We talk shit on the politics and writing of zombie Simpsons, but what really activates my autism in particular is the character design of zombie Simpsons.
We talk shit on the politics and writing of zombie Simpsons...
Brayden Kelly
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Chase Baker
Point one, they simply don't look like characters from The Simpsons.
Juxtaposed next to the simplicity and funk of a Homer, Nelson, or Moe they look like god damned martians.
All the OG designs were built to be easily animated and easily recognized. Most dresses are a single color, boys in tshirts and shorts, but it fucking works.
And they're funny looking, they're these really dopey looking kids that kind of inspire humor from their pug noses or beady eyes. I think designers really started losing their way in the oughties when they started tailoring designs to look nice for celebrity guests- you can chart as time slides on how cameos look less like simpsons and more like flattering caricatures. Monorail- Leonard Nemoy has a huge honking beak of a nose, squinted eyes but not creepy semi-real egg eyes. We start seeing things creep away from the style as early as When You Dish Upon A Star(98), and by New Kids on the Blech (01) we were into the era of unsettling attempts to realistically portray the celebrity guests. The wheel of time turns and we reach a point where Simpsons will willfully omit features that exist in the real-life celebrities if they aren't "nice", we get a thin Ricky Gervais with hair, and Lady Gaga with a button nose, Anthony Bordain not looking like a crumpled brown paper bag. And then this cutesy new style is applied to all random new characters- Comic Book Guy's wife, rando background characters, etc. It just looks wrong, it's not funny or charming, it smacks of soulessness.
Hudson Nguyen
Point two, they don't even look like the things they're supposed to portray. I don't know how old these character designers are, I don't know if they actually go outside. They're putting out "cool feminist girls" whose designs have all the subtly and respect of a stonetoss comic. They still put fucking trilbies and suspenders on pop culture geeks. It's like they refuse to do a bit of research and pull designs from the collective baby boomer consciousness's ass. If you want to design teenage activists, try to pull from reality's modern teenage activists- Newspapers all publish huge crowd shots of protests, scan through that for inspiration. You might see shaved heads, like on Emma Gonzales, you might see a kid's who surprisingly old-fashioned in her grooming and clothes, like Greta Thunberg, You'll see porky bespectacled kids, and you'll see some dyed or streaked hair. I promise you you won't find a black girl with totally straight liberty spikes that have a brown/traffic cone orange gradient, because that's a bad hairstyle that's thankfully impossible. You don't need to stack up every single signifier of "x" subculture on a character to designate them as that thing, you can just throw in one or two little pieces- a haircut, a pair of glasses, a shirt, a piercing. Keep it simple stupid.
Landon Bell
Which brings me to point three- they're fucking over designed! Switching to flash catered to Matt's terrible animation preferences and probably seemed like a boon to designers. Now, they could elaborate, make detailed designs, fill episodes with variant costumes, etc etc, but look at this shit. Look at all the random shit tossed in in random colors that tells you fucking nothing. Random visual static tossed on. It's a mess.
Leo Diaz
This has happened to South Park too. New characters are way more detailed than old ones and it sticks out.
Jordan Collins
They don't use Flash, the stuff is still drawn by hand.
Joshua Rodriguez
It does stick out.
At least they're still the right "shape" for SP characters, if Trey and Matt started giving them necks I'd lose my shit.
Nolan Gonzalez
not a good example
goths are supposed to have an obnoxious amount of shit on them at all times
Blake Wilson
What bothers me about SP is that almost any animal drawn in the show now is completely realistic, while crude and simple animals like the cows or Mr. Kitty still exist.
Evan Campbell
>goths
>saying that picture is of goths
You take that back
Sebastian Powell
You almost had a point until here when you failed to consider that this art style might be a deliberate one and it's conceivable that "cool feminist girls" in the Simpsons universe could look like that. I mean, cartoons are supposed to exaggerate reality a little bit and it could hardly be weirder that characters with eyes like ping pong balls and huge columns of blue hair that defy gravity.
Luke Rivera
I do agree the characters are over-designed and look out of place next to Bart or whatever.
David Hughes
>Switching to flash catered to Matt's terrible animation preferences and probably seemed like a boon to designers
From what I understand, Groening really had nothing to do with that and it was mandated by Fox to save on money.
Charles Russell
It's too clean, too sanitized.
Isaac Bailey
Alright, how about another example? Compare PC Principal's head and facial features to Randy's.
Grayson Peterson
Marge's hair is a stylization of the bouffant- a real hairstyle. Using it signified her personality as being vaguely anachronistic, she was a fussy and "uncool" mother figure.
Liberty spikes were a punk symbol of the eighties and nineties, a girl wearing her hair like that in 2019 would probably mean she was a weirdo nostalgia girl with an admiration for the older punk scene- her politics and personality would probably follow that route and she'd be an edgelord and pretty socially retarded.
The features you give a character should mean something, the features you give a character should have research and thought put into them.
Noah Jackson
They’re going to molest him, aren’t they?
A-asking for a friend
Charles Wright
I don't like PC Principal's design, way too much detail.
Luke Morgan
>there's no planet B
they really believe 1C per century will make the planet explode or something?
Daniel Reed
When a series runs for so long, it may lose the most defining artists and animators that worked on it during the "golden" years. What you say is a bit overtextualized but it's true, modern new characters Simpsons designs don't really follow the same art direction early seasons Simpsons did. But I wouldn't say it's the most negative aspect of it, considering that many characters they made during the golden era have the same thing. Someone like Principal Skinner has much more "detail" compared to your Homar or Bort.
It's also because of guests being so common, they had to go for a more "detailed" style that still somehow fit within the series but also makes said guests recognizable. But I'd argue that the moment The Simpsons started licking these guests' butts it started getting worse.
Kayden Thompson
PC Principal is good character tho.
Brody Collins
I think they argue that the planet will become unlivabley shitty.
Colton Jenkins
I agree I'm just talking about his design which is out of place.
Aiden Lopez
Character is one thing, character design is another.
Here's probably the best example of what OP is arguing that I can think of:
>the episode with Matt Damon
William Hill
For comparison:
>the episode with Mister Rogers
Gabriel Johnson
That's horrifying
Jack Wood
Alternatively:
>the episode with Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua Redman
Samuel Thompson
Ethan Wilson
>guest star is named Matt
>make him an aardvark instead of a cat
reeee
Logan Hall
I don't see many people take notice of this, but I agree. The level of detail for backgrounds also changed. While I'm used to current South Park, I miss how simple it looked from the older seasons.
I liked some of the newer Simpsons women. Jenny is one of them. Shauna and Nikki are more examples.
Asher Taylor
Simplify the accessories and it's okay for nu-simpsons
Landon Evans
Lincoln Sullivan
SOUL
William Allen
Meant to post this with the picture. These aren’t that different from season 3 designs from decades ago. If I have any complaint it’s that I miss how ugly the characters used to be.
Jaxson Adams
Never understood that Nikki
Henry Foster
this isn't so bad compared to other stuff. still looks sort of sterile though
Camden White
>outfit color scheme of three colors
>look like teens from the era
Yes, that's a good example of how it could have been done competently.
Easton Richardson
god, bart looks so fucking out of place next to new age simpsons characters
new characters have clothes and colors and shit. bart is still wearing the same fucking shit from 30 years ago and even THEN it was boring.
not even a 90s design or 80s. just lazy.
Levi Wilson
Anyone else notice that all of these new Simpsons designs have big heads? Like, disproportionately big?
Carter Harris
that's true
Eli Bennett
PC Principal is suppose to be over detailed, he’s meant to represent a massive douchebag who also has a good side. I can see your point if all background characters looked like him.
Nathaniel Adams
Jason Gray
staging
no staging
Gabriel Wright
South Park backgrounds look great though
Eli Ortiz
Hahahahahahaha
NO!
Elijah Hernandez
As a CO fag I appreciate them, it's neat to see our state's representative show display how fucking pretty we are.
I do think the super gorgeous bgs should be used sparingly though.
Aiden White
Sorry but to me this sounds as weird as Yea Forums's "forced animation" meme. A 20-year-old show naturally gets better visuals at some point. The backgrounds now represent the characters more and they still fit in with the rest of the visuals.
Henry Kelly
I mostly was talking about the outside bgs, like you can see how a lot of action in front of could be distracting or visually confusing.
I really fucking like how M&T design interiors with such care and love, their characters really come through in the living spaces they design.
Colton Morgan
South Park background designers are CalArts students so Yea Forums should be against them by default.
Angel Rogers
>not being reasonable and recognizing a school as just a school
I mean, it's a bit overpriced, but that comes with the territory of being a private arts university.
And in my experience, people who go into designing for less flashy shit are more tolerable, so background artists are probably just better and more likeable than students of writing and character design.
John Diaz
It's a lot easier to just say the creators are too out of touch
Ryan Torres
The 2D puppets are drawn by hand, then animated with a puppet rig.
Kevin Gomez
What about Otto being an 80s metal fan, Skinner being a POW in Vietnam, or Disco Stu around in 2019?
James Bennett
And I think the exact same of South Park as I do Simpsons, it needs to fucking end before there is a decade of shit that is just awful.
Angel Parker
You've got me there.
I wonder if it would be better or worse if these archetypes moved forward in time.
Ska Stu? Iraqi vet Skinner? Brvtal Otto?
Charles Robinson
>Pink haired girl
>Only one side of her head is shaven off
Anthony Myers
CURSED IMAGE
Levi Walker
And I agree with that. It's amazing how far the show has come, but I did like the older style, too.
Jaxson Robinson
>Otto is now a 00s era New Metal fan with Linkin Park shirts and sings Korn and Papa Roach lrics
>Skinner is an Afghan War vet
>Rudeboy Stu is super into classic punk and hates Avril Lavigne
Dominic Harris
>Rudeboy Stu
OY OY OY OY
Hudson James
>Jenny is one of them
Zzzzz...
Caleb James
What a nice group of boys.
Henry Wilson
so you're saying the original designs are in the wrong?
Nathaniel Nguyen
Counterpoint
Jordan Stewart
The one in the purple dress in OP could be a good Simpsons design if they took away everything but the dress and sneakers.
Alexander Rodriguez
This is Yea Forums. Admit you also would prefer to get rid of the dress.
Luis Jackson
This looks like some Deviantart shit
Brayden Brown
When Stephen Jay Gould was in the Simpsons, he had blue hair from what I recall. Not because he dyed it like in the OP pic but because that was a natural hair color for some Simpsons characters like Bart and Lisa having skin colored hair.
Nicholas Smith
That's par for the course for 'totes badass!!! xD' female designs. Both sides shaven is on male characters.
Tyler Howard
in fairness i think he was meant to seem out of place
Jaxon Bennett
Kind of a grey-blue, but pretty simpson-ish overall.
Caleb White
Shitty episode anyway.
Gabriel Richardson
One of those
>let's turn Marge into a religious fundie"
episodes
Colton Perez
This is just grey for me
Ayden Hughes
remember the episode where homer didnt want to go to church and everyone was outraged? we've come so far
>lisa cant convince marge to stop blindly following her faith
>marge's position was sensible at the time
sometimes i forget that everyone used to be unironically religious and stuff like pokemon would be banned at home or schools for religious reasons
>tfw now only old people and retards are religious but feminists and the alt left have taken the mantle of censorship and ban the same shit but for different reasons
Tyler Sanchez
It's not just the designs, the way of how they're colored now it's just weird
This is a lot easier to the eye
I can't point out why but the yellow skin in nusimpsons disgust me.
Joseph Peterson
Remember when getting R rated movies was the closest to see a real boob?
Matthew Long
Is the pink haired girl supposed to be Asian? Also another weird thing with the newer designs is that now everyone's eyes are more oval or almond shaped instead of the classic perfectly round eyeballs
Daniel Perry
no, projections state that by 2016 New York and the coastlines will be underwater
Adam Long
She's the modern version of Milhouse's girlfriend... in fact the plots are similar.
Leo Wright
It's all animated in Korea so it's not that surprising.
Elijah Cox
I hate the new simpsons cheekbones.
Josiah Parker
It's ToonBoom, not Flash, user. Similar principles, but Flash is more limiting.
Robert Sanchez
See though, South Park still uses simplified designs most of the time (example- despite the detailed bulbous brain, Jeff Bezos still has an overly simplified face and clothing like the others). And it can go both ways- many of the many cast, even Randy, can get as overly detailed as the style can allow. PC is the outlier, and it's obvious that was intentional.
The Simpsons just disregard it. And honestly, has been since they started having guest star characters look like their actors- even Nimoy and Hoffman still look a little out of place compared to Homer or Moe.
Sebastian Perry
Sneed
Lucas Russell
bless this post.
Nicholas Sullivan
white apu spotted
Lincoln Flores
>Also another weird thing with the newer designs is that now everyone's eyes are more oval or almond shaped
What? They've always done that. It's a stock animation design everyone learns in school.
Julian Adams
could've made him less detailed.
Robert Martin
>tfw they explain that Apu was so offensive because of an Armin Tanzarian mix up after Snake’s white business partner shot Apu accidentally and out of shame took his place
Gabriel Phillips
Parker Sullivan
Remove the unnecessary complications from the dress and she almost looks like a good old fashioned simpsons character
Hudson Davis
I hated this character, I really did.
Luke Torres
Or more correctly, it was just because Groening's mother had a haircut like that.
Hudson Fisher
But this looks like its from an older episode than the Matt Damon one.
Here's this gem from one of the more recent seasons.
Charles Evans
Another screenshot
Leo Russell
Kevin Gonzalez
I like her design, I don't like or
Brandon Bailey
Finally someone with more autism than I do explained this in a perfectly understandable way.
They hire such talented artists to work on the show yet they churn out such ugly work it's baffling. Somehow, one of the guys who works on the show manages to make the artstyle in HD look so much better with minor adjustments (see pic).
Andrew Hughes
I suspect it's network mandates. There was one Simpsons animator who said for a while Fox very sternly forbade them to go more than a fraction of a centimeter off model.
Joseph Wilson
I think it was the same guy although Matt also has that autistic obsession with keeping everything look 100% on-model at all times.
But I dunno, even pushing that aside the art is just so fucking boring. The staging and blocking are so bland and they barely even attempt to portray characters from anything from 3/4th, which I would at least kind of understand considering how weird the Simpsons designs work in 3D if it wasn't for the original 8 seasons having the characters be portrayed from other angles all the time, even if they looked weird at times.
Aiden Ramirez
This was I understand done to save money because the show honestly is not making the kind of cash it once did.
Levi Anderson
Offmodel animation doesn't necessarily cost more, hell good animation doesn't even have to necessarily cost more. They already have a lot of talented people working on The Simpsons, I know because I've looked around a lot, they're just not allowed to actually animate the characters. But Fox probably wouldn't know that I suppose.
Jaxson Cox
Are you talking about this link, or has it been discussed elsewhere too?
deviantart.com
Jordan Myers
That's probably a given when the voice actors' salaries eat 60% of the budget.
Owen Mitchell
Well that on top of ad revenues and merch sales being nowhere near what they were in the past. They also cut the run time of episodes to 20 minutes to reduce expenses.
Caleb Clark
user everyone is still unironically religious.
...Its just not Christianity anymore its Muslims and Jews who get the spotlight now. Notice how the left will shit on Christianity all day but won't lay a finger on Islam?
Jordan Taylor
Justin White
>a girl wearing her hair like that in 2019 would probably mean she was a weirdo nostalgia girl with an admiration for the older punk scene- her politics and personality would probably follow that route and she'd be an edgelord and pretty socially retarded.
giving way too much credit for a baby boomer drawing what they think of a SJW feminist
Nicholas Murphy
>giving way too much credit for a baby boomer drawing what
This boomer energy drink man meme garbage is getting old.
Blake Bailey
a lot of this detail shit is probably happening due to the shift to 4k
for example 4k ducktales has that false comic look and it looks great in 4k since you can see the paper texture
south park could probably go to a quasi faked construction paper look with it
Cooper Martin
they're not goths
Nathaniel Hill
why would you do it in a kids show when kids aren't going to care or remember a face?
Jason Garcia
simpsons should just do that think where every season its loosely a different style on purpose
Anthony Reed
That would require effort.
Luke Reed
I mean actual baby boomers not your dumbass calling millenials baby boomers
your parents (actually you're probably gen z so your grandparens ((cringe)) )
Joshua Roberts
^This.