Via Mike’s website
It’s a tough question that’s not too easy to answer straight off the bat. So let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages and compare them at the end, OK?
Having you own particular style of animation can have many advantages. Although it may sound tough to be unique in a market filled to the brim with creativity, there are always ways to make your own mark. A unique style can serve as a fantastic calling card. For example, look at the picture below. Can you tell who drew it? I bet you can.
It is of course, Bill Plympton. His pencilly style is known throughout the animation world and beyond. The same goes for the likes of Bruce Timm, Matt Groening, John Kricfalusi, David OReilly, etc. etc.
Besides being instantly recogniseable, a particular style can serve you well in your films as well. Arguably Bruce Timm’s style of hard edges and stylized characters and backgrounds served the original Batman: The Animated Series very well and played a significant role in that TV show’s success.
The same goes for the likes of South Park. Yes, it is incredibly crude, but it suits the incredibly crude nature of the show and after so many seasons, it is impossible to imagine it any other way.
Is there anything else a certain style can help you out with? How about merchandising? It’s something that is not necessarily at the forefront of your mind when you create a TV show is it? Or is it? Did you know that Chowder creator C. H. Greenblatt supposedly designed Chowder with a plush toy in mind?
Via: Wikia.com
Forget the fact that Cartoon Network never took up the opportunity but think about how easy it would be to turn the round little guy into a toy. Chowder is not a toyetic show in the traditional sense, but it style does lend itself quite well to marketing.
Now the bad news. Can a style hurt your career? Sure, it is easy to become typecast into a particular style although a lot of the time, this could be due to a multitude of other reasons besides the style of your work alone.
In fact, if you think about all the poor animated films out there, the style normally doesn’t even factor into it. Why? Well for one, a lot of poor films attempt to copy successful styles and appear as such, and secondly there are usually even bigger problems with the likes of the story or script that overshadow the style.
As an animator, it is these problems that will be the ones you will have to watch more so than your style. Having said that, there are still plenty of opportunities to go wrong, especially in the are of character design. An area where many non-Disney animated films seemed to fall short (at least according to my mother).
The second danger with having a strong style is that it may go out of fashion. A great example are the fantastic Cartoon Modern TV shows and films put out in the 1950s and early 60s. As fantastic looking as these shorts are now, they apparently could not stay in style forever and by the end of the 1960s, it was extinct in the mainstream.
This is not fault of its own, just the whims of consumer taste. Just bear in mind that if you have a very strong, contemporary feel to your style, you should be prepared to adapt a new one at some point.
Overall, the reasons for adopting your own style far outweigh the disadvantages. Signs of uniqueness and individualism can go a long way in the creative arts (just ask Andy Warhol or Georgia O’Keefe). In animation, developing a particular style should be a priority when it comes to your personal films or indeed your creative pitches to others.
What are your thoughts on a unique animation style?
A specific style is something that has always miffed me.
I used to think that style was however you naturally approached something (and that’s true in some cases), until I read Dave Levy’s first book, and he stated that it was more beneficial to experiment with looks than to try and defend a bad drawing.
As an individual artist, having a unique style can be beneficial, but I think its crucial that the artist not look into his/her own style too much. Or try to recognize it at least. Artists need to experiment, and whatever the experiment will be, it will always have their stamp on it, whether or not they are copying a previous look or developing a new one.
Deliberately trying to develop a style is not an easy thing to do. Most style come out of how one naturally approaches their technique. Artists usually strive to handle more than one medium, and in terms of animation artists, its the same thing with drawing/modeling styles. They will try new things all the time, but it will always bear a certain stamp based on their own hands.
Thanks for the comment Emmett 🙂
Yes, artists shouldn’t become to enamoured with their own particular style. it’s all to easy to view it in a very narcissist way to the detriment of your own personal development. Even those animators with a strong style are constantly changing and I am still surprised when I notice such an animator on a project that is decidedly different from their usual style.