Dream Tropes Wiki/Off Model

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Animation is expensive. Really expensive. An average 22-minute episode of an anime costs around $123,000, and American shows tend to be double that.

When a production company decides that the important episodes (i.e. pilots, whams, and finales) of a show get priority, other episodes (like filler) will, to conserve production costs, be drawn with only the bare minimum of framework that they absolutely must have.

In American cartoons of the '80s and early '90s (and mid-'70s, to some extent), it became the norm to send animation overseas to studios in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia and other countries to cut costs even further. The budget problems were thus exacerbated by language and cultural barriers, which resulted in nearly every cartoon of the era having animation errors of varying degrees. Japanese studios came to be seen by American studios as the "top of the line" of overseas studios because of their consistent aversion of this trope.note

Long running shows suffering from budget issues or a troubled production schedule will start resorting to thinly veiled camera tricks. The movement and even design of characters will start to slip, especially if the show is bothering to animate heavy action scenes. When they are animated, fight scenes will become Fight Unscenes.

The prevalence of computer-inked animation in recent years merely assures that colors stay consistent. Off model refers to the character model (on a model sheet), which is what the animators are supposed to base their drawings on. Another important step is animation checking, which may be skimped on when time or money (or even both) is short.

Fans are typically not pleased, and it is very common for companies to announce they're fixing up things for the inevitable DVD release.

Some artists willingly invoke this trope and do not follow model sheets, such as Ren and Stimpy's John Kricfalusi. Following models too closely can lead to rigid and lifeless animation, whereas playing fast and loose with the designs can allow for better expression of emotion. This does not mean that such creators "draw badly", they still follow the basic rules of animation, and work to avoid animation errors.

See also Uncanny Valley, the result when it gets too far out of hand, and Special Effect Failure, which is a similar trope, but for live action and animation. Contrast Animation Bump, wherein the animation suddenly becomes much better than usual and Body Horror where an appearance similar to being off model is done intentionally and for horror. For animation studios who are notorious for this, see AKOM, Toei Animation, GONZO, Studio Shaft, Sunrise, Studio DEEN, Actas, Wang Film Productions and Diomedea. For a studio whose supporters and critics often argue about whether their animation is this, see Kennedy Cartoons.

## Advertising

* The Kids for Character "Working Together" PSA. The animation studio (Colorland Animation Productions Ltd.) managed to screw up Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Darren... with only Template:W, Template:W, Template:W, Template:W and Template:W barely escaping (and even then Matthias is the Nelvana Australia model, itself slightly off).

## Western Animation

* *Mole Miner* suffered from this a lot.
* The Simpsons Extra... hoo boy, due to the budget being half of the normal series, several off model moments can occur like Bart's hair having more or less spikes than the standard nine, Homer's two hairs flickering, and anyone who isn't the Simpsons, Apu, Moe, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Krusty The Clown, Sideshow Bob or Barney Gumble being WAAAY off model (it's especially noticeable in blink-and-miss crowd scenes where Martin Prince is Black? HOW DID THAT GET PAST QUALITY CONTROL?!?!)