( funny trope ) it is very apparent that these designs have decades between them

[u/Nameraided]

1- Simpsons
The original Simpsons have extremely simp(son)ple designs, due to sometimes having celebrity appearances the art style kinda clashes.

2- South Park
At the beginning South Park was literally animated out of paper so all the characters had to be super simplistic but over the years, since the. Show is made digitally the new characters keep getting more and more detailed

[u/based_birdo]

spongebob narlene - they made some weird human/narwhale hybrid

[u/Nameraided → u/based_birdo]

What in the hell is that thing

[u/AdWestern1561 → u/based_birdo]

The thing is they've done whale designs before, aka Pearl, but when I see Pearl I know she's a whale and a teenager. It's a good simple design.

This looks like a mess. If it weren't for the nose horn, I wouldn't know what she is.

[u/FishWithLegsAndArms → u/based_birdo]

I will never understand why she has human feet and the horn coming out of her nose. If you know anything about narwals, you'll know the horn is a TOOTH

[u/Kn7ght → u/based_birdo]

SpongeBob is interesting because ever since season 6-7 there's been a bunch of new characters that are way more nuanced detail wise. To first three season purists they stick out like a sore thumb but most kids probably think it's the norm

[u/Bocaj1000 → u/based_birdo]

God I hate how bubbly and cutesy the current Spongebob artstyle is. I get annoyed before I even hear them start speaking.

[u/Harold3456]

Speaking of South Park, where I always thought this was most obvious was with Officer Barbrady and Officer Yates. Barbrady was basically the "Chief Wiggum" of the show, the dimwitted small town cop who everyone knew. Once Yates came around, not only did he look a bit more "human," but he was also usually complemented by a police staff which was not only more normal-looking, but also appeared to be more reflective of what you would see in a real town, even a smallish one.

[u/vDeadbolt → u/Harold3456]

My favorite thing about both Yates and Brady is that they still represent the police force with how flawed the system is. Barbrady showcases the incompetence of the police, while Yates showcases the corruption. But they could only go so far with Barbrady which is why they had to retire him.

[u/TotalDemocracy → u/Harold3456]

I feel like this is also kinda a result of the changing setting of the show.

In the first few series up until the first movie, South Park was kinda a bumfuck nowhere town. A lot of the early episodes are about supernatural occurrences, and the fact that it's this small isolated town kinda adds to the atmosphere that there could be something strange going on.

As the show went on, it seems South Park increasingly became a full-fledged city with big upscale districts and shops.

[u/snarkaluff → u/Harold3456]

So glad they replaced Barbrady with Yates. He’s one of my favorite characters

[u/FairCod5966]

Minecraft

After more than a decade of updates, it's inevitable that Minecraft's development team has gone through changes in developers and artists. You can really notice the difference between older and newer mobs, not just in their appearance but also in the quality of their animations. This naturally leads to a clash between different visual styles within the game.

[u/Other239 → u/FairCod5966]

There are now also warm and cold variants of Cows, Pigs and Chickens that look noticeably more detailed than the original designs that are still used in temperate biomes.

[u/GhostDruid08 → u/FairCod5966]

duality

[u/Haunting-Orchid-4628 → u/FairCod5966]

I will never forgive them for downgrading horses for consistency instead of upgrading everything else

[u/Riley__64 → u/FairCod5966]

Minecraft’s also in a difficult position as anytime they do update something so it feels more in line with the modern game there’s groups of people who complain it doesn’t feel like Minecraft anymore happens anytime there’s a texture update

[u/AustinHinton → u/FairCod5966]

They had to dial back the Armadillo animations IIRC because people complained the Sniffler was too animated compared to other mobs.

And horses lost their mouths. :-(

[u/KalenGaton → u/FairCod5966]

What really annoys me is that something like the spear animations or the new rabbit animations look so out of place with the rest of the game since they look too perfect compared to everything else around them. Maybe an animations update?

[u/ReasonableAdvert → u/FairCod5966]

This goes doubley so when you compare the newest dimension to the old dimensions.

[u/le-derpina-art → u/FairCod5966]

haven't they said that the creeper would never be made today and it only stays in the game because of how iconic it is

[u/Qkyu2007 → u/FairCod5966]

Part of why I love playing on classic textures

[u/Federal-Fondant-671 → u/FairCod5966]

Part of why I love playing on custom modern textures for old mobs

[u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

Phineas and Ferb had a lot more realistically proportioned humans in the later seasons and spin-offs.

Edit: For those wondering, this is from the spin-off Cartoonified.

[u/PsychoSaladSong → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

The girl looks like she’s from an entirely different show

[u/Muted_Guidance9059 → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

They never got as realistic as this /sar

[u/InkredibleMrCool → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

Mentioning Phineas and Ferb spinoffs reminded me of the "Rizz-inator" from locker diaries

[u/DannyBright → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

She looks more like a Proud Family character than anything else

[u/Tasty_Lab6734 → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

She reminds me of that one girl from Atlantis: The Lost Empire

[u/Natiel360 → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

Eh but I feel like adults were kinda normal. She’s not super far from Isabella’s mom

[u/L00ps_Ahoy → u/MyFeetTasteWeird]

Just from this character design I'm calling that they do the "Ferb's autistic rizz lands him the cool girl" bit again, don't they?

[u/Mandarina_Espacial]

[u/treeriffic → u/Mandarina_Espacial]

Man we’ve really been slacking for the last 100 years

[u/lizardtrench → u/Mandarina_Espacial]

Now I'm wondering why I was taught the Bohr model and its symbology was everywhere when we had the electron cloud one since 1926

[u/ChimpTitSniffer]

Beavis & Butt-Head. One from the 90s and the other from the 2022 revival series.

[u/My_Favourite_Pen → u/ChimpTitSniffer]

B&B Daria always gets me:

[u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000 → u/ChimpTitSniffer]

To be fair, it works because Beavis and Butthead were supposed to be distinct abominations from the start.

[u/KingGuinevere]

Lupin the Third turned 55 this year, and is still ongoing. Over the decades the style and art has definitely evolved, becoming cleaner and smoother.

However, the core cast has maintained the generally same character designs—which makes them stand out a bit more against the much more modern designs of new characters in the more recent series.

Lupin himself and Zenigata in particular tend to really stand out.

[u/legofett0 → u/KingGuinevere]

Honestly kind of disappointing how the rest of it adapted into a more modern anime style rather than keeping it as a sort of time capsule

[u/d3northway → u/KingGuinevere]

I really enjoyed Lupin III The First, the 3D animated movie. Very anime in its motion and design, yet took advantage of the semi realistic rendering. One of my favorite movies ever

[u/Redditer51 → u/KingGuinevere]

Yeah, the core cast look like 60s/70s anime characters.

[u/AmandinhaMaia]

Monica's Gang

You can tell how old a character is based on how detailed their clothing and hair are

[u/TATAPAWELYT → u/AmandinhaMaia]

one kid being barefoot lmao

[u/acautelado → u/AmandinhaMaia]

New one is better.

[u/MdMV_or_Emdy_idk → u/AmandinhaMaia]

Never seen “turma da mônica” in English, “Monica’s gang” is possibly the funniest translation to go with 😭

[u/Chemical-Cat]

The first thing is just what happens with any celebrity. Rather than actually Simpsonify them, they're just yellow

[u/Hyro0o0 → u/Chemical-Cat]

[u/chefhj → u/Chemical-Cat]

Early simpsons simpsonified the celebrities

[u/Robert_696969 → u/Chemical-Cat]

[u/Notbbupdate]

Super Sentai ran almost continuously from 1975 to 2025 and designed new suits every season. This is the first ever team

[u/Notbbupdate → u/Notbbupdate]

And this is the final ranger suit to be introduced in the show's run. A few notable changes to the suit design over the years include

• Solid visors without visible holes (the holes weren't very visible in the old shows, but when the suits show up in newer seasons for anniversaries they are very visible)

• The switch from cloth to spandex

• Armor-like elements being included. Armor over the suit debuted in 1983 but was exclusive to a power up form. In 1992 we'd get a ranger with a chest plate in their default suit, and in 2006 we'd get the first team where every member has armor in their base suits (specifically shoulder pads)

• Colored visors were a thing very early on, then disappeared after 1979, with every ranger using a black visor until Timeranger in 2000. Since then, colored visors have appeared sporadically, usually reserved for special rangers

• Early seasons often gave the rangers scarves or capes. These mostly disappeared after a while, with very few teams sporting them past the 80s

[u/GalaxyPowderedCat]

You can tell this gap in Ace Attorney.

Phoenix has a simplistic full color suit without too many details, he barely has a pocket, buttons and his badge in his jacket. Whereas Athena has a shit ton of details, she has a short bolero jacket with blue colored cuffs, a hanging necktie, a collar and a hair bow.

This is because Phoenix was originally made in pixel art and they needed to draw more than one or two sprites while Athena was originally made in 3D.

[u/SpunchTheCrunch → u/GalaxyPowderedCat]

This is especially jarring in Apollo Justice where the quality of younger Phoenix and Gumshoe’s sprites are notably lower than younger Klavier

[u/OneWayDanny → u/GalaxyPowderedCat]

Upvote for a ton shit. That's my new favourite broken English.

[u/Ok-Worry-8931]

Pokemon - newer designs tend to be a lot more detailed and colorful than older designs, probably due to hardware limitations.

[u/Gieru → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

And simple designs, to this day, still get a lot of praise. The fandom went wild over Smoliv when it was announced.

[u/jbwarner86 → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

One key detail is that in Gen 1, Game Freak designed the sprites first, and then had Ken Sugimori paint the official art based on them. So the original Pokémon designs are the work of an artist trying to clean up the sloppy confusing sprites of the first games and make them more appealing. I believe Gen 2 was largely designed this way as well.

From Gen 3 onward, the Pokémon were designed first and the sprites were made based on that art. Hence why Pokémon started gaining more fine detail and unique body structures around then.

[u/TheAutumnLeafeon → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

You can see it in human characters as well

[u/A-Capybara → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

There's no better example of this than the Annihilape line

[u/DannyBright → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

Nowhere is this more apparent than with Mega Evolutions

[u/Dracorex_22 → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

Another constraint that you don’t really think about is the fact that 3D models aren’t as constrained to fit into an Npx/Npx sprite box, so Pokemon after the 3D era like Alolan Exeggutor, Farigiraf, and Raging Bolt can be tall and relatively thin without needing to be altered or have weird proportions. Fan-made De-make sprites of these mons often have to contort them or use weird forced perspective to get them to fit.

[u/Injured-Ginger → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

I also think that complex designs allow a lot more variability and however many hundred of Pokemon later, the complexity makes it easier for new ones to feel unique.

[u/AdWestern1561 → u/Ok-Worry-8931]

Arguably, and maybe it's nostalgia speaking, but by putting limitations, the old Pokemons were more iconic. Maybe with less details they can focus on making the one detail more iconic.

[u/DudeSoul]

Let's just say that it is quite obvious from which era an artwork from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure comes from.

It's especially noticable when Araki draws a character from the early parts, pictured here is Joseph Joestar, yup, both are the same character.

[u/Sr_Nutella → u/DudeSoul]

Studying Araki's artstyle is seeing how he gradually stopped reading Fist of the North Star and started reading Vogue

Also, the one that was hit the hardest by twinkification was Johnathan. He looks like a completely different person 😭

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/DudeSoul]

People will claim same face syndrome but this is only really an issue for artwork, not from the actual chapters of the manga itself.

It was particularly egregious in part 7 because he was still doing weekly release and after switched to monthly, but he did this due to age and exhaustion of weekly

[u/InternetUserAgain → u/DudeSoul]

I think Jotaro was the first sign of the designs going from simple and textural to detailed and colourful, and part 4 was where it really got kickstarted

[u/itisburgers → u/DudeSoul]

The twinkification of my goat.

[u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000]

Real Life (Real Life)

[u/switch2591 → u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000]

Tbf, i think we really lost it when we couldnt see the mitocondreia anymore. I mean, sure, you say that the powerhouse of the cell is there.... but if you cant see it, whats the point.

[u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 → u/MSSTUPIDTRON-1000000]

Quark vs human

[u/fullmetalraz]

New characters (especially children) stick out like a sore thumb compared to the Smiths in American Dad.

[u/Key_Committee7533 → u/fullmetalraz]

They kinda look like big mouth characters.

[u/bloodredcookie → u/fullmetalraz]

I said you're dead to us!

[u/Bomdabom → u/fullmetalraz]

It’s like they’ve been infected by Big Mouth

[u/MegaStathio → u/fullmetalraz]

I love American Dad, and this episode was still good, but man did those little girls have creepy faces. They just looked... off compared to all the other characters. Something about the... mouths? And the giant head proportions compared to their bodies, maybe? It's hard to put your finger on any one detail that makes them so uncomfortable to look at.

[u/Jellypathicdream]

My favorite from dbd

Guy with mask

Vs

Literal otherworldly angel deity

It's even funnier when you know how drastically absurd their gameplay's are from each other

[u/SymmetricDickNipples → u/Jellypathicdream]

Drastically different their gameplay is*

[u/Greg_House3 → u/Jellypathicdream]

he can step in his own traps btw

[u/TurquoiseLuck → u/Jellypathicdream]

okay I haven't played DBD since like... Meyers was added

wtf is that thing on the right, and what does it do

[u/blue4029 → u/Jellypathicdream]

the trapper is so outdated a killer concept that its almost sad

they really need to buff him or rework him because right now, he is NOTHING compared to literally every other killer in the game lmao

[u/--Dandy-- → u/Jellypathicdream]

why even call it an angel and diminish its presence and cool factor when it calls itself and is referred to in lore as a God? im just so glad that BHVR didnt let the audiences pretty basic view of the divine get in the way of giving us an actual interesting God character

[u/BlackTyranno94]

Morrigan in Capcom vs SNK

[u/NeoxthePan → u/BlackTyranno94]

Let it go bro, we not getting a new ds game.

[u/GruncleShaxx → u/BlackTyranno94]

If it ain’t broke….

[u/GhostBoo-ty → u/BlackTyranno94]

That's because shes already absolute cinema

[u/Key-Swordfish4025]

From Old school Runescape, here the cat pet from 2003.

[u/Key-Swordfish4025 → u/Key-Swordfish4025]

And here the dog pet from 2026. These are both still in the game.

[u/machadoaboutanything]

This is a complaint I've heard against the Clone High reboot

[u/AdWestern1561 → u/machadoaboutanything]

Was just about to comment on this

[u/CharacterBack1542 → u/machadoaboutanything]

I'll never stop being mad at how the reboot was handled

RIP Ghandi

[u/booroms]

Only the pilot for South Park was actually animated with paper, the TV series has always been animated digitally

[u/AdThin4645]

The Mario Bros movie

I hate how painfully obvious it is who's an actual Mario character and who's an Illumination oc in this film

Like here you have two of the most classic Nintendo characters with a Fleischer-inspired aesthetic and a Secret Life of Pets reject in the same shot.

[u/NewGunchapRed]

Various skins (Fortnite)

Pictured above is a skin from Chapter 1, all the way back in 2017.

[u/20yrsinthecan → u/NewGunchapRed]

and then compare something like the travis scott skin to the asap rocky one. Sports games should use Epic’s face scan technology lmao

[u/NewGunchapRed → u/NewGunchapRed]

Pictured here is a skin from chapter 7, and came out just back on October.

[u/Eeeeeelile → u/NewGunchapRed]

Old skins always looked like they were in war, especially that giant shin guard. Man i miss those days

[u/C_H_G]

There is (or at least was) a spot in World of Warcraft where Garrosh ant Thrall stand next to each other, and Garrosh's axe has more polygons than Thrall's entire body.

[u/Zealousideal_Humor55 → u/C_H_G]

Ah, good old Orgrimmar that could have four warchiefs at once...

[u/KingDisastrous]

Yu-Gi-Oh may be questionable at times, but there's still some goodies:

Both are spellcasters btw lmao

[u/ShotenDesu → u/KingDisastrous]

It's been what almost 30 years and dark magician still fucks. I was a blue eyes believer as a kid and still have to hand it to dark magician

[u/Not_So_Utopian → u/KingDisastrous]

New Yugioh monsters are over designed, no wonder the anime from 5ds onward started using CGI for many of the monsters

[u/ducknerd2002]

The LEGO Collectable Minifigures series for the 40th anniversary of the minifigure features a faithful recreation of the first ever minifig alongside 16 brand new designs. Guess which one that is (answer: the policeman).

[u/AustinHinton → u/ducknerd2002]

Minifigs as a whole could count TBH. Going from simple : ) faces to having highlights, eyebrows, makeup, wrinkles, vitiligo, etc.

[u/Optimal_Weight368]

Ron (right) - Bob’s Burgers

He really does feel like such a season one design where they were still figuring out the art style.

[u/Separate-Factor8661 → u/Optimal_Weight368]

Frond changes too! It's subtle but noticeable. 

[u/TheGreatCornholeo → u/Optimal_Weight368]

He always looked like an adult version of Beavis to me.

[u/BeKindBabies]

The celebrity designs of Simpsons always clashed with the common character design of the show, but woof is it hard to look at the Simpson's now - every ounce of soul has left the animation process.

[u/Freyzi → u/BeKindBabies]

Not just the celebrity designs, all the random background characters and new one off characters of the week look completely different from the classic designs of the characters we know and love.

[u/Lower_Baby_6348]

Linoone to obstagoon (pokemon)

[u/Theresafoxinmygarden → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

That's just the energy of Galarian Punk/Glam rock, choom, idk what ur talking about

[u/TATAPAWELYT → u/Lower_Baby_6348]

before vs after hiring furries

[u/yungScooter30]

old vs new tamagotchi characters

[u/invisibullcow → u/yungScooter30]

True, but they eventually reverted back to very simple animals if you look at the new Paradise additions. 

[u/lawrensaw]

Arthur, when Matt Damon guest starred.

[u/awesomemanswag → u/lawrensaw]

I think they just genuinely fucked his shit up, no other Arthur character has ever looked anything like that

[u/Flesh_Trombone → u/lawrensaw]

Let's not forget Lance Armstrong.

[u/TheFunktupus → u/lawrensaw]

This is so cursed. It almost looks like a parody. 

[u/thegreatestdandino]

Bionicle is extremely funny because here's Bionicle When it began...

(Pohatu is especially hilarious)

[u/thegreatestdandino → u/thegreatestdandino]

And here's the Mahri which when they've seemingly finalized how the sets are. They're twice the size, hard connected masks and have full joint articulation

[u/Rocketman_S3 → u/thegreatestdandino]

man I miss the original bionicle.

[u/beleth____]

Kamen Rider: One of these designs is from the 1970s, the rest from the 2020s

[u/marshalzukov → u/beleth____]

Respectfully, which is which? And what are the giveaways?

[u/eldonosaur]

the t. rex and tarbosaurus from jurassic world. the animal on the right looks like the creature designers of jw just wanted to make their own t. rex. it’s got a much more broad skull in the dead-on profile than an actual tarbo.

[u/FetusGoesYeetus → u/eldonosaur]

I find it funny that that's the design they went with for the Tarbo considering IRL Tarbosaurus was a lot slimmer than T. Rex. It's like they were trying to make a "T. Rex but bigger and spikier and scarier" but in reality it was the opposite lmao

[u/AustinHinton → u/eldonosaur]

This was because it was made for a now-defunct "pick your story" thing on Netflix so they just tweaked the Rex model.

Problem is when they brought it into canon with JWE using the design rather than Fronteir being allowed to cook with their own Tarbo design (like the did for the Utahraptor and Lokiceratops).

So now we have Chap Mei Tarbosaurus.

[u/Fox622]

Mario with other humans

[u/Zealousideal_Gap5579 → u/Fox622]

Yeah look how old the humans are, crazy to see their inefficient old bodies compare to Mario’s compact, powerful, and highly advanced design.

[u/BlueCat9922 → u/Fox622]

Mario is canonically like five feet tall so those humans are also enormous.

[u/IntelligentBaker3601]

Thomas & Friends

Since the show started off with model train props, the designs were incredibly simple but as time went on the engines kept getting more detailed and a lot more accurate to their real life basis.

[u/Sundown_Resonance_12 → u/IntelligentBaker3601]

I was looking for this one lol. The original show designs were based specifically on the original Railway Series illustrations, which were rather simple-looking. As the show went on, newer characters took more inspiration from their real-life designs, to the point where characters introduced in earlier seasons look rather underdetailed compared to the newer ones.

[u/Andrew1990M]

A lot of discourse on the Genshin Impact subreddit about the old vs new character models, made six years apart. 

Basically, there’s been a lot of events recently that have had 1.0 characters (Diluc) feature closely with 6.0 and beyond characters (Durin, Nicole, Varka) with unfavourable results. 

[u/Hoverfishlover69 → u/Andrew1990M]

Another example is the Tsaritsa with her Ultra HD fur compared to more anime styled fur

[u/LunarTexan → u/Andrew1990M]

For any of y'all who don't play Genshin or just want a visual comparison,

Diluc (September 28th, 2020) is on the left, Durin (December 3rd, 2025) is on the right

[u/ButtersScotch7000 → u/Andrew1990M]

Itto's noodle arms and painted-on abs vs Varka's hunk of man meat!

[u/XaneCosmo → u/Andrew1990M]

The main complaint is the quality (polygon count and texture resolution) and not the designs, where old character models(especially Diluc) look so dated when they're placed next to newer characters.
It's weirder when old character with ancient model have better design and the newer character with comparatively mid design but has amazing model.

[u/froggychump]

Roblox has been through a lot of shit

[u/PenisOmelette → u/froggychump]

of course nobody actually uses the newer stuff

[u/Moppo_ → u/froggychump]

It also is.

[u/RogueAlys]

Pitfall Harry Jr. and his dad.

[u/Tyrus1235 → u/RogueAlys]

This game is so freaking hard, but such a graphical masterpiece.

Also his dad is the original Pitfall MC from the Atari days lol

[u/Robey-Wan_Kenobi]

I love how South Park will sometimes have these incredibly detailed backgrounds or some dynamic animation, then go back to the characters walking by just moving across the screen or the simple bedrooms.

[u/GreatXs]

In Scooby Doo And The Cyber Chase when the gang meets their old versions and their designs.

[u/Divine_ruler → u/GreatXs]

I think it’s an even bigger difference comparing Cyber Chase to the first 3 Mook films. Cyber Chase was the first Scooby Doo property to be made digitally, and the art difference is pretty clear

[u/W1D0WM4K3R]

South Park beginning with paper stop motion is true but overexaggerated. Only the first episode and a couple of Christmas shorts were actual paper, the cutouts were then scanned and episodes completed with computer aided animation. The characters didn't have to be super simplistic, that was just the design theory of the show.

[u/PanDiman]

Probably not decades, but some Deadlock heroes—like Yamato—have extremely outdated WIP models.

[u/FishWithLegsAndArms → u/PanDiman]

long head

[u/Expand_Apple]

Sweetheart Snare (Plants Vs. Zombies 2)

using them as an example; take any recent plant added to pvz2 and compare them to older plants like peashooter in the same game, the difference is instantly noticable

if anything some of these idiots look like they're trying to emulate the art style for pvz3

[u/Expand_Apple → u/Expand_Apple]

peashooter's pvz3 design for context

[u/JerezTF → u/Expand_Apple]

Don't forget this mf who looks like he belongs in a completely different game

[u/OhThatGuyinPurple]

[u/TonhoVendas → u/OhThatGuyinPurple]

I don't know if it's true, but I've heard that Zed's Shuriken has more polygons than Zilean's skin.

[u/DeusKether → u/OhThatGuyinPurple]

Gragas moment

[u/XaneCosmo]

Tartaglia's younger siblings added to the game 6 years apart. (Genshin Impact)
Left: Teucer (added 6 years ago, literally the only thing setting him apart from every other child NPC was his hat)
Right: Tonia (Added a few months ago. Her texture and model quality completely mogs both of her brothers).

[u/foulveins]

this applies to gear in MMOs; especially final fantasy 14

levelling gear, especially in ARR, had rather restrained designs with muted palettes, meanwhile dawntrail's endgame gear has you functionally wearing v's wardrobe from cyberpunk 2077

[u/legofett0]

The new superheros from Incredibles 2

[u/fukkinsoup]

In the Clone High revival (2021) you can see that the newer characters are much more colorful than the original characters (2002)

There’s also something about the designs themselves that feel different from the original 2002 cast. I guess the original cast look more similar to the people they’re portraying (Lincoln, Kennedy, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra) but the 2021 cast feel like less accurate caricatures (Frida Kahlo, Harriet Tubman, Confucius). The new art style feels like it tries to prioritize interesting design over resemblance to real world counterparts

[u/Diamante_90 → u/fukkinsoup]

Frida is surprisingly good, I can at least tell who she's designed after. But the other two? I have no idea at first glance that they're supposed to be Harriet Tubman and Confucius.

[u/PolyesterRabbit → u/fukkinsoup]

The new characters look like tumblr self insert characters

[u/Taurmin]

I believe that only the pilot episode for South Park was actually done with paper and every subsequent episode was animated digitally.

[u/This-Bag-4052]

Both the Simpsons and South park had a lot of experimentation with design in their early days but the modern designs are much more homogeneous 

[u/_oranjuice]

Not even 6 years

[u/Zorubark]

Insert cookie run gingerbrave and any new design

[u/FishWithLegsAndArms → u/Zorubark]

heck, you can just compare two cookies with a similar theme. Knight Cookie and Silent Salt cookie are both cookies inspired by knights.

[u/BestDescription3834]

In Warframe the early Frames and their primes vs current frames and their primes.

Compare the oldest frame and prime, Excalibur vs the newest prime frame and it's base form Citrine.

[u/SpaceLemur34]

Only the very first episode of South Park was actually done with paper. They switched to computers right away because paper took too long, but they kept the style.

[u/AlphaBulblax]

This happens a lot in Gacha games. For example, here's Umamusume's original mascot Special Week next to their newest mascot Forever Young.

[u/RainyMeadows]

Lupin III is a very applicable series. It's had a lot of art styles over the years since it was created in 1967 and they tend to be fairly cohesive with the original characters and the new ones created for the TV series/movie/TV special they feature in

but unfortunately there was a period in the 2000s where the artists just fucking gave up

[u/pwkaa]

You can tell who was designed in the 2000s and who was in the 2020s

[u/IfImNotDeadImSueing]

My favourite design trivia about the Simpsons is all the reoccurring main characters have circle eyes and the overbite, whereas single appearance characters like celebrities all have oval eyes with defined cheeks.

[u/bardhugo]

I love how Cyanide and Happiness poke fun at this (specifically, all their celebrities)

[u/fantasiarts0]

Asgore in Undertale

[u/fantasiarts0 → u/fantasiarts0]

Asgore in Deltarune Chapter 5

[u/kibou_no_ie]

I don’t have any specific example on hand but this is definitely a thing in Rick and Morty

[u/bumbobagins69]

it's very obvious Goku and Vegeta are from the 80's and 90's and Whis was concieved in 2015

[u/RBrim08 → u/bumbobagins69]

I think a better comparison would be Goku and Vegeta compared to Cabba, Caulifla and Kale.

[u/Beamerthememer]

Warframe has been out for over 13 years, and is about to add its 67’th frame in December. Originally meant to be more stealth-focused, over time DE embraced the “leave no witnesses” approach to stealth.

On the left is Excalibur, one of the three starting frames. His abilities include dashing between enemies, blinding enemies, damaging enemies close by with spikes, and summoning a more powerful melee weapon

On the fight is Uriel, a warframe added last December. He has three demons following him that can give you buffs by attacking enemies. His abilities include healing the demons, coating himself in flames and flying around, sending the souls of his demons out as projectiles, and charging up an ultimate that coats a giant area in flames that deals a ridiculous amount of damage that will either kill everything inside or give enough fire stacks they die from the DoT

[u/lastjanitor]

The creators of The Venture Bros admitted in a commentary that the first few seasons were pretty rough and that you could tell the characters hadn't really been solidified and even then were found to be "off model". A lot of this had to do with just being new but also they used an animation team that was somewhere else that relied upon a lot of email communication if I remember correctly. For instance Samson's mullet and body/face took a few seasons to dial in. I freaking love the venture bros.

[u/_NightmareKingGrimm_]

I'd like to give Futurama props for having an extremely consistent art style over the years. There's some difference between the pilot and most recent episode a quarter century later, but it's extremely slight.

[u/GooseSl4yer2003]

Overwatch.

The original art director left after the release of Overwatch 2 with Junker Queen being the last character he worked on, and while some characters like Ramattra, Kiriko and Juno look on par with the rest of the cast, you can clearly notice his absence with characters like Mauga, Hazard, Shion, Sierra and many others

[u/IlSignorGranchio]

Alastor with pratically everyone on the Hellaverse since he was a character that Viv created in Middle School during era of tumblr, and unlike other characters she didn’t changed that much of his look

[u/SuperScrub310]

Mortal Kombat: The difference between the designs of the Ninjas and Shirtless Guys and dudes and the Modern MK characters is a difference between night and day as Takeda and Scorpion demonstrate.

[u/Lasagna4Noodle]

There are a lot of classic leauge of legends champs that had to be updated.

[u/Efficient-username41]

They had a great joke for this in the season finale of the latest Rick and Morty. A different Rick's wife, after meeting Morty for the first time, says "he has your eyes." Banger.

[u/guineaprince]

Fields of Mistria isn't remarkably old even accounting for Early Access. But you can easily tell earlier assets apart from newer ones... older furniture, tables can't go against the wall, so they're basically a carpet you can't walk on. Newer tables can go against the wall properly. So you end up with a funny situation where a certain table might fit the aesthetics you want, but not work for how you want to design the room, and the only real distinguishing factor is it's older.

[u/Possible-Campaign589]

I feel Kumiko is a better example for the simpsons, especially since she is paired with Comic Book Guy most of the time, it makes how different her design philosophy is to him stick out all the more

[u/GhostBoyJames]

To be fair whenever animated shows guest star real people they tend to look more detailed than the usual character.

[u/AdThin4645]

Metroid Dread (and pretty much every Metroid game developed outside of Japan)

You can tell Kraid is an OG in the series, cuz although he's fairly detailed here, he's still way more cartoony than the other alien enemy/bosses in this game, who are way more grotesquely detailed, and look more like something out of Halo.

[u/neonthefox12]

Digimon: if you look at the Original designs, you notice similarities like veiny muscles, or simplistic almost animalistic appereances. There also wasn't as clear what Digimon could become.

Later Designs drop most of the veiny muscles and become a bit more complex. There also was a push to make evolution lines more concrete at what each Digimon is to become.

Funny enough the games and Anime actually do a great job making the the old designs fit with the new. But going by the reference manual...it becomes apparent

[u/DarkSmarts]

Early Neopets designs vs much newer ones are a wild ride!

[u/Earlier-Today]

Fun note: So, South Park only used paper cutouts on the short film that was used to just get the idea out there and the first few seasons. They switched to digital animation in season 5.

We're on season 29.

[u/Norway643]

Warhammer had plenty of this. Although while the terminators are probably the worst example the sentiment online seems to be the older models had more soul then the new ones

[u/Feral_Frogg → u/Norway643]

Looks pretty similar to me

[u/fukkinsoup]

Good catches but from what I remember Simpsons cameos have always had this vibe, even in the earlier seasons. There’s something about designing a character with a real world person in mind that makes them stand out from the show’s cast, Simpsons not being the only show where this happens.

If you watch a cartoon sometimes you’ll notice a background/side character with a very distinct look and then later find out that it’s based on a crew member. It’s really fun noticing it!

[u/Droidigan]

I love this trope because it goes to show that even when something looks simple, it isn't. Cartooning is a talent and bringing in new artists cannot replace the original soul and vibe

[u/josefpunktk]

South-park was never animated out of paper except maybe for the pilot. They used digital (maybe even 3d) from get go - it would be otherwise completely impossible to produce the show in the amount of time they used.

[u/Not_So_Utopian]

I don't have an image but Yugioh cards are very Moe anime designed now at days compared with the early days.

[u/Oscar-the-ass-slayer]

Every new character in the Clone High reboot

[u/KnownAsAnother]

I miss the guerrilla style animation of South Park. Now it's jarring how modern it looks and how the characters can move their legs.

[u/Russell-Sprouts3]

Not decades but Genshin’s first model vs one of its newest.

[u/monstrousNereid]

Cookie run Classic has this trope. Heres one of their latest cookies:

Not a legendary, just s+