Question: On-Model / Off-Model

[wrestling_stat]

On the Little Mermaid III topic we are discussing the animation of the third movie and one of the terms that kept coming up are on-model or off-model. My question is: How do we know who is off model? I don't understand that whole talk of "off-model". Could someone explain it to me? And if possible maybe post pictures of what you guys mean. Thank you guys so much.

And please leave this topic open for telling peope what on/off model means, and don't aruge if one person is correct or not correct for a certain character. Thanks.

~Wrestling Stat

[Someday...]

if it looks off model it generally doesnt look right, or it doesn't look like the character did in the first movie (whatever)

[Escapay]

When a film reaches its animation stages, the supervising animators aren't necessarily animating every single scene with the character they developed. For example, Glen Keane was supervising animator for Ariel in The Little Mermaid, but he didn't necessarily do all the pencil animation for Ariel. What the supervising animators do is create "model sheets" for other animators to work off of. The model sheets feature various facial expressions, body positions, full-body poses, height comparisons to other characters, and close-ups. These model sheets are used as reference guides for animators (who are not necessarily the supervising animator), in order to have the character look consistently "on-model" throughout the entire film.

So while more than one animator may be animating a character like, say, Pocahontas, they will all draw her the same way, and it's up to the supervising animator to "yay" or "nay" the animation he/she has seen, as well as add their own (I believe John Pomeroy did the all the John Smith animation during "If I Never Knew You", he was the supervising animator on that character).

When fans say that a character looks off-model (especially in sequels), it's partially the argument that it doesn't look like the original, and also that its animation and design is just not...consistent in itself. The Head vs. Arm & Torso example that Disney Duster provided is a perfect example.

I wish I could provide caps, but I don't have screen-capping abilities (I used to, but not anymore...long story), though the ones Disney Duster provided are perfect examples.

If you have any of the Platinum DVDs (or any Disney DVD with an art gallery), the character sections often contain model sheets, which show the types of faces/poses that the animators anticipated would be used.

Scaps

[wrestling_stat]

Thank you Someday... and Escapay for taking the time out to explain it to me. It really helps because sometimes "listening" to the conversation can get really frustruating (spelling) because you don't understand the world. I'll have to check out the art-gallaries on the DVD. It will be neat to look at. Thanks again.

[Kram Nebuer]

And if possible maybe post pictures of what you guys mean.

The Disney Princesses in your signature are an example of Off-Model character designs. One can easily tell that one artist drew those Holiday-style Disney princesses since Aurora and Cinderella look like twins with different haircuts and dresses. Aurora is especially off-model because she is very rounded in that picture whereas the design style in the movie is more vertical and rectangular.

I wouldn't get too aggravated about people being annoyed because characters are off-model. There's at least 40 - 50 years between the original movies and there spin-offs; animation standards seem to have changed to television quality animation since feature animation is no longer the dominant form of animated entertainment these days. Hopefully with future Disney feature spin-offs, animation companies will put in as much effort and attempt that the studios did for Cinderella III. The Aurora story in Enchanted Tales at least maintained some character/background/prop period designs, though again, they've become more rounded than the original.