Producing animation is a large, laborious and complex process and it’s not uncommon to see signs that animation is being rushed and taking shortcuts. One of the more infamous and well-known signs of this is off-model animation. Typically viewed negatively, there are times where animators intentionally use off-model animation in a positive way. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at off-model animation, some of the surprising benefits of it and some examples.
I should first start off by explaining, for those of you unfamiliar with the concept, what off-model animation is. When developing animation, it’s common to use model sheets to maintain a consistent look and art style between all of the people working on the project. However, due to time constraints, outsourcing, lack of budget etc., it’s very possible that some animation is going to slip through which looks inconsistent with the rest of the art.
As you might imagine, this aspect of animation is generally undesired. However, that is not to say that there aren’t some surprising benefits to off-model animation. As noted by legendary animator John Kricfalusi, best known for creating The Ren & Stimpy Show, off-model animation can allow characters to be more expressive and emphasise the animation more.
With regards to anime, a particularly infamous example of off-model animation occurs during the Naruto vs. Pain fight in Naruto Shippuden. At a certain point, Pain punches the ground and taking a still frame from within the animation will show that Pain is very much off-model. People pointed to this picture and called it “bad animation”. However, viewing the actual animation itself shows how this distortion illustrates how much force he is driving into his attack.
I’ve also listened to numerous commentaries and, if you listen to commentaries that feature animators, they’ll point out specific sections to pause on to see characters off-model as well as explain why they did so. The most memorable example of this was when I was listening to a commentary on Futurama and they told the viewer to pause at a specific moment. At that moment, Fry’s face is turning but, rather than turn his head all at once, one half of his face turns before the other. Thus, when you freeze frame that specific moment, his head is distorted with one half of his face looking behind him while the other half is still looking forward. It’s animated so quickly however that most people wouldn’t even notice. The people on the commentary track explained that by animating like this, it gives the character’s movements more fluidity and makes them seem less rigid.
There are plenty of times when an animated character looking off-model is highly negative but there are also times where off-model animation lends a greater fluidity, drives home their emotions and adds to the overall animation. Let me know your thoughts on the surprising benefits of off-model animation, what examples of off-model animation, good or bad, you’ve come across in the past, benefits or downsides that I didn’t mention in this article and any additional information you might have on the topic.
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