New Animation VS Old Animation

[nicolas_3d]

The old animations looked good in some of the main episodes, but many the other episodes looked real bad. Here are a few examples... You guys who complain on the new animation style seem to overlook all the badly drawn episodes we had in the 90's... All these images have major proportions problems. And I would say that most episodes back in the day looked like these... That being said, the new animations are far from perfect, I don't like how they put pointy elf like ears on the characters...

Did you list this one as an example of poor animation? This is actually an example of beautiful, good animation if you asked me. The others were examples of the awful animation from Z but this one certainly isn't.

To me that doesn't look like Toriyama's Goku at all. It looks like it comes from another anime...

[Metalwario64]

That's because of the artists' style. That doesn't make it bad animation. On the contrary, Studio Cockpit put out some of the most fluid, dynamic animation in the second half of Z.

[ThatGuyNamedChancey]

No, it's definitely is Toriyama's Goku. Well, he didn't draw it. But that drawing is based off Toriyama's art style at the time. Honestly, that image you posted looks a lot better than some of Toriyama's drawings during the Boo arc.

Also, that does look Goku, does it not? He has the golden spiky hair and orange gi, he's kind of but also absolutely 100 percent Goku from Dragon Ball Z.

[Lord Beerus]

That's because of the artists' style. That doesn't make it bad animation. On the contrary, Studio Cockpit put out some of the most fluid, dynamic animation in the second half of Z.

Man, I really hope Studio Cockpit return some day to do some animation for Super.

[Doctor.]

I despise their style but the animation itself is great. I don't think they'll return though.

[dbgtFO]

I despise their style but the animation itself is great. I don't think they'll return though.

Sometimes their style can look goofy, what with them drawing the mouth area in such an exaggerated way, but I like it.

[JulieYBM]

That's because of the artists' style. That doesn't make it bad animation. On the contrary, Studio Cockpit put out some of the most fluid, dynamic animation in the second half of Z.

Man, I really hope Studio Cockpit return some day to do some animation for Super.

Masunaga Keisuke seems to be mostly retired. Umakoshi Yoshihiko is a much in demand animator, but he does now have ties with Toei Animation thanks to being character designer for a PreCure series and Saint Seiya Omega Episodes #1-51. Iwane Masa'aki has been an animator for Pocket Monster since it began in 1997. He eventually moved from Studio Cockpit to being an in-house animator for OLM, near as I can tell. Iwane is the franchise's big action animator, working under his fellow Studio Cockpit alumni (Natsume Kunihiko, Tamagawa Akihiro most prominently) or doing the entirety of the key animation for an episode (directed by Asada Yuuji, another member of Studio Cockpit). Iwane did ten entire episodes in 2014 himself, plus cuts for other episodes. Studio Cockpit itself does a ton of in-between animation for Pocket Monster now, too.

The majority of the animators from Studio Cockpit that worked on Dragon Ball Z aren't available anymore, for the most part.

[rereboy]

I despise their style but the animation itself is great.

I agree. Animation isn't everything.

[Lord Beerus]

The majority of the animators from Studio Cockpit that worked on Dragon Ball Z aren't available anymore, for the most part.

Aw, man. That's a damn shame.

[Avery]

The Boo arc had a lot of weird looking chins, including this famous shot:


Sorry for the crap quality.

[Doctor.]

Those kind of shots are in the manga too, it's how Toriyama draws chins when the angle comes from below.

[Caulifor]

I'm not sure I dislike the new animation itself, though I'm kind of bothered by the new art style. A lot of people already mentioned the "digital" look it has nowadays in comparison to the DB-DBZ era, so I'm going to focus on something else that I find slighly off. The shading changed a bit in a way that I'm not very fond of. Both the skin and hair of every character now have more layers of shading, which is completely unnecessary to me and even makes the transition between Z/Kai to Super a lot more jarring than it should be. It's certainly a small detail, but it's enough for me to feel like something's off.

I did a quick edit of one screencap from Super to make the shading more similar to the DBZ era. And I really prefer it this way:

Spoiler:

Original:


Edited:

[Alex9196]

Agreed, your edit looks way better i have to admit.

[shinmaru]

I think the Photoshop colors are the problem.

[Attitudefan]

Those kind of shots are in the manga too, it's how Toriyama draws chins when the angle comes from below.

Toriyama did not draw chins from that angle like that before the cell arc. He actually drew the bottom of the jaw correctly from that perspective.

[Metalwario64]

I did a quick edit of one screencap from Super to make the shading more similar to the DBZ era. And I really prefer it this way:

There's way more wrong with that Super shot than just the shading:

Original:


Corrected:


First off, the ears were waaaay too high up on the head, so I lowered them to a more anatomically (and even proper to the art style) correct position. The nose was also way too big, and the left side isn't naturally shaped at all. It looks like a chunk of his nose is missing with that random flat edge. I redrew the nose to match the late Z style. His left eye was also oddly misshapen towards the inside, so I corrected that as well. I believe they incorrectly colored it as a highlight when it was supposed to be shading. Also, his eyes have the tops of the ridges furrowed, but he doesn't have the wrinkles in between his eyebrows. It makes him look unnaturally stained.

In Z, even very late on, when he had that classic determined look, he didn't have those furrowed brows:


Therefore I omitted them entirely. I also tweaked the wrinkles around his mouth, because they were a little overdone and overly prominent. I got rid of the one on the side of his mouth that wasn't smirking, since it doesn't make sense for it to be there. Just look at yourself in a mirror and smirk, you'll see that the side that is pulling away will have the prominent wrinkle. Z's style followed this logic as well.

Lastly, I did the usual shading adjustments. The shine around his face is simply incorrect, since it just carelessly covers the entire edge of his face, disregarding the concept of depth in shading. Z also followed this rule when there were highlights, as that above image shows, so I corrected that. I also omitted the lightest highlight of the hair, since that wasn't in Z, and though it's personal preference, I think it looks too plastic-like with it.

Here's a GIF to better showcase my changes:

[Caulifor]

@Metalwario64: Wow, amazing corrections! It's astonishing how Goku became much more recognizable (and charismatic too) with your adjustments. Goes to show how those details are clearly important. Your shading is much better too, since it's not as bright as in the original. Even the hair, which I much prefer to be 100% black, was completely fine with your shading. Good job!

May I ask you where is that Z Goku image from? The "shiny shading" (I'm sorry, I really don't know the proper term to that) is present, but I do know that in most of the episodes this is not the case. The character's skins were usually just two colors (natural skin and shadows).

[Metalwario64]

It's from episode 280:

Vegeta Takes Off His Hat!!
Goku, You are No. 1

[MrWalnut4]

I did a quick edit of one screencap from Super to make the shading more similar to the DBZ era. And I really prefer it this way:

There's way more wrong with that Super shot than just the shading:

Original:

Spoiler:

Corrected:

Spoiler:

First off, the ears were waaaay too high up on the head, so I lowered them to a more anatomically (and even proper to the art style) correct position. The nose was also way too big, and the left side isn't naturally shaped at all. It looks like a chunk of his nose is missing with that random flat edge. I redrew the nose to match the late Z style. His left eye was also oddly misshapen towards the inside, so I corrected that as well. I believe they incorrectly colored it as a highlight when it was supposed to be shading. Also, his eyes have the tops of the ridges furrowed, but he doesn't have the wrinkles in between his eyebrows. It makes him look unnaturally stained.

In Z, even very late on, when he had that classic determined look, he didn't have those furrowed brows:

Spoiler:

Therefore I omitted them entirely. I also tweaked the wrinkles around his mouth, because they were a little overdone and overly prominent. I got rid of the one on the side of his mouth that wasn't smirking, since it doesn't make sense for it to be there. Just look at yourself in a mirror and smirk, you'll see that the side that is pulling away will have the prominent wrinkle. Z's style followed this logic as well.

Lastly, I did the usual shading adjustments. The shine around his face is simply incorrect, since it just carelessly covers the entire edge of his face, disregarding the concept of depth in shading. Z also followed this rule when there were highlights, as that above image shows, so I corrected that. I also omitted the lightest highlight of the hair, since that wasn't in Z, and though it's personal preference, I think it looks too plastic-like with it.

Here's a GIF to better showcase my changes:

Dang it! Beat me to it I had pretty much the same issues with that image as you did, although I thought his forehead wrinkles give an extra sense of emotion than without, so I left them in. Also, Goku never had a spray on tan, so I removed that as well

[Metalwario64]

Heh, that's really good too. It looks like your method of lowering the ears was less headache inducing than mine. Goes to show that I don't always think things through all the way.