What makes cartoons appealing

Quick recognition is important, which is why most explainers opt for a highly simplified icon-style for their characters. A further consideration when designing characters is how they will function with the chosen animation style.

A character animated with the puppet tool in After Effects will have very different animation needs to one designed for traditional frame-by-frame animation in TV Paint.

A cartoonish, noodle-limb animation style may work great for a quirky mood, while a more rigid or realistic movement will work better for messages holding a bit more gravity.

The above points are a solid starting ground which can help inform your design decisions in the early stages of character development. The answers to these questions are what will ultimately shape your design and determine its true level of appeal. Skip to content. Shape theory When we deconstruct visual images, most objects will break down into one or more familiar shapes, each carrying their own visual signposts. Colour theory Colours have a similar unwritten effect on our visual interpretation.

There are a few different aspects of colour theory to consider when designing your character: a Symbolism Each colour carries its own innate effects on a colour scheme.

Levels of simplification Animated characters come in many different shades of visual complexity, from icon-style all the way up to near-realism. Design for animation needs A further consideration when designing characters is how they will function with the chosen animation style. Written by Maree Railton. Throughout the last century, we have used it to entertain, as propaganda, and to tell stories that invoke emotion. The earliest known animated film was made in France in , titled Humorous Phases of Funny Faces , and was made from chalk pictures.

Since then, other small animations were made, but the first animated cartoon with synchronized was made by Walt Disney in , called Steamboat Willie.

Many cartoons like this followed, and they were used to entertain viewers with gags and charades of drawn characters. Nine years later, Disney released the first full-length future film, Snow White.

And in , software for 3D animation was created. All of these events lead up to the animation and films we see today. From Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse to live action movies with CGI, to popular YouTube animators like the animator Jaiden Animations, animation has become a popular form of storytelling that has helped shape the modern world.

Animation is important because it makes us be able to tell stories and communicate emotions and ideas in a unique, easy-to-perceive way that both small children and adults can understand.

Animation has helped connect people throughout the world in a way that sometimes writing and live-action films cannot. Today, anyone can pick up a drawing tablet and show their ideas to the world. A little more of a mature blog today, I've been rewatching some old Disney and Tom and Jerry s cartoons and it got me thinking about how alot of these cartoons are appealing with adults, and some kids and teens today, even more so than modern cartoons.

Alot of people say it just comes down to nostalgia, however I thought I'd talk a bit about what I like and what others have told me. Just a warning, I will be talking about adult topics, like sexuality and racism that was often shown in old cartoons.

Old cartoons have generally gone out of popularity at least in mainstream media, channels like Cartoon Network and Boomerang don't play them much anymore and if they do play Tom and Jerry or something Looney Tunes related, it's the new series or 90's series. That being said many adult collectors still like to buy old cartoons on DVD and I've met a few teens on this app who watch them on YouTube.

Now I'm not saying kids won't watch these cartoons, just it seems to be more adult fans at the moment because kids are all up with the new stuff online with streaming services like Netflix or Disney Plus.

Though I've heard Disney has been releasing some of their non racist classic shorts. There is something about the 's Cartoons that really stands out to the rest. The 's were the early years and still learning how to do everything, the 's was still a learning curve as colour was introduced, however I felt my most studios had gotten to grips with everything in the world of colour. However if you ask different people which era had the best cartoons alot of them have said s.

Alot of these cartoons haven't aged well, the world's ideals, especially around women, children, being gay and racism are clearly seen not shown in a good light during the 's Cartoons. This is mostly because these cartoons were originally for adults so they made jokes and basically mirrors the issues going on at the time.

Alot of people criticise these old cartoons for the racist jokes, however like I said, these were for adults and if you pull any animated adult cartoon up that plays on Comedy Central, there's still racist jokes. Adults seem to be able to acknowledge the racist joke, give a laugh or two and move on. They don't see a racist joke and then go out into the world and act like the joke is real. Though this does get a bit tricky with different types of people, as the older generations, say over 50, tend to say racist things because they grew up in a time where it was deemed ok, and when they told not too, they do it more.

I've seen some teenagers do it we well. They try to be cool and for some reason think racism is cool and act badly towards others, though in this instance they usually don't fully understand what they're saying and may not intent to offend. However most of the year olds I've met have often said, basically if acknowledge it's a different time and a bad behaviour, then you'll fine.

Some people like the addition of the racial comments, the fact they were included, as alot of modern cartoons for kids especially like to paint the picture that everything is rainbow and pure magical innocence, then adult cartoons go the other way making out everything is basically hell.

Well, these old cartoons sort of just portrayed the world as it was, the good and the bad.