History Main / InconsistentColoring

** Ariel's sisters all have blue eyes like she does in the original film, but in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIIArielsBeginning'', their eyes are assorted shades of blue, green, and brown.

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': The early games went back and forth on what colour Samus's hair was supposed to be. In the [[VideoGame/Metroid1 NES original]], it was a dark brown shade that, as a concession to NES palette limitations, changed to bright neon green upon collecting the Varia Suit. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' made her a very light brunette, verging on a dirty blonde. ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' onward settled on a bight yellow-blonde seen to this day (and applied retroactively in UpdatedRerelease ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'').

** In his debut appearance, Slappy was colored yellow. On ''WesternAnimation/ThePatrickStarShow'' and a few season 13 episodes[[labelnote:Which?]]"There Will Be Grease", "My Friend Patty", "FUN-Believable"[[/labelnote]], he's colored blue. In "Squidferatu" and "Slappy Daze", he's colored a pale shade of green. This became a MythologyGag later on the ''Patrick Show'', where Slappy's DistaffCounterpart uses his original color scheme.

* ''Fanfic/EverythingTurnsToGold'': Jimmy's eyes are described to be "bright green" and blue, respectively, in back-to-back chapters. For the record, his canonical counterpart has ''[[AdaptationDyeJob brown]]'' eyes.

* Aurora has ''three'' eye colors in ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'': Brown eyes, purple eyes, and even black eyes. In at least one scene she changed between the three. ''Franchise/DisneyPrincess'' merchandise portrays her consistently with purple eyes, making her the only princess with an unnatural eye color. Rereleases have fixed the film so that her eyes are more obviously purple. (Her dress also changes back and forth between blue and pink, but there's an [[AWizardDidIt in-universe reason for that]].)

* In “Homie the Clown”, Chief Wiggum has his black hair from the first two seasons, instead of his later blue hair.

** Boris' eyes were [[RedEyesTakeWarming red]] in the earliest episodes.

* The render model used for Princess Peach's artwork in ''VideoGame/SuperMairoRPG'' has her dress in two shades of purple while her in game sprite has her dress colored pink.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' has a very peculiar situation with Frenzy and Rumble, the two humanoid Decepticon mini-cassettes. In the original toyline, Frenzy was blue and Rumble was red and black. In [[WesternAnimation/TheTransformers the cartoon]], however, Frenzy was given Rumble's red and black coloring, while Rumble was blue and purple. Most of the subsequent adaptation followed the toy colorations (albeit Frenzy is sometimes given the cartoon Rumble's purple accents), with only a few cases following the cartoon colors. This was actually lampshaded by Hasbro a few times, such as when in the ''Toys/TransformersWarForCybertron'' line they first released a Rumble figure and later on a Frenzy redeco of it whose official description actually claims "It's up to you to decide which one is the red or blue".

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'', Nala's eyes can be seen as changing from blue to green. In ''Literature/TheLionKingSixNewAdventures'', her eyes are gold. In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'', her eyes are an electric blue. In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingOneAndAHalf'', her eyes are green. They are back to blue in ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard''. Whew.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'', Mulan's armor is mostly seen as green but also as blue and brown later in the movie.
* Aurora has ''three'' eye colors in ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'': Brown eyes, purple eyes, and even black eyes. In at least one scene she changed between the three. ''Franchise/DisneyPrincess'' merchandise portrays her consistently with purple eyes, making her the only princess with an unnatural eye color. Rereleases have fixed the film so that her eyes are more obviously purple. (Her dress also changes back and forth between blue and pink, but there's an [[AWizardDidIt in-universe reason for that]].)

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'':
** Sebastian's sclerae are colored white in the film, but they're yellow in all print media.
** Ursula's [[AmazingTechnicolorPopulation skin colour]] is lavender purple (with a greyish hue) in the original movie. In promotional material and later portrayals (as in '' WesternAnimation/MickeysHouseOfVillains'' and ''WesternAnimation/HerculesTheAnimatedSeries''), it appears brighter and closer to fuchsia. Conversely, her model skin in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' goes the opposite direction with a dark-purple hue.
** Ariel's sisters all have blue eyes like she does in the original film, but in ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIIArielsBeginning'', their eyes are assorted shades of blue, green, and brown.

** Throughout the 40s and 50s, WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}}'s body is either black or flesh-colored, sometimes in the same cartoon.

* Rocky in ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' has a Y-shaped nose in the original series. In all subsequent media, merchandise, and promotional art, his nose is a black dot.

** In issue #13 of Marvel's ''WesternAnimation/LaffALympics'', Dick Dastardly's trench coat is colored exactly like Dread Baron's (it adds since the story tells that they're brothers) while Muttley is colored identical to Mumbly--light blue face, orange fur (Mumbly's trench coat is orange).

* ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'': The early games went back and forth on what colour Samus's hair was supposed to be. In the [[VideoGame/{{Metroid}} NES original]], it was a dark brown shade that, as a concession to NES palette limitations, changed to bright neon green upon collecting the Varia Suit. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'' made her a very light brunette, verging on a dirty blonde. ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' onward settled on a bight yellow-blonde seen to this day (and applied retroactively in UpdatedRerelease ''VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission'').

* In ''VisualNovel/DoubleHomework'', Lauren’s hair darkens as the story moves on.
* In ''VisualNovel/{{Melody}}'', Bethany’s hair appears darker in later episodes, when she tracks the protagonist down and tries to get him to come back, than in the introduction, when she is kicking him out of the house.

* ''ComicBook/MonicasGang'': Before Jimmy Five's outfit was estabilished as being a green shirt and black shorts, they were colored yellow and red respectively in some merchandise.
** Franklin's pet dog, Blu, also used to have grey fur before swithing to blue for the rest of the series. One has to wonder if his English name would've been different if he kept the grey fur.
** Monica's stuffed rabbit Sansom is an interesting case. He was based off the creator's daughter's own stuffed rabbit, who was yellow. When it was time for the characters to be colored, Sansom was colored blue, and has remained as such since, including in official colorations of old strips. However, his classic colors were recently retconned so now colorations show him as yellow like his real life inspiration. What's more bizarre? They further retconned his old yellow self so he's now an entirely separate CompanionCube named Hercules. Go figure.

* In some ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' color Sunday strips, Charlie Brown's trademark yellow shirt is a dark red, or green, or something else. The same applies to the other kids’ outfits too: Lucy’s dress is sometimes yellow instead of its familiar dark blue, Sally’s dress is sometimes pink instead of sky blue, etc.

** In the original film, Cinderella has strawberry blonde hair (although it was light blonde when she was a child) and her ball gown is silver with white accents (although when she dances with the prince at the ball, the lighting makes it briefly look blue). In all print media, she has light blonde hair and her gown is blue with lighter blue accents. The first sequel also lightens her hair, though the third film brings back its original color.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grey_hulk.png]]]]

** Ino from ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' has been depicted with both blue eyes and green eyes in the manga, though she's usually green eyed. The anime uses tourqoise.
** Boruto has purple eyes in ''Anime/TheLastNarutoTheMovie'' but blue elsewhere.

** In chapter 500 Mirai has reddish-brown eyes. In ''Naruto'' she has either brown eyes or red eyes. In the ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'' anime she has red eyes.

* {{Exaggerated|Trope}} in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', as part of its general... [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs bizarreness]]. Whenever color is used (most notably in the anime adaptation), characters are known to change color schemes multiple times ''[[ArtShift within the same scene]]'', usually but not always for dramatic emphasis.

** Tails' fur is various shades of orange, yellowish orange, and red. Some early non-Japanese media even portrayed him as burnt orange and red. His fur is highlighter yellow in ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', which is why the color yellow is sometimes associated with him and with flying characters in general; ''VideoGame/SonicRiders'' gives Tails a board called the "Yellow Tail", but gives his fur an orange tint. Tails' fur was described as "fox brown" in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' but has since become "yellow-orange".

** Incidental fish vary colors a ''lot'', mostly due to coloring errors. For instance, Fred is usually [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/spongebob/images/2/27/One_Trick_Sponge_121.png/revision/latest?cb=20200411103341 brown]], but it's not that rare to see him in [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/spongebob/images/7/76/Whirly_Brains_118.png/revision/latest?cb=20230110031242 blue]] or [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/spongebob/images/d/d8/Big_Sister_Sam_093.png/revision/latest?cb=20211209191748 green]].

** In his debut appearance, Slappy was colored yellow. On ''WesternAnimation/ThePatrickStarShow'' and "There Will Be Grease", he's colored blue. In "Squidferatu" and "Slappy Daze", he's colored a pale shade of green. This became a DevelopmentGag later on the ''Patrick Show'', where Slappy's DistaffCounterpart uses his original color scheme.
** In "New Leaf", the inside of Plankton's mouth is noticably purple instead of dark red.