Art Evolution - Television Tropes & Idioms

Same character over the years.

When an artist begins drawing a series for the first time, chances are that the art and character designs will be crude or basic due to lack of practice. As the artist gains expertise with his craft during the run of the series, there will be a gradual shift in the art as rough lines are smoothed out and designs refined. This evolution normally stops when they are satisfied with the art quality and it crystallizes into its final stage for the rest of the series.

First-time series for new animators are most susceptible to this, but arguably almost every animated and graphic series undergoes this to some degree as the animator finds out how best to make the characters look attractive while saving maximum time and money.

Art evolution will be most noticeable in evolving character designs, but more subtle things can change too, including better shading and more detailed backgrounds.

An art evolution, however, is not necessarily an upgrade. The animation may actually become worse if the animators become lazy or their budget is slashed, especially in long-running series which are more likely to have an Off Model episode or two. Artistic quality is also highly subjective, which can lead to some fans becoming displeased with the new art style over the familiar old one, even as others praise it.

Very obvious in webcomics, since the vast majority of webcomics are amateur work; it may be the artist's first sustained attempt at drawing at all. Professional artists often recommend such artists continue honing their style rather than becoming too comfortable too soon. Genuinely good artists tend to have 500 drawings for every 10 good ones, even if they hide them away from the comic's archives.

Not to be confused with Art Shift, which is a sudden, temporary change in artistic style as homage or parody. However, lampshadings of Art Evolution are often accomplished by means of an Art Shift.

Also see Vocal Evolution. Consider this the artist going through One Winged Angel.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

This site has a compilation of vids that show art evolution from different manga authors. Some are really drastic. (the site itself is slightly NSFW)
The art style of Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! changed not once, not twice, but several times throughout its course. Thankfully, Nihei's style appears to have finally become consistent.
The characters in the Ah My Goddess manga went through several different designs before they finally stabilized somewhat, and even then, minor changes are still being made in the latest volumes. This webpage shows just how much Belldandy's look alone evolved.
You can see Ken Akamatsu's style evolve by reading his various series in order. Late A.I. Love You looks like early Love Hina, late Love Hina looks like early Mahou Sensei Negima, etc.
Pick a majority of any manga that has a decent amount of volumes or more. Usually what you see as far as art quality in the first few volumes or just the first volume will be more polished when you get farther along in the series.
Ai Yori Aoshi in its first chapters the characters look quite amateurish and not as great, but the characters get much better looking at the series goes on. Then the art takes an inexplicable drop in quality in the last volume or two, carrying into Umi No Misaki before becoming good again after a while.
The Fruits Basket manga had this. In the early volumes, the characters were drawn thin and pointy. Later on, the characters became more smoother and wider.
The art style in the Gravitation manga changes so radically from Vol. 1 to 12 that if you pick a random page out of each of the two volumes, you wouldn't believe that they were made by the same artist, much less that the main character is the same in each one. Just compare this image◊ of Shuichi in the first volume to this one◊ of him in the sixth volume.
Individual characters in the Genshiken manga undergo a slow shift in their appearance, usually for the better. The most notable case is Keiko Sasahara: on her first appearance she's rather grotesquely drawn to emphasize her overabundant makeup; later appearances have it much more subtle, with her lipstick the only truly noticeable aspect of it.
- The characters appear far less cartoonish in the beginning of the series than at the end. Since they spend the entirety of the manga looking more and more like the medium they've devoted their lives to, one wonders whether this wasn't intentional.
The character designs in Urusei Yatsura slowly changed over the series. This normally wouldn't be very noticeable from episode to episode, however, the Title Sequence with the old character designs didn't change for a large part of the series.
The change in character designs for Rumiko Takahashi's other series Ranma One Half is even more noticable. Compare the rounder, cartoony character designs of the earlier volumes to the lankier, more serious ones in later books.
- Not to mention the gradual shift to more stylized figures over the course of the anime, culminating in the "Gainax treatment" that all the girls got for the second movie (especially Nabiki.)
- You could probably trace her art's evolution all the way from Urusei Yatsura through Maison Ikkoku and Ranma One Half to the end of Inuyasha for that matter.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has come a long way from its early chapters. In Part 1, the characters were so overmuscled that they barely looked human, and moved their joints in such strange ways that they looked even less so. Contrast to Part 5, where everyone looks slim but realistically muscled, and also very feminine.
- Here◊ is a timeline of the art change throughout Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure. And if you want to go back even further than Jo Jo, this◊ is a panel from his previous series, Baoh The Visitor.
Hunter X Hunter, on the other hand, did not fare as well. Recent chapters of the manga were drawn while the author was ill, and have been noticeably decreasing in art quality, some of them looking like literal scribbles. The author wisely chose to take a break and focus on recovering from his illness, and the latest chapters he released after the end of his hiatus are of fairly good quality.
Early volumes of Death Note are done in the fairly typical Shonen style, with frequent FaceFaults, VisibleSighs and Sweat Drops. As the series gets darker though, all these effects disappear and the artwork becomes sharper and more realistic. A flashback to the first chapter uses this for effect as an Art Shift.
- When Light gives up his memories and reverts to his mostly-innocent personality from the beginning, his face changes dramatically. His eyes open much wider than normal, stress lines disappear and he seems younger and less evil. The artist of the series admitted that it was hard to unlearn everything he'd innovated and go back to the original sketches.
Detective Conan is rather interesting, as the anime has actually followed the art evolution of the manga very closely. Given that Gosho Aoyama's art style has evolved CONSIDERABLY in the past thirteen years, it makes for a very jarring experience to go back and read the first issues or watch the first episodes.
Pikachu has undergone quite the style change as the Pokemon anime went on, as has Meowth. This is especially noticeable in the games. Heck, compare the sprites for the first 151 Pokemon in the Green or Blue versions to those of the same mons in Diamond and Pearl. Wow.
- Though,they changed it back to chubby for the remakes of Gold and Silver.
- Most of the Pokemon sprites have changed drastically. For example,Charizard is more chubbier in the current generation,and Rhydon is more leaner.
  - Oh, that's nothing. Keep in mind, those changes are more due to the increasing power of each system, not just the artist. Now, if you want to see some real art evolution in pokemon (no pun intended), look at the art produced by Ken Sugimori for the manuals and guides and such, over all the games, especially in the transfer from second generation which is even more evident in the designs of the people who were far squatter looking earlier.
Bleach has evolved significantly over its run. The first few volumes have a distinctive rough, square-jawed style carried over from Kubo's first series, Zombie Powder. By the time the Soul Society arc begins, the art style has become smoother and more detailed. That move towards more graceful lines seems to have continued, although slowly and subtly enough that it is not usually apparent, up to the current Hueco Mundo arc. However, it WAS noticeable when Uryuu turned up again for the first time after an absence of dozens of chapters, compared to his previous appearances.
- Exhibit A: Uryuu.◊ Exhibit B: Ichigo.◊
- However this also lead to the lack of backgrounds and using a lot of ink
One Piece's distinct style has changed quite a bit over its decade-long run. In the beginning it used many thick lines, giving the art a round, bouncy, cartoonish look. The lines eventually became thinner and crosshatching and line shading is used extensively. The characters' features have become more loose to the point where Zoro, for example, can look buffoonish one frame and a hard-boiled Bad Ass the next. This carries over to many a character.
- Chopper didn't start out looking as ridiculously cute as he does now... though he was pretty cute to begin with.
- Looking back, the backgrounds and layouts were pretty bland compared to more recent ones. They were functional and well drawn, but weren't quite the feast for the eyes they are now.
- The change in style is actually extremely appropriate. The art seems to get more detailed and emotionally intense as the story gets progressively darker and more adult.
- This image◊ sums up the Art Evolution over the last twelve years. Interesting to note that Luffy actually appeared more grown up at one point before once again becoming more child-like later on.
  - Indeed; how grown up Luffy is drawn seems to largely depend on how Oda feels at the time.
The Art Evolution in Naruto has been somewhat unusual. The drawing style becomes far more linear over time, making it a little less cartoony. This has an unusual effect on character faces. From straight on, they often end up being very flat, unemotional and generic. However, they are greatly improved in profile and at 3/4 angle. Also, in later chapters of the manga, the characters look boxy when standing still, as their bodies don't seem to taper at all at the hip.
- A flashback in a recent manga chapter made me notice that it's become far less sketchy.
- During the Tsunade retrievial arc, Kishi seems to have started making rather noticeable eyelash marks on the characters eyes, giving many characters a temporary feminine look.
- People who got into the series from the anime (which has art based on later chapters) may be surprised by how amazingly different some characters look in their first manga appearances. Shikamaru in particular was almost cro-magnon looking in contrast to later where he merely has a distinct looking nose and brow, and in that same chapter Choji's eyes frequently look like singular lines while later he's merely squinty.
- It's even more noticeable with characters who only appear every once in a while. The troper was so surprised by Iruka's changed appearance in one of the recent chapters she was genuinely frightened and was convinced it was some ninjutsu an enemy was using to disguise himself. Compare an early chapter with this one. Gaaah.
  - To be fair, the second picture is after the time skip and you would have expected his face to have matured a bit with age (faces of adults change too you know).
Rurouni Kenshin also changed its art style greatly between the first volumes (somewhat amateurishly drawn) and the much more polished Kyoto/Ten Swords arc, then it went on to an even more stylized style for the final volumes.
- And in the recent Kanzenban re-edition, the new covers and new character designs are once again completely different.
The art in the later volumes of X1999 is very different than in the earlier ones, not surprising since publication spanned over more than a decade. More generally speaking, with CLAMP you can follow their art evolution through their manga from RG Veda or CLAMP School Detectives to their latest works like XXX Holic and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, keeping in mind that they have alternated Mokona and Nekoi Tsubaki as main character artists in different comics. Overall, they have shifted towards using more elements of Nekoi's delicate style.
- It's particularly glaring each time a character from one of their earlier works shows up in Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, looking even better than they ever did in their own series.
- This is actually explained by the fact CLAMP likes to try to keep the art style in each of their series different from each other.
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou has a brief insert in between two chapters lampshading this.
Kentaro Miura's artwork in Berserk has gone from being average to arguably being the best in the manga industry as it became more and more detailed and realistic.
- Not a gradual change it should be noted, happens immediately at the start of volume 7
Dragonball started off with Toriyama's signature style with nearly uninterrupted lines, in other words almost no sharp angles. As the series progressed, the most notable change occurred mid-way through the Saiyan Saga of Dragonball Z and the characters were almost entirely made of sharp angles. It is almost shocking to see Vegeta's first appearance compared to the famous "Over 9000!" video.
While somewhat subtle, Azumanga Daioh saw this happen. In the beginning of the series, Chiyo-chan's pigtails are shaggy, Mr. Kimura's mouth is closed, Mr. Tadakachi looks more realistic and Osaka has eyelashes and a more feminine cast to her face. It takes a while for the characters to develop what one would consider their signature appearances. Notably, the evolution continues, and near the end Chiyo-chan's eyes have a... distinctive look.
- Azuma Kiyohiko eventually redid the series with the finalized art style for its rerelease in 2009. Have a comparaison.
  - Making everything look like Yotsubato!
The art from the early (~1-10) volumes of Get Backers is remarkably different; the anime's character designs are based on the later volumes, so those who were introduced to the anime first often react negatively to the earlier, grittier character designs. The most dramatic differences are probably in Ginji, whose hair lengthened quite a lot, and Himiko, who started out looking very plain and almost boyish in her introduction story, but is incredibly pretty by the time we hit the Eternal Bond arc. Something in the way her eyes are drawn and her lips are shaded does it. That Rando Ayamine improved drastically over the course of 39 volumes is the general consensus, from what this troper has observed.
Osamu Tezuka evolved from being a competent amateur to being the best artist in the field he helped invent. Compare this◊ from Diary of Ma-Chan (his first published work) to THIS◊ from Ode to Kirihito made about 25 years later. One is comedy and the other horror, but damn.
- I'm speaking only from my exposure to those two examples, but artistically they're both awesome.
ARIA: Kozue Amano's artwork evolved considerably compared from her short story work to AQUA, and AQUA to ARIA. The anime also has this in every season, possibly with budget increase.
Natsuki Takaya's artstyle from her much older titles drastically changed from being reminiscent to that much of old-school shojo with a rather lanky look, to a more consistent, smooth, and organic style she draws with now. This change can be easily just seen by comparing the much earlier chapters of her successful Fruits Basket to the more later ones.
The frogs in Keroro Gunsou became less tubbier as the manga progressed. This troper (python) looked back at the first volume the other day and was shocked when he saw Sgt. Keroro and Pvt. Tamama look like they ate too many sweets in the past. Meanwhile in the anime the way the frogs have been drawn has changed slightly too.
The art in Axis Powers Hetalia has gradually become more rounded and sketchier. Just compare this◊ to this◊.
The art style used in Beyblade changed after season 1 to a softer style that made (some of) the characters look younger... and then changed again in season 3 to give the characters edgier and more grown-up looks. Not to mention the animation quality was much better.
The Soul Eater manga's art has grown significantly more refined since the first volume. Notable differences are the generally softer and rounder lines and shading and specifically Maka's design, which was originally much more child-like. The anime adaptation took this eventual change and used it from the start for a more consistent look.
- Hell, there's even a difference from the pilot chapters to the first one. Compare this to this. Also, the number of Panty Shots and nudity scenes have toned down considerably, though the occasional one is still tossed in for the sake of Fanservice.
Vinland Saga, when it changed from being a weekly Shonen to a monthly Seinen, the art became much more detailed and a few of the character designs were tweaked. Most notably with Bjorn, a character that went from being a slightly pudgy Big Guy who could easily be described as fat, to a burly wall of berserker muscle.
In the first season of Digimon, Leomon's special attack was animated as an orange lion's head flying toward the target. In the third season, it was animated as a stream of fire beginning with a lion's face.
- The manner in which the characters were drawn in Digimon Savers was also different to the manner they were drawn in earlier seasons.
D.Gray-Man started off as a sort of generic-looking manga but has since developed a more distinctive look. The art has become much more detailed and dynamic, and the characters (namely the Noah) have gotten much... prettier. No, seriously, see what happened to Tyki and Road for yourself: this to this and this. Some fans lamented the loss of "shota Allen," though.
- Also, Kanda. This and this and then this.
My god has Katekyo Hitman Reborn's art changed... vastly. All the characters, as the series goes on, get handsomer and handsomer, and "ugly," "no-good Tsuna" has somewhat evolved into a Cute Shotaro Boy catered very much to the fans that like pairing him with the other men. Pictures of Tsuna's evolution: this to this and this. Not to mention the Big Bad for the second arc, Xanxus, getting a big makeover 10 years into the future... from this to this.
- How about Gokudera? He's gone through VAST art evolution in the manga and in the anime. Just compare this to this.
While not really the case in the anime (being based on later novel designs), the character designs of the Baccano! Light Novels have noticeably changed over the course of the series — especially in the case of Isaac and Miria, who started out rather◊ sleazy◊ and end up looking like poster-children of hyperactivity that they are within a couple of books.
The art in the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga changed pretty drastically after the first couple volumes.
- If you look at the cover art on the bunkoban releases of the manga, Takahashi's art has gotten much more realistic-looking. Here ya go.
Ken Ishikawa: Just look at the first series of Getter Robo (made in the 70s) compared to the second series, Getter Robo Go (made in the 90s). Back then his style was almost identical to his mentor, Go Nagai, and had lots of weird, warped proportions and expressions. As time passed, he retained the intensity of expression and sense of movement and refined it with stronger anatomy and greater detailing to create one of manga's most distinct art styles.
Eyeshield 21's art evolution is more noticable with certain characters. Hiruma in chapter 1 kind of looks like Eddie Munster, but when that scene was redrawn for a flashback he's lost some of that feral look. Monta too changed over the course of the series.
- Similarly, characters that were once incredibly distinctive in their Gonkiness were toned down considerably as time went on; Kurita became less cartoony, and Niinobu Kasamatsu became literally about one-third his original width.
Ouran High School Host Club's art Evolution is for the most part unnoticeable unless you compare Chapter 1's Haruhi to Chapter 69's.
- And Pointed out by Tamaki as; she is even cuter 'than yesterday'!
The Hellsing manga's style changes considerably over time. In the first volume, most characters have a generic manga style with huge eyes and tiny chins and not many unique facial features. The characters also have a tendency to be inconstant and facial features warp from panel to panel. This changes once Hirano gets comfortable with his style however. This is a character in 1◊ and here's what she looks like in 7◊.
The Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni anime underwent a significant style change during the OVA Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei, greatly improving on almost all the anatomical errors present in the first two seasons of the anime.
- Before that, Kai got a massive face lift when compared to the first season, which was often rather flat and rough. While this did occasionally work for the Sanity Slippage and Laughing Mad scenes, most of the time it was simply Off Model to the point where there was no model to begin with.
Yu Yu Hakusho saw its share of this, the manga and the anime. Hiei was the most significant example: Here's one of his first appearances◊, shortly after being pressganged into a good guy◊, mid-series◊, and at the end of the series◊. As you can see, there's quite a difference.
Kinnikuman's artwork began in a very simplistic, cartoony style befitting the comedy focus of early chapters. When the author genre shifted the primary focus from silly jokes to wrestling, the art becomes drastically more defined; characters have an actual shape rather than being mostly blobs.
Not only the art in Angel Densetsu evolved considerably during the serie, the author usually talks about how he's refining his drawing skills in the tankobon's notes.
- To take things into perspective, compare this◊ and this◊.
Bakuman's art has changed, but the mood itself is the most noticeable. Everything at first, from the expressions to the staging, are all rather low-key. As the hero gets a more Hot Blooded attitude towards his work and life in general, the art gets much looser and more energetic (but retains the careful attention to detail).
Hajime No Ippo. Oh boy. Compare old art: [1] [2] with new art: [3] [4] [5].
Author Kouji Kumeta, best known for Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, has a habit of starting of starting off series in one style, and ending them completely differently. His first relatively successful manga, Go!! Southern Ice Hockey Club, started out in a fairly generic late-'80s style and worked its way into a much more angular, completely different look. Following on that, Katte ni Kaizou started out with this angular, shaded look, and ended up as, well... Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. His latest series has had a modest amount of change in the way characters are drawn, but not as extreme as his previous two series. This is lampshaded substantially in the second episode of Goku, where everyone is drawn in the author's art style circa 1991.
The artist of the manga Claymore draws faces so they look good at an angle, because of this when the people look directly "out" of the panel it seems that they've be smashed in the face with a 2x4. The anime adaptation altered the faces slightly.
Somewhat apparent in Venus Versus Virus. The characters round out more evenly after volume 5. Very apparent when you look at the oneshot from the first volume.
In Rosario+Vampire, if you look at the first chapter and the most recent one without reading any of the ones in between, you'd think they were drawn by entirely different artists. The characters looked much rounder and more cartoonish (and just plain not as good) in their humble beginnings, but given the series began as a romantic-comedy, this evolution is plenty justified when Cerebus Syndrome set in, turning the events of the story into a full-blown shounen direction.
- This is an especially striking example of this trope, given Rosario+Vampire is only five years old; usually such an extreme change in art style takes place over a much longer period of time.
Yami No Matsuei, where the manga artwork and the characters — especially the male characters — start out damn pretty, then through the first eleven volumes gradually became drop-dead gorgeous and sexy. Unfortunately, the very last manga installments clearly suffered a massive case of art DEvolution, with the character designs becoming distinctly crude and blocky compared to the earlier artwork, possibly because of health issues with the author.
Observable in Video Girl Ai (and probably continuing through all of Masakazu Katsura's works as well)

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Comics

Comics drawn for years by the same artist often show this. Peanuts evolved a looser, scratchier style, and Snoopy changed from an actual dog, walking on four legs and barking, to a "funny-looking kid with a big nose who never says a word" as Peppermint Patty puts it. The scratchiness of the later years was actually due to Charles Schulz losing fine motor control as he aged.
Tintin improved enormously as Hergé developed his famous Clear Line Style (although some fans hated the modernising touches (jeans, motorcycle) in the last completed episodes).
Garfield famously went from a thick-bodied, beady-eyed creature◊ to the more symmetrical, goggle-eyed form seen here.◊ This got some Lampshade Hanging in the Story Arc where 2003 Garfield meets 1978 Garfield.
The Wolfrider elves in ElfQuest were originally quite short and stocky, since their design was influenced by the elves in Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. As the series went on the elves appeared to gain about six inches in average height. When the original series was reprinted by Marvel comics additional pages had to be added to fit Marvel's page count, and the difference in style between the old and new artwork is very noticeable. (The new pages were retained in subsequent reprints and the online edition).
André Franquin's style evolved dramatically during his work with Spirou and Fantasio and Gaston Lagaffe.
Scott Pilgrim has become much less scratchy and much more rounded, smooth and neat as time progressed. Just compare the covers of volume one and volume 4!
For Better Or For Worse changed artwork styles wildly over its run. From a rough looking beginning (no background, slightly odd-looking but servicable character design) the characters and background became slowly much more detailed and realistic to the point where the attention to detail and shading seemed exteremely obssessive and a little intrusive. but interestingly, the artist is now reversing the art evolution and simplifying her artwork for health reasons.
Gold Digger has improved a lot over time, the linework improving very noticeably over the first 25 issues or so and continuing to get better in smaller ways, and the jump to color which started good and became incredible.
Likewise fellow Anartic series Ninja High School did so as well. Starting off from a look reminiscent of Golden Age comics to a more cartoony look giving the characters wider eyes and less thick outlines.
In the ten years who Mafalda lasted, Quino's drawing went from crude and sightly Off Model to refined and fine-line drawing, with a more consistent character design.
Craig Thompson. Holy crap, Craig Thompson. You can tell Blankets and the upcoming Habibi are done by the same guy, but the difference in skill and execution is amazing. Just look at his blog. Seriously, do it : http://blog.dootdootgarden.com/ His faces are so much more structured and there's all around way more detail.
Fox Trot was a lot looser and more detailed in its first couple years. For most of the 1990s, it was flatter and more geometric (eyes became circles instead of ovals, Jason's hair strands became equally spaced, etc.) but still had a high attention to detail. Most of the detail was simplified in the latter half of the decade.

Close Comics

Video Games

The Legend of Zelda has undergone this quite a bit. Compare Short, squat, brown-haired Link with his modern tall, blonde, bishonen counterpart.
- The Zelda games actually had different artists throughout the years. In the beginning it was Yoshiaki Koizumi and former anime studio employee Yoichi Kotabe that worked on the first few Zelda games. However Metroid artist mainstay Yusuke Nakano is the most popular one due to his work on Ocarina of Time (which was his FIRST Zelda project). Later he did Majora's Mask, the Oracle games (for a guy INSPIRED from Kotabe's work on "Link to the Past" and "Link's Awakening" for his work on "Oracle of Ages/Seasons" he didn't do too bad) and his more recent project Twilight Princess (rumored to be made due to fan backlash from Wind Waker, which he DIDN'T work on) shows how his style improved DRASTICALLY since Ocarina.
Street Fighter has had noticeable art shifts within the various incarnations of just the main franchise. The original game used character designs that were more realistic than cartoony, though the four new challengers that popped up in Super Street Fighter II pushed this. Realistic design was thrown out entirely for the prequel Street Fighter Alpha series and the characters all took on a more anime-inspired look that also led to a few looking noticeably different in both costume and builds. Street Fighter III backed away from the this and returned once more to more realistic designs. Street Fighter IV appears to be looking to blend the two concepts by maintaining cartoony facial expressions but otherwise returning to more classic, realistic character designs. However, many characters are noticeably a lot more muscular.
- Chun-Li deserves a special mention. The first game portrayed her as a very slim, slightly atheleticized build. By Alpha, her build had gotten more muscular, notably her thighs, which would make sense considering her signature move utilizes them. Her thighs stayed about the same size in Street Fighter III, which also added a lot more panty shots to her sprite set and also added a thong to her outfit. Street Fighter IV has actually pushed her to even more muscularity, and her thighs are downright monstrous.
  - Not to mention the man hands. *shudders*
- Meanwhile, the crossover games keep shifting around: the Capcom vs. SNK games veer for a realistic approach, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has an anime-inspired style, and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom merges realistic and anime designs.
Trauma Center's art style was cartoony and unrealistically proportioned in the first game (even for anime styled artwork), but the subsequent sequels and remakes improved the artwork by a huge margin.
Bubble Bobble: Bub and Bob have basic 8-bit sprites in the original. For Part 2, they only have (color) and white for their sprites but get a simplified outline and a new short square silhouette. Bub and Bob get nicely shaded yet still keep their silhouette for Bubble Symphony. They get brighter shades and get a slimmer silhouette for Bubble Memories, in which by that time they don't have literal-black-line-struck-out eyes upon death anymore — their eyes go missing.
- Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move: The first game follows yet slightly improves the original Bubble Bobble sprites. The second game follows the Bubble Memories' sprite style (as both games were released around the same time). The third game has an Anime style, and the fourth game goes back to the second game's style.
The main artist for the Shin Megami Tensei franchise is Kazuma Kaneko, and has been almost since its earliest era. He used to have a more traditional, generic anime style. Then around the late 90s, the man discovered Adobe Photoshop and dramatically altered his art to the porcelain doll/Brian Molko look that the franchise is usually associated with. You can see this shift at its most dramatic by comparing how a character he drew for the original Persona looks in the first game◊ and Persona 2 after the art change.◊
Space Invaders is quite an odd case. Nowadays, they're usually depicted in their classic pixelated forms◊ (even the UFO◊), but in the Bubble Bobble series they look more like robots◊ (and the UFO became sentient◊). The opening sequence of Amiga version of Super Space Invaders '91 actually manages to feature warped versions of the Bubble Bobble designs◊.
Ken Sugimori of Game Freak is known for his style change over time. It certainly shows in Pokémon in the jump from the second generation to the third. Originally, the artwork had been stiff and lightly shaded, like that of Akira Toriyama. As time went on, Sugimori's style had become more natural and fluid, and more shading has been used. The Pokémon themselves have undergone art shifts over time. Just look at their sprites from the original Red and Green versions (*shudder* horribly deformed Mew), and look as they have changed over time as the series continued.
Shinkiro, a video game artist for SNK and Capcom, has had his style change dramatically overtime. His early work, such as for Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters have some realistic touches but still look hand-drawn for the most part. Later on, his work (for example, the cover for Samurai Shodown II, the SNK-style artwork in the Capcom VS SNK series) became very realistic, while avoiding some details to avoid going into the Uncanny Valley. His current style, seen in Tatsunoko VS Capcom, is a mix of both, almost appearing as cel-shaded. Though early on, it is an evolution in art, he attributes his current style to his preference to draw digitally nowadays. His art is immediately recognizable in all styles, though.
The Sonic The Hedgehog series had an art evolution from their original designs for the Sonic Adventure titles. Amy Rose◊ and Dr. Eggman in particular◊ have changed a lot since◊ the classic games◊.
World Of Warcraft has gotten progressively more stylized since the game first came out in 2004. Early weapons and armor were fairly mundane and realistic, while newer items are larger, more colorful, and more extravagant.
- Until you hit Wrath of the Lich King. While these items are larger, they seem to have turned the trend upside down in terms of coloration and texturing - nearly all Wrath armor is drab (to avoid Clown Suit armor) and textured in a semi-realistic way (Case in Point: that horse you can buy from the argent crusade. It's the direct opposite of the happy, fantasy, colorful paladin mount - drab and gritty).
Since Adventure Quest has been adding new content every week for years and hiring more and more decent artists along the way, the art has changed a lot. There's even a page in the forum-based encyclopedia showing the old versions of monsters that have been redrawn. The differences◊ can be◊ memorable◊.
The Touhou series has the protagonist Reimu Hakurei change a lot over the years. Take a look at her.

Close Video Games

Final Fantasy VII's designs and art style in the original Play Station game are extremely anime-like and cartoony. The recent Compilation games have dumped that for a heavily realistic style. Even when you take into account the loss of those awful polygon characters its still a huge shift. Compare the artwork from 1997◊ to 2007◊.

Web Animation

Web Comics

One example from xkcd comes from Randall's drawings of the Serenity/Firefly crew: from one of his first to a way more recent one.
- Proving (along with The Order of the Stick) that even stick figure art can get better over time.
Compare the first strip of Sequential Art with this callback strip of the same situation. You can't even tell it's the same character.
This got a good Lampshade Hanging in Comedity.
Also got a lampshade in the "Full Circle" arc of Fans! where the heroes encounter themselves from the past. How do we tell the two groups apart? The ones from the past are drawn in the old art style.
SED does this, but it is intentional. The artist believes that the art should grow up with the comic/characters.
A Girl and Her Fed switches from quick sketches to high details and color in just one strip. Check out strip 474 and compare with strip 476. (As an aside, strip 475 is nonexistent for an unknown reason.)
Questionable Content is in a constant state of incremental artistic alteration, as artist Jeph Jacques likes to try out new things and basically use the strip as a means to improve his skills; his motto is, "If you don't like the art, come back next week, it'll probably be different". To see just how drastically his artwork has shifted over time, check out these three strips.
- And it's gone and changed again.
  - And again.
The style of El Goonish Shive has changed drastically over the course of its run. Compare Nanase and Justin in this strip (the redhead, and the blonde guy), and in this strip. (Yes, they are the same characters.)
- Compare this strip from May 22, 2009 as well. Then take a look at the comics directly after for a better idea. And for a while, Shive started doing colour comics regularly. Your Mileage May Vary on whether he's getting better or steadily more generically Animesque.
Zap! is a good example of Art Evolution, in a positive sense. Example: Reona, Issue # 4 vs Reona, issue # 318.
Another very striking example is Wapsi Square, whose initial sketchy art style quickly developed into a much more professional look.
Megatokyo also changed quite a while during its run, with a cartoonish style that gradually becomes more realistic and with a more detailed shading. If you want a reference, compare strips #9, #500 and #1025.
Also compare these Loserz strips: First one, at its artistic height, and a later one when the artist got lazy, apparently.
DMFA is a long-running series, and over time has evolved from being very crudely drawn to being very well drawn as the artist learned how to draw. The artist herself has commented that looking back at her old art is painful.
- This is lampshaded in-universe when Dan is shown a picture of himself from one of the earlier strips and claims it was a bad photo.
  - It's changed even more since that one. Just look at Dan here if you need proof.
In fact, pretty much every long-running webcomic has had some degree of Art Evolution.
Penny Arcade. This is the earliest strip on record. Penny Arcade now. It went from something most moderately talented people could draw to looking better than most animated series. It's like a rift opened up somewhere.
- Hell, as of October 2008 there's a noticeable difference between the drawings in the comic and on the header of the website.
  - What's more, with Lookouts, Automata, and Jim Darkmagic, the artist basically proved that his art can be even better, in many different styles.
- Mac Hall started by emulating then-current Penny Arcade strips. It ended like this. As of it's Spiritual Successor Three Panel Soul, Ian is still getting better.
Gunnerkrigg Court, although its art has always been quite good, has become vastly less stylised (in the perspective and the characters' anatomy) over time. Compare this scene in Chapter 2 with this flashback to the same scene in Chapter 18.
The art style in Misfile has gone from heavily shaded, more straight-line art to a lighter and more rounded look so gradually you never notice the shift while reading it. However, it is quite jarring if you go back and read some earlier panels. Compare this to this
Hero In Training has changed so much that the author has completely re-done the first chapter.
Sluggy Freelance, the first comics of this continuity appear sloppier, and the artist had a less accurate perception of human anatomy.
- Especially egregious in his second strip, where Torg goes from looking 12 in the first panel, 16 in the next, and finally 21 in the last panel. That, and in the first strip, Riff's looking more like a troll than anything else.
- Also, primarily starting with the "Fire and Rain" arc, the format has shifted away from "three pannel strips with a punchline and full-color Sunday" to longer and more dramatic layouts throughout the week. Has a lot to do with the Cerebus Syndrome.
The VG Cats artist has almost completely redesigned the way he draws the two main anthropomorphic cat characters. He has redrawn some of his old comics using his new style.
- pretty much every strip looks slightly different, though there is definitely a pattern. for example, his newer stuff is a lot more animesque then his old stuff, and its pretty obvious that hes relying on his computer a lot more.
Schlock Mercenary. The creator points this out in the annotation to the very first strip, as well as providing what he apparently considers a better starting point for new Schlockers, but invites them to see his art progress from 'bad to, well, marginally less bad' by starting at the beginning.
Adventurers! went from this to this.
- And is lampshaded here.
Ctrl Alt Del had flat, bland illustrations that lacked shading in the beginning. Nowadays, there's more shading, the colors are richer and more vibrant, and the characters stand out on the page more.
The Adventures Of Dr McNinja started out in stark black and white. Then in issue 6, Kent Archer began shading the pages in Photoshop in addition to inking them. In issue 8, a computer problem forced Hastings and Archer to start posting updates without the proper shading. Positive reactions from a vocal portion of the fanbase led Hastings and Archer to run a poll to see if the fans preferred the comic shaded or unshaded. After the results were in, the authors Took A Third Option and hired Carly Monardo to color the comic.
Molten Blade has undergone gradual art evolution... definitely a change for the better
Drow Tales has gone from quite frankly sucky art, to impressive. The early example there is already a huge step up from the original chapter 1 art, it just kept improving.
Earthsong's artwork improved over the years to the extent that the creator completely restarted the comic from the beginning. And, unusually for such endeavours, is still seeing it through.
The Webcomic F@NBOY$ has gone from this to this.
Darken, quite impressively.
The webcomics of John Allison have undergone a lot of evolution, which isn't surprising given that he's been at it for ten years. See Shelley, the red-haired girl in the first ever strip of Bobbins, here in 1998? By 2000 she looked like this, then this, and then Scary Go Round started, with a new artistic direction. Since then, the art has changed from digital to hand-drawn and back again twice. The art's been fairly stable now since 2006, despite a switch from pen and ink (digitally coloured) to hand-drawing on a tablet PC.
Last Resort evolves so rapidly that you can tell when Rachel's worked on other projects between strips thanks to the jumps in quality. Compare this strip drawn in May 2007 to this one from May 2008.
- The characters themselves get a fair bit of evolution as well — The two most obvious examples are Adharia's face (which is slowly becoming more lionlike as opposed to, say, a bear or a wolf) and Jigsaw's eye stripes, which gradually creep further down her face.
UG Madness: Compare this (the first appearance of Dom and Ty and the third comic overall) to this (the last comic, number 471).
Apple Geeks has had numerous changes in art style, most noticeably between #195 and #196, and also now has a recurring alternate artist, for yet another shift.
Over time, Venus Envy has gone from a crudely drawn Animesque style, to a more nicely drawn Animesque style, to its westernized current look.
Khaos Komix has went through an immense evolution, to the point that the author was so displeased with the old ones they rewrote and redrew them. Three times. At the moment, the art style is a bit inconsistent, as the Retcons have been done where there were plot holes, leaving patches of the previous style between newer parts. The old versions are available on download as .zip files.
Chibi Miku-san, as can be seen with the first strip and the remake of it 230 strips later.
Penny And Aggie used to use a cartoonish art style reminiscent of Archie, but gradually moved towards a more realistic style. To put it in perspective, compare the very first strip to this one recreating the same scene.
Starline Hodge's Candi has a documented history in the evolution of its art style, mostly in the fact that the cuteness of facial expressions and the tendency to lead to chibi art has been gradually dropped in favor of more realistic expressions.
Least I Could Do has had significant changes in style over the years. Compare this comic to this one, this one, this one, and this one. The style greatly changed to a more realistic, detailed, and colored one.
- This is, of course, less due to "the artist getting better" and more due to "changing artists several times over the course of the comic."
- The evolution was demonstrated in this strip as a celebration of the 2000th strip. For record, the second from the left was the first known version of the character. It's up to Wild Man Guessing as to who the first guy is.
The art of College Roomies From Hell!!! has gone from "those are supposed to be people?" levels at the beginning, to "damn, I wish I could draw half that well." The six characters in the first comic and the six in the second? Same people. (And yeah, that one guy did pick up a tentacle for a left arm along the way. Just read the comic.)
Girl Genius went from black-and-white to color, and Phil Foglio's skill at anatomy has also improved; for the first couple of years, he was especially prone to making character's heads too small for their bodies (Klaus and Othar were the most common victims) and the occasional giant hands or freakishly long forearms. He's straightened out now, though, and it's one of the best-looking webcomics out there.
- Although there is still the odd slip.
Although Lint [6] is not as popular as some other examples here, the absolutely enormous difference between early, black-and-white, amateurish art such as this can barely be recognized as the gorgeous, textured masterpieces like this. And it's gotten even better if more Bishouneny.
Striptease's evolution is an insane jump from this to this
the artist for Triquetra Cats collected her evolution in this image◊
The Life Of Nob T Mouse went from poorly hand-drawn sketches such as this to a far more rounded, streamlined style including subtle shading and backgrounds, like this.
Similarly, All Over The House has evolved from crude, angular characters in its first few comics to rounded, coloured and shaded characters after only a few months. Compare this first outing to its latest episode.
Averted for all intents and purposes with User Friendly which has gone from this to this in just under 12 years.
In Coming Up Violet the comic has gotten noticeably better in the few short years it's been out. It's predecessor Fur Will Fly had quite a bit of this as well . . . possibly. It was pretty hard to tell considering just how much the art shifted from arc to arc.
- You didn't know that there were at least three different artists?
The Cyantian Chronicles: See the first comic in Campus Safari. Then see the current Akaelae strip. Very different art style, definitely better art quality.
Eight Bit Theater has gone from this to this. It's quite funny to see Art Evolution in a sprite comic of all things.
Sam and Fuzzy then and Sam and Fuzzy now.
PolkOut's improved a bit, as seen here and here.
The Order of the Stick has retained its simple stick-figure art, but it has become somewhat less scratchy and smoother, and the characters occasionally have new details added to them (with Lampshade Hanging, of course). This is a lot more noticeable in the panel lines — they started out all over the place, and now they're completely straight. The sheer detail in the background of panels, even pretty simple ones, has gone up quite a bit as well much of the time.
Here's Summer and Carrie from an early Everyday Heroes page — and a more recent one.
Kagerou shows vast improvement in the time it's been going, and the artist has done an obligatory side-by-side remake page to show it. Although, the remake shown there doesn't quite do justice to Luka's improvement. This does.
There's been considerable art evolution in the Walkyverse, as one might expect over a ten-year run, but it's especially noticeable over the Its Walky run due to large number of flashbacks caused by the Cerebus Retcon.
MSF High: Marginal. Your Mileage May Vary on whether it's good anyway.
Bigger Than Cheeses underwent the biggest Art Evolution this troper has ever seen. Here is the very first strip and here is one of the latest ones. Thankfully, the jokes got better as well.
Lampshaded in Ozy And Millie here with an ArtShift
Acrobat starts off with rough lines and slowly changes to smoother ones.
Narbonic and then Skin Horse. It's most obvious as you look at how Shaenon Garrity does her fills and backgrounds.
'Twokinds. Dear lord Twokinds. It started out looking like something a beginner with only a how to draw manga book as a guide, and current surpasses several professional manga artists. Just compare this this early stripwiththis later one.

Close Web Comics

Western Animation

Rugrats began very crudely drawn, with rather grotesque, angular, exaggerated shapes and muted colors. By the end of the series, it featured smoother lines and more realistic coloring.
Lampshaded in a Stylistic Self Parody in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, in the episode where the characters are doing a Rashomon on how they met. Billy and Grim give wild, fantastic tales, then Mandy summarizes the pilot episode in ten seconds over clips of it, prompting Grim to scoff, "That doesn't even look like us!"
Season 2 of American Dragon Jake Long had a drastic change not only in the character design, but backgrounds as well, giving the show a craggier, edgier look than the more traditional designs of the first season.
The later seasons of Dexter's Laboratory experienced a drastic change in character and background designs, to the point where it lost its cherished Thick Line Animation. This was due to Genndy Tartakovsky and his production team being busy working on Samurai Jack and Clone Wars. One viewer mail commercial break had a child ask about "why Dexter only has one button" and Lenny Baxter from The Powerpuff Girls explained the trope for him. Bugs Bunny's design evolution was brought up for the explanation.
- This was actually done well before the stylistic shift, in response to Dexter going from three buttons to two.
Many classic cartoons have gone through design changes; Mickey Mouse is probably the most famous, but his was rather subtle evolution, being tweaked here and there as animation techniques were being refined, such as giving his eyes movable pupils. A much more obvious design change can be seen in Donald Duck who looked like this◊ when he debuted... a big difference compared to this◊
The Simpsons has lampshaded its art evolution since the Tracey Ullman Show shorts a few times. In the episode "Lisa's Sax", the early shorts are described as "crudely-drawn filler material". These shorts were so poor because Matt Groening quickly sketched his character designs to serve as inspiration for the animators, but they copied the designs exactly.
- And this trope also applies to the first season, in which the art style is noticeably cruder and less polished than later episodes. In fact, the animation has fairly consistently improved over time as this troper, who missed out on most of the recent seasons for one reason or another, can really see the difference between new episodes and the classics with which he is more familiar.
- The standards of art and design in The Simpsons were mostly tied to the budget. The initial animation team consisted of two men: Matt Groening (of course) and Barry Lineweaver (professional animator, brought in because Groening had no professional animation experience). As the series progressed, and ratings remained high, the budget, the team, and its capabilities increased. When the Tracy Ullman Show finished, Fox wanted to spin off The Simpsons as a half-hour programme series, and asked Groening to make a pilot. Not wanting to go to the effort of making a pilot, which might be shelved without ever being aired, Groening refused. If the Fox executives wouldn't approve a full season based on past performance, he said, he would rather leave them and go back to his popular Life in Hell strip. In the end, they compromised, agreeing on a half-length season of 13 episodes. When this season had aired with ratings success, they got a full budget for a full second season and were able to improve the animation qualify and spend time firming up the designs.
Shows like King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead have a large change in art quality from early episodes to later episodes. King of the Hill is the best example that I can think of at this moment. The pilot is crudely drawn and looks very dated. There is some improvement as the Season 1 goes on, but the change overall in how the series looks through out the show improves later on.
Another show that the change is quite obvious is Family Guy. Early episodes are still fun to watch but are not as great looking as they used to be. Later on in the series the quality improves and looks great.
Batman The Animated Series had very full and weighty character designs and animation. When it was Un Canceled the designers wanted to modify a lot of the designs for several reasons: the weightier designs were more difficult to animate, improve design "mistakes" in their opinion, simpler designs made the emotional actions clearer. Many fans didn't like the relatively "blander" designs, but mostly the new Joker. (Even the creators acknowledge it didn't turn out the way they wanted, it looked good on paper but not animated, and lacked the deep redness of the lips that gives him such a manic grin). This said, some, like Scarecrow's new nightmarish appearance, and Penguin's less Burton-nesque revamp came out okay. A good discussion of the changes can be found here.
- For purposes of more illustration, take a look. The same villain (Baby-Doll) as seen in TAS◊ and in New Adventures◊.
- With Batman Beyond and even more so in the Justice League, the Timmverse got it's final revamp. While the BTAS era had every character given a weighty look and the STAS era gave everyone a sleek look, the third revamp added more lines. The best example of the changes would be the Joker, though, as he was present in all three eras and was wearing the same clothes, for the most part. In the BTAS era he had a rounded face and detailed features. In the STAS era he was drawn very basiclyly with few lines. Even his eyes were simplified and his mouth became simple curves. In the JL era he got more lines and a face more similar to the BTAS version, but with the sharper lines and details (not to mention red irises in his eyes.
  - Batman is a good guide as well. Here are three images, from BTAS◊, the New Adventures of Batman◊ and the Justice League◊. Notice how the inner legin the NAB one is represented by a single curved line, while in the JL one there is a distinction between thigh and calf, and in the BTAS one both the thigh and calf have curved lines. And note the differences in the gauntlets. In the NAB one they are drawn in a single zigzag, and in the JL one each is it's own defined curve.
South Park: It began with "only show people from cardinal directions," and everyone pretty much shuffled around, never moving their legs. Although the art style has remained identical, now they can show a fairly wide range of movement. What's even more surprising is the fact that they can still make them in a couple days, due to switching from trying to "animate" static paper cut-outs to actual animations on Maya, one of the most powerful 3D animation programs in existence.
- The show itself has acknowledged this a couple times:
  - "Free Hat": Not in the plot itself, but features a fake commercial for a "digitally remastered" version of "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" (the first episode), also featuring a Conspicuous CG spaceship and aliens, plot changes, and Imperial Walkers in the background (the whole thing is a parody of the Star Wars remakes).
  - "A Very Crappy Christmas": One of the subplots features the kids making a cartoon about Christmas. They base the characters on themselves and do all the animation in construction paper. We never see most of the cartoon, except for a few clips; the most loyal fans will recognize the clips because it's lifted straight from "The Spirit of Christmas," an early short from before South Park was even a show. Outlined in the other wiki.
- The recent episode "Breast Cancer Show Ever" surprised this troper when Cartman bent over into his mother's lap and cried. "Holy crap, I can see the top of his head! And he's actually bending!"
- And compare the way animals looked in season 1 now compare how they look in season 11, quite a difference the animals of the earlier seasons looked very cartoony and in the later seasons they look very realistic and lifelike.
Chaotic: The first season is animated in flash; this was an awkward style to some people. Then the second season was more like Afro Samurai with the colors of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Home Movies stopped using Squigglevision after its first season, and switched to a much more fluid Flash animation style from there on out.
The Backyardigans' five-kid-cast got improved with Season 2. You can barely notice any change on Uniqua, and it's more noticeable on Austin (who looks nothing like he did during the first season. Take a look.
Teen Titans originally looked quite angular and cartoon-y, with simple backgrounds and rather basic coloring. It kept the same basic style, but subtly evolved to have smoother lines, much more detail, and more natural coloring.
Chowder had completely different designs in the first episode, "Froggy Apple Crumble Thumkin". Mung had bigger ears and a smaller nose and eyes, Shnitzel has smaller eyes, and Chowder had a smaller face. In newer episodes, Mung has a bigger head and Chowder is thinner and has bigger eyes.
Megas XLR has noticable different in art-style from the pilot. This becomes obvious in the first episode, which used footage from the pilot. For instance, the white of Coop's eyes keep appearing and disappearing.
Most of the characters (usually the main teenagers) from Danny Phantom started off looking like stick figures and in certain episodes, loose and gangly. Later, they gain thicker muscles and retain a more solid structure, sometimes to the point of stiffness.
- Not to mention the better and improved fight scenes in Season Three. The previous two seasons often showed basic punches and Ecto Rays with an irritating overuse of onomatopoeia comic book-ish freeze frame. Season Three made it better by reducing the last and bumping the others; the results are often surprisingly fast and fluid.
Mainframe Entertainment improved their hardware several times, and the results were noticeable between season of their various shows.
- In ReBoot, one hardware upgrade in mid-season two allowed for much more variety of motion then they had before. Season three showed another upgrade with much more texture like eyelashes, partially because it wasn't produced until a year and a half after season two ended. Season four was the Un Canceled season three years later and the characters had a much greater sense of weight.
- Beast Wars had a major jump at the beginning of season two, with the introduction of the "transmetals" the robotic appearances looked better then ever. Beast Machines featured some amazing and lush explosion effects as well as a decent range of emotion from at least one character that did not have a face.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The animation quality steadily ramped up throughout the first season, and the trend seems to be continuing through the second.
Venture Brothers subtly but noticeably steps up the animation at the beginning of each new season.

Close Western Animation

Artistic Expression

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