones on the right fanmade to show the difference in style or have they really been redone that way?

They're crappy official remakes. I really hate this artist's style.

[NitroEX]

I have to agree, those new remade covers are awful. Everyone looks so rigid compared to the old art style and the new colours are much more generic and suck out all the atmosphere and tone. IMO the worst offenders are film 7, 9, 10 and 13.

It baffles me how anyone in charge at Toei can look at those revamps and see an improvement. What a downgrade.

[TheRed259]

The new version of these posters were also used in the Greek Movies DVD Collection and I do find them really beautiful.

[Attitudefan]

As you can see, even from the Piccolo screen shots, is that it is Yamamuro who likes that extra highlight on the skin, making the characters look plastic. Without him, I'm sure we wouldn't get those rigid character models and plastic looking skin and hair. You can even see that on the calendars during his years as head animator from 1992 and 1993.

Shenlong looks particularly ugly with those uniform scales and poorly drawn spikes. The original Dead Zone poster is so much better in terms of colour theory and overall style.

[dbgtFO]

I gotta ask those DBZ movie posters.. are the ones on the right fanmade to show the difference in style or have they really been redone that way?

Spoiler:

They're crappy official remakes. I really hate this artist's style.

Spoiler:

Damn, that is baffling. Why would they want to redraw it, when the movie still retains the old artstyle?
That just seems weird.

[JulieYBM]

The Maeda screen captures don't really say much when he did actually draw the key animation for those shots. Of the three character designers Yamamuro Tadayoshi is the only one who actively animated his own character models.

[FortuneSSJ]

Interesting site.
Yamamuro lost his touch. Toriyama lost it too, when it comes to drawing skills.
Getting old is not easy.

[Blue Three]

Those covers don't look as bad at first, but when compared to the originals... hell, no. I'm just going to assume that the company behind those releases didn't have images of high enough resolution to look good when printed at DVD cover size.

[Attitudefan]

Those covers don't look as bad at first, but when compared to the originals... hell, no. I'm just going to assume that the company behind those releases didn't have images of high enough resolution to look good when printed at DVD cover size.

Hey welcome to the site! I'm kind of honored that your first post is on my thread

But yeah, those remakes are awful.