HISTORICAL FACTS: Worst cartoon character design - The Untold Story

Bored Panda has curated this list of terrible, weird, and creepy character designs that people have come across. Although a character’s design isn’t the only thing that makes the show good, it can add a lot to the overall storyline. One of the important parts of designing a good cartoon character is understanding their anatomy. 

Designers need to first know the rules of human anatomy before they break them. Many animators don’t understand or choose to ignore anatomy rules and then end up with the oddest characters. According to Pixune, “researching a body shape’s anatomical structure, whether a human, animal, invented creature, or machine, is essential to creating a unique character.”

When it comes to misunderstanding realistic or anatomically correct character design, one of the weirdest offenders of this was Paramount Picture’s Sonic the Hedgehog. When the production company released the first trailer for their live-action movie, there was public outcry over how creepy and unsettling the character looked. Many unhappy fans found his teeth to be too detailed and his eyes not conjoined enough.

To Paramount’s credit, they took all the fan feedback into consideration and pushed back the film’s release date by a year. By listening to what people had to say and making Sonic look more cartoon-like, they were able to find the most pleasing character design for their film.

Another interesting thing to keep in mind about good character design is having identifiable silhouettes. This means that each character’s body shape should be distinctive enough to be recognized by an audience without any other details.

According to Walt Disney, “when designing characters, artists often use a silhouette to test whether the character’s basic design ‘reads’ to the audience. From the silhouette we are able to see a distinctive and recognizable design without details and understand what the figure is saying with its overall form.”

Some designers also make the mistake of overdesigning their characters by adding way too many details or accessories that make absolutely no sense. It can be an eyesore for viewers and even leave them feeling confused. Animators especially do this when their designs look too similar, and people need to tell the characters apart.

An important thing to keep in mind is that overdesigned characters can create a cluttered mess. With too many colors, body features, and intricate details, the character will look unnatural. Designers should use other distinguishing factors for their animation and give their protagonists a cleaner look.

Another movie that was guilty of creating unsettling characters was The Polar Express. The characters in this movie were supposed to look human and life-like, but instead, they had uncanny valley characteristics. Many people found issues with the eyes of the animated characters, which seemed crossed and unfocused.

The film team was also one of the first to use motion capture suits and computer rendering technology on such a big scale. This might explain why the movie’s characters looked so weird while moving and speaking.

Cartoons aren’t meant to look realistic or be perfect, but designers should definitely not just throw a bunch of things together to create a character. It’s safe to say that many of the characters in this list are nightmare fuel for that exact reason. That’s why this post received 23k upvotes and 3.8k comments with many of the most jarring examples of character design ever seen. Let us know which of these animations shocked you the most.