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To-do list:

  • Off-Model is now a definition-only page. References to the term in inline wicks are allowed; standalone examples are not and must be removed. Sandbox.Taking Wicks Off The Model may be used to keep track of which namespaces have been cleaned.

    Original post 
Off-Model is a "trope" that, tbh, I'm not actually convinced is a trope. It's just about artistic errors that make a character look different. As expected, this leads to a lot of variance in the examples and a decent amount of complaining. The Off Model Wick Check looked at 62 wicks, with the results below:
  • Looks Wrong Once: 13/62, or ~20%
  • Looks Wrong Consistently: 13/62 or ~20%
  • Complaining: 11/62, or ~18%
  • ZCE: 15/62, or ~24%
  • Other: 10/62, or ~16%

As you can see, the usage is all over the place and while the complaining folder isn't the largest, I can also vouch for the fact that there's a lot of "art bad" usage to be found on YMMV pages and the like. Furthermore, as I said, I don't find "art error" to be a tropeworthy concept similar for the reason I didn't find Plot Hole to be an actual trope... because it's just poking at a broad range of errors, rather than describing something that exists intentionally.

I'm not sure what the best fix here is. Maybe we can go the definition-only route, but then that'd still let people wick it in places just to whine... Unless it also becomes Flame Bait, which I'm not sure is necessary but it'd sure solve the problem.

Some people have suggested a "Creepily Off-Model" trope to collect some of the Uncanny Valley misuse, and I'm down, but I'm not sure it would fix the problems with this trope.

Wick check:

Off-Model is essentially whenever a character looks different from how they normally look due to oddities and errors in the animation or art. Because of this broad definition, it has a rambling description, and is very often used for complaining about "bad art".

Wicks: 62/62

  • Looks Wrong Once: 13/62, or ~20%
  • Looks Wrong Consistently: 13/62 or ~20%
  • Complaining: 11/62, or ~18%
  • ZCE: 15/62, or ~24%
  • Other: 10/62, or ~16%


    open/close all folders 

    Character looks wrong once 
  1. Characters.Aldnoah Zero: Unlike the other characters Slaine doesn't have any pupils. Unusually enough in the flashback where he first meets Princess Asseylum he is shown having them, it most likely was an animation error.
  2. Characters.Drawtectives: Lacks most of their beard in the season one finale scroll image, only retaining the goatee. Karina Farek has admitted that this was a mistake. The players offer a Hand Wave explanation that Grendan might have gone home for a quick shave before going to the restaurant.
  3. Characters.Okami: The official art depicts her with a flame on her hat, which is like Manpuku's fire hair, but in-game it seems to be a flower instead as it lacks the fiery effects which Manpuku's hair has.
  4. Funny.Phelous: Of particular note are the illustrations of the Ghostbusters themselves, which are all varying degrees of Off-Model, with Egon faring the worst as a sort of generic anime protagonist-looking dude, and the knock-knock jokes, which the books calls rap-rap jokes. It's discussing a specific book
  5. Recap.HTF Break: The characters have a much stretchier vibe to them.
  6. Recap.Lilo And Stitch The Series S 2 E 25 Snafu: Stitch's notches are mirrored for a brief moment.
  7. Recap.Recess S 1 E 18 The Trial: Due to an animation error, Digger Sam was accidentally given Digger Dave's character model. The result is that viewers mistakenly believe Klee Bragger (Sam) replaced Ryan O'Donohue (Dave) for this episode only.
  8. Recap.The Owl House S 1 E 13 The First Day:
    • Luz in the episode's Cold Open is in her multi-color Hexside uniform even though she doesn't receive that until near the very end of the episode, then jumps out from behind the curtain in her street clothes. This was fixed in later airings.
    • Played straight in the flashback of the student with the Choosy Hat, who is wearing the grey Detention track uniform instead of the white starter uniform like Luz.
  9. Recap.The Smurfs S 1 E 2 Jokeys Medicine: Throughout the whole episode, the Smurfs' character designs are sometimes drawn with proportional problems like big heads or small bodies. At one point, there was a scene where Papa Smurf's door opens incorrectly on the outside instead of the inside. Hefty doesn't have his trademark tatoo during the beginning of the episode.
  10. VideoGame.Agarest Senki 2: In Luminous Prima III, when Fiona opens her mouth in the beginning part of the song, her mouth seems to be wider than usual.
  11. VideoGame.Team Sonic Racing: Amy's back is skin-colored in this game, as opposed to being pink like the rest of her body.
  12. WesternAnimation.Anastasia:
    • Anastasia looked very different and oddly emaciated on the "Family Fun" DVD case than she does in the movie. Fortunately, corrected versions are available.
    • The dress Dimitri buys for Anya when they get on the ship, the one she wears when learning to waltz, changes from the scene in which he gives it to her to when she's first seen wearing it. When he gives it to her, it has distinct white ruffles on the collar and sleeves. When she emerges on deck actually wearing it, it's a plain blue dress. Alternatively, that could have been due to Anya changing it, as she expressed a dislike for its original appearance.
  13. YMMV.Bugs Bunny: The second official Bugs cartoon, "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" is commonly regarded as one of the worst in the series, owing to Bugs' extreme Jerkass behavior, Off-Model use of yellow-colored gloves, a voice that doesn't sound anywhere close to his iconic semi-Brooklyn accent, as well as the sloppy timing that Chuck Jones' earlier efforts suffered from.

    Character looks wrong consistently 
  1. Anime.Hamtaro: This happens in any episodes animated by Tokyo Kids who would draw the hamsters with paws that were too big for their tiny bodies.
  2. Anime.Noir: The show's low budget really shows at times, and it's very clear when different animation teams have done episodes. How Mireille's hair was drawn, in particular the shape of her bangs and how long and how much of her forehead they cover, seemed to shift a lot depending on the animation team.
  3. BeautyAndTheBeast.Tropes Kto P:
    • The Bimbettes have 3 different hair styles and 3 different color dresses, but in various scenes the colors of their dresses keep changing. In addition, their hairstyles are all the same at the end of the "Gaston" reprise.
    • A few of Belle's scenes were done by a different animation team, giving her face a somewhat different, more rounded look. It's probably most noticeable when she enters the bookshop in the opening song.
  4. Characters.Help Im A Fish: His Design will inconsistently change throughout the film. Normally the black and grey color on his nose would change from left and right. and near the climax of the film, after Crab injures fly, his face suddenly changed to gray, it stays like this until crab died.
  5. Garfield.Tropes H To O:
  6. Manga.Miss Kobayashis Dragon Maid: Occasionally, in the manga, the dragon's bust sizes will vary from standard. This isn't usually noticeable, unless you're paying attention, but it's occasionally really obvious, like when you see Elma, one of the bustiest characters in the series, drawn with a completely flat chest.
  7. Series.Dino Lab: Using different CGI models for the same creatures means that, for instance, the T. rex and the Quetzalcoatlus drastically change their appearance from lab scenes to Stock Footage shots. Not to mention the Triceratops-Zuniceratops confusion. See Artistic License – Paleontology, above.
  8. TabletopGame.Galactic Heroes: Kargorr's original design included giant buck teeth, which showed up in four episodes after they were removed. Ziggle got it even worse: he had five different models. It's not obvious from the example, but this is describing an in-universe show.
  9. Toys.Uglydolls: David Horvath's drawings and the physical Uglydolls haven't matched in color, face, or shape all of the time, such as repeated instances of a three-toothed Chuckanucka and blue Uppy.
  10. TransformersPrime.Tropes G To R: The eyes of the robots mix the colored shapes that were used for most all prior incarnations and the pupils are the intricate "adjusting camera lens" look that the movies introduced. Depending on the episode certain characters' pupils (most often Bumblebee and Starscream) vary between the camera lens look and being just filled with color.
  11. Webcomic.How I Became Yours: Not simply compared to the original character models, but heavily applies by simply comparing different shots of the same characters. In fact, the title page demonstrates the recurring issue of Katara's skin tone varying wildly from page to page.
  12. WesternAnimation.The Magic Riddle: Lots of instances of these. Many of the scenes have many differing art styles and direction, given the main directors all have their different styles. As a result scenes will look very off and include lots of animation errors. One minute you'll be having the movie looking like this and then the next minute the next scene completely whiplashes you with THIS.
  13. WesternAnimation.Yogis Gang: Pretty frequent given it's a Hanna-Barbera show. For example, characters will be miscolored or missing colors or lines entirely. This also includes when the recycled Limited Animation is facing the wrong way or badly assembled (leaving things like faces and limbs pointing the wrong way.)

    "Bad Animation" / "Bad Art" / General Complaining 
  1. Anime.MD Geist: The series is quite possibly the poster child of anime for this. A non-exhaustive list includes strange lighting, objects (or characters) teleporting or disappearing, limbs moving in strange ways, multiple coloring errors on one object, drawing errors, and Krutz's corpse levitating in the air for a second.
  2. Anime.Pokemon Zoroark Master Of Illusions: A minor case, but the animators never can seem to make up their mind whether or not Zorua's hind legs have ankle joints.
  3. ComicBook.Yoko Tsuno: All of these just seem to be talking about poor art in general.
    • Leloup seems to have some trouble with bodily proportions, curiously mostly when drawing characters from a distance. Although this has always been somewhat of an issue, it has gotten worse in his latest books.
    • Also, Yoko and other Asian people sometimes look extremely yellow, depending on the print run. That this is not Leloup's fault is evidenced by how the colors are better calibrated in recent compilations.
    • As the series go, faces are drawn more inaccurately, which could be contributed to Leloup's advanced age. The contrast is especially jarring with the scenery and various devices which are still as detailed as ever.
  4. CoversAlwaysLie.Literature: The series of Sonic the Hedgehog novels in the early 1990s where rife with this; often shoddily drawn and seemingly the artist had no clue what the book was about outside of the title...
  5. Creator.MAPPA: Have gotten this in more recent years thanks to series like Banana Fish and Dororo having wildly inconsistent animation quality between episodes. In more recent years, the use of dozens of animation directors, some from outside companies such as Studio Massket, has drawn ire from fans, with the results being markedly visible onscreen.
  6. Horrible.Toys: Bear in mind, this is not only from a toyline that's universally reviled amongst the fandom (barring the Vehicons, which actually saw some praise) due to its inaccuracy to the show, and the general quality (or lack thereof) of its Basic-class figures note , but also from the same line that introduced the short-lived "Supreme" sub-line - a series of figures that are supposed to be more show-accurate than its counterparts, yet fail hard. Case in point: Supreme Cheetor, a figure hyped up by Hasbro themselves to be as show-accurate as possible...only it's hindered by its obtrusive gimmicks (which affect arm articulation horribly), butt-ugly design, completely inaccurate color scheme (his normally-purple spots are black, and he's suddenly sporting green abs with no explanation), and a complete inability to stand under its own power. Needless to say, the experiment bombed, and the figure was relegated to bargain bins almost immediately after its release.
  7. Memes.Blaz Blue: Ice Brick Explanation  Wick is inside the note
  8. WebAnimation.Nyan Neko Sugar Girls:
    • The worst parts are when Koneko-chan's tail starts to look like a certain male body part.
    • Raku-chan's constantly growing and shrinking breasts are pretty bad. At least Koneko-chan's are more consistent.
  9. WebOriginal.Dead Bart: : The animation is described as less stable than the original "Some Enchanted Evening", and that's saying something. As the crying scene continues, the animation gets even worse. It's in-universe bad animation, but still bad animation
  10. YMMV.Cans Without Labels: The short has dizzying, seemingly endless camera movements that feel more like someone messing around with the camera tool in real-time than anything planned. Worse, the 2D characters never conform to the 3D objects and background, meaning that they're constantly changing size and shape in relation. Even for John K.'s trademark Off-Model motion style, it just doesn't read. What even is an Off-Model motion style?
  11. YMMV.The Asterisk War: The first episode has students forming to watch the fight between Ayato and Julis except that they're all horribly animated and in obvious CGI. It's just outright hilariously bad.

    ZCE / Stray Potholes / Stray Wicks 
  1. ComicStrip.Flash Gordon: When the strip began, the people on planet Mongo all had yellow skin (most of the time, anyway). Plus, Princess Aura was a redhead, and Prince Barin was bald. A few years in, the yellow skin-tone was dropped and the humanoid denizens of Mongo started being drawn as white. At the same time, Aura became a blonde and Barin suddenly sprouted a full head of black hair (which the strip lampshaded as him defying Ming's decrees on proper court fashion).
  2. ContinuitySnarl.Transformers: The most infamous of the movie's continuity questions is Cyclonus. In the final cut of the film, the body of the Seeker Thundercracker gets turned into Scourge, while the Insecticons Kickback and Shrapnel get turned into his soldiers, the Sweeps. Then the bodies of the Insecticon Bombshell and the Seeker Skywarp are turned into "Cyclonus and his armada." The "armada" in question is one guy who looks identical to Cyclonus... and in the very next shot, he's no longer around, and Scourge now has three Sweeps instead of two. Outside of animation errors, the armada would never appear again. ... A lot of this is down to script rewrites, which originally intended Cyclonus to have been created from neither character and for the armada to be a large number of minions.
  3. DrinkingGame.Yu Gi Oh Arc V: Another meta-wise, take a shot when an episode with Animation Bump is followed by an episode with many Off-Model moments. Same can be done for its reverse.
  4. Creator.Big Star: Dan Vs. has a tendency to veer into this.
  5. Fanon.Warrior Cats: The Warrior Cats (manga) often features completely Off-Model designs that fans dismiss as non-canon. The sole exception is Scourge, or more specifically Scourge's collar as depicted in Warrior Cats: The Rise of Scourge. It's purple in the manga. Thus, his collar is usually purple in fan-works.
  6. Funny.Cryaotic: By the end of the main story, Cry holds the game in high regard (despite a lot of technical issues) and is intensely satisfied with what he has played. Then he decides to play through the DLC episodes. His hysterical reactions to the bizarrely low-budget, Off-Model anime interludes and the hilarious stupidity of the Street Fighter crossover battles form a massive, unending Funny Moment all on their own; their low quality almost seems to degrade his opinion of the whole game by the time he's done.
  7. Manga.Nichijou: Yukko's 'cool guy', George Samidare.
  8. LightNovel.MM: Legs just don't bend that way.
  9. Trivia.Yuri On Ice: The figure skating scenes; the fact that the team behind the anime was willing to fully animate the skaters' programs without resorting to stills or CGI models of the characters, even if it sometimes resulted in Off-Model shots in the later episodes, is pretty commendable. It's taken further on the DVD/Blu-ray releases, where the animation is improved and some crowd reaction shots are replaced with more skating footage. Director Sayo Yamamoto has said that she'd wanted to make an anime about figure skating for a while, but had trouble finding a studio who would be willing to animate it (especially considering the differences Yuri!!! on Ice has from most other sports anime, such as focusing on adult athletes and having many non-Japanese characters).
  10. VideoGame.Reader Rabbit: Many of the pre-rendered cut scenes.
  11. Webcomic.APT Comic: At times, as it's drawn fresh every time and the author's not very careful.
  12. Webcomic.Mag Isa: Trope-Name Only
  13. WesternAnimation.Neo Yokio: Co-Animated by Studio DEEN and Moi Animation (with Titmouse and Digital eMation for the Christmas special) to boot. The style imitates anime of the early 2000s, complete with frequently off-model characters, flat coloring, and many hallmarks of the genre that have fallen out of favor like sweat drops, nosebleeds, and chibification. It also seems to reference low budget anime dubbing, with poor lip synching and voice acting of varying quality.
  14. WesternAnimation.The Night B 4 Christmas: Trope Name Only
  15. YMMV.Kono Suba: On anime image boards, a lot of people have taken to posting pictures of the cartoonish facial expressions. Including Deen itself puts a few prominently in S2's OP.

    Other/Unclear 
  1. BlackButler.Tropes O To R: Second is ZCE, first is fine.
    • For some strange reason, the normally Chibi Tanaka seemed to go through a temporary growth spurt (as in, stomach-length of Sebastian) near the end of Season 1, episode 15.
    • Elizabeth gets some of this, too, in Chapter 58.
  2. Characters.Okami: The official art depicts her with a flame on her hat, which is like Manpuku's fire hair, but in-game it seems to be a flower instead as it lacks the fiery effects which Manpuku's hair has. idt having a different in-game design counts
  3. DarthWiki.Toon World: Crappily-animated Toons will be as jerky and as limited in animation in ToonWorld as they are in their origin cartoon, but when that Toon enters another dimension (such as the "Noble" dimension, housing fantastically-drawn characters, landscapes, and vehiclesnote ) or even the real world, the Toon gains surprisingly smooth animation, although wackiness in proportion may still apply. It's in-universe and I'm not sure how to categorize the scenario.
  4. Manga.Shadow Star: The car chase scene in episode six of the anime. Sudo apparently drives three different cars, and the patrol car keeps changing. Sounds like a blooper.
  5. Pantheon.Romantic Loss: No, Mr. Smithers was never a black man. That was a tan.
  6. Radio.John Finnemores Souvenir Programme: A Series 3 Patsy Straightwoman sketch sees her interviewing artist Stanley Meadows, whose specialty is "slightly off" Disney characters on ice cream vans (a familiar sight to any visitor to the UK seaside). He explains that while the van drivers themselves either get the characters horribly wrong or exactly right, it takes real talent to paint them so that the individual components look fine (as opposed to, say, Pluto's nose being obviously too long), but put them all together, and the result is... slightly off. He adds to the effect by choosing a black paint that fades much more quickly than the other colours, so that after only a couple of summers, the "slightly off" Goofy is "staring at you with blank, sightless eyes". Parodied, I guess.
  7. Recap.OKKO Lets Be Heroes S 1 E 21 You Have To Care: Parodying off anime when commencing a fight scene; noticeable when Elodie's facial features are reduced to a simplistic frowny emoticon face. maybe Stylistic Suck???
  8. Recap.Odd Squad S 1 E 30 No Ifs Ands Or Robots Worst First Day Ever: this is a live-action show, so no animation errors
    • Olive's, Otto's and Oscar's badges completely disappear between shots as they run to another spot to evade Oscarbot 10. This comes directly after Olive tells Otto to destroy his own badge. It's shown later on that they fell off and shattered on the ground, but since they're clipped onto agents' suits, it's very hard for them to come loose unless the clip was attached improperly, or something knocked the badge off of the suit.
    • Similarly, Oscarbot 10's three shutoff switches are all located on its neck, and not with two in its ears as Oscar stated. Whether this was a poor design choice or a dialogue slip-up is unknown.
  9. TakeThat.Western Animation (re: Looney Tunes): The short "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" could be seen as a Take That towards over-use of Limited Animation and the various attempts to water down the Looney Tunes franchise. It involves Bugs Bunny's rivals being replaced by eerily-cheerful, badly-drawn and badly-animated clones from the planet Nudnik (named for a Russian Limited Animation series), including Daffy briefly being animated in Synchro-Vox. Seems to be invoked for the gag.
  10. Trivia.Scratches: Due to an oversight, the opening animation for two doors on the unfinished floor of the house are swapped, making a door with a right-side handle open the other way, and vice versa. Not a character

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 17th 2022 at 12:29:50 PM

WarJay77 Discarded and Feeling Blue (Troper Knight)
Discarded and Feeling Blue
#1: Dec 15th 2022 at 6:28:58 PM

To-do list:

  • Off-Model is now a definition-only page. References to the term in inline wicks are allowed; standalone examples are not and must be removed. Sandbox.Taking Wicks Off The Model may be used to keep track of which namespaces have been cleaned.

    Original post 
Off-Model is a "trope" that, tbh, I'm not actually convinced is a trope. It's just about artistic errors that make a character look different. As expected, this leads to a lot of variance in the examples and a decent amount of complaining. The Off Model Wick Check looked at 62 wicks, with the results below:
  • Looks Wrong Once: 13/62, or ~20%
  • Looks Wrong Consistently: 13/62 or ~20%
  • Complaining: 11/62, or ~18%
  • ZCE: 15/62, or ~24%
  • Other: 10/62, or ~16%

As you can see, the usage is all over the place and while the complaining folder isn't the largest, I can also vouch for the fact that there's a lot of "art bad" usage to be found on YMMV pages and the like. Furthermore, as I said, I don't find "art error" to be a tropeworthy concept similar for the reason I didn't find Plot Hole to be an actual trope... because it's just poking at a broad range of errors, rather than describing something that exists intentionally.

I'm not sure what the best fix here is. Maybe we can go the definition-only route, but then that'd still let people wick it in places just to whine... Unless it also becomes Flame Bait, which I'm not sure is necessary but it'd sure solve the problem.

Some people have suggested a "Creepily Off-Model" trope to collect some of the Uncanny Valley misuse, and I'm down, but I'm not sure it would fix the problems with this trope.

Wick check:

Off-Model is essentially whenever a character looks different from how they normally look due to oddities and errors in the animation or art. Because of this broad definition, it has a rambling description, and is very often used for complaining about "bad art".

Wicks: 62/62

  • Looks Wrong Once: 13/62, or ~20%
  • Looks Wrong Consistently: 13/62 or ~20%
  • Complaining: 11/62, or ~18%
  • ZCE: 15/62, or ~24%
  • Other: 10/62, or ~16%


    open/close all folders 

    Character looks wrong once 
  1. Characters.Aldnoah Zero: Unlike the other characters Slaine doesn't have any pupils. Unusually enough in the flashback where he first meets Princess Asseylum he is shown having them, it most likely was an animation error.
  2. Characters.Drawtectives: Lacks most of their beard in the season one finale scroll image, only retaining the goatee. Karina Farek has admitted that this was a mistake. The players offer a Hand Wave explanation that Grendan might have gone home for a quick shave before going to the restaurant.
  3. Characters.Okami: The official art depicts her with a flame on her hat, which is like Manpuku's fire hair, but in-game it seems to be a flower instead as it lacks the fiery effects which Manpuku's hair has.
  4. Funny.Phelous: Of particular note are the illustrations of the Ghostbusters themselves, which are all varying degrees of Off-Model, with Egon faring the worst as a sort of generic anime protagonist-looking dude, and the knock-knock jokes, which the books calls rap-rap jokes. It's discussing a specific book
  5. Recap.HTF Break: The characters have a much stretchier vibe to them.
  6. Recap.Lilo And Stitch The Series S 2 E 25 Snafu: Stitch's notches are mirrored for a brief moment.
  7. Recap.Recess S 1 E 18 The Trial: Due to an animation error, Digger Sam was accidentally given Digger Dave's character model. The result is that viewers mistakenly believe Klee Bragger (Sam) replaced Ryan O'Donohue (Dave) for this episode only.
  8. Recap.The Owl House S 1 E 13 The First Day:
    • Luz in the episode's Cold Open is in her multi-color Hexside uniform even though she doesn't receive that until near the very end of the episode, then jumps out from behind the curtain in her street clothes. This was fixed in later airings.
    • Played straight in the flashback of the student with the Choosy Hat, who is wearing the grey Detention track uniform instead of the white starter uniform like Luz.
  9. Recap.The Smurfs S 1 E 2 Jokeys Medicine: Throughout the whole episode, the Smurfs' character designs are sometimes drawn with proportional problems like big heads or small bodies. At one point, there was a scene where Papa Smurf's door opens incorrectly on the outside instead of the inside. Hefty doesn't have his trademark tatoo during the beginning of the episode.
  10. VideoGame.Agarest Senki 2: In Luminous Prima III, when Fiona opens her mouth in the beginning part of the song, her mouth seems to be wider than usual.
  11. VideoGame.Team Sonic Racing: Amy's back is skin-colored in this game, as opposed to being pink like the rest of her body.
  12. WesternAnimation.Anastasia:
    • Anastasia looked very different and oddly emaciated on the "Family Fun" DVD case than she does in the movie. Fortunately, corrected versions are available.
    • The dress Dimitri buys for Anya when they get on the ship, the one she wears when learning to waltz, changes from the scene in which he gives it to her to when she's first seen wearing it. When he gives it to her, it has distinct white ruffles on the collar and sleeves. When she emerges on deck actually wearing it, it's a plain blue dress. Alternatively, that could have been due to Anya changing it, as she expressed a dislike for its original appearance.
  13. YMMV.Bugs Bunny: The second official Bugs cartoon, "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" is commonly regarded as one of the worst in the series, owing to Bugs' extreme Jerkass behavior, Off-Model use of yellow-colored gloves, a voice that doesn't sound anywhere close to his iconic semi-Brooklyn accent, as well as the sloppy timing that Chuck Jones' earlier efforts suffered from.

    Character looks wrong consistently 
  1. Anime.Hamtaro: This happens in any episodes animated by Tokyo Kids who would draw the hamsters with paws that were too big for their tiny bodies.
  2. Anime.Noir: The show's low budget really shows at times, and it's very clear when different animation teams have done episodes. How Mireille's hair was drawn, in particular the shape of her bangs and how long and how much of her forehead they cover, seemed to shift a lot depending on the animation team.
  3. BeautyAndTheBeast.Tropes Kto P:
    • The Bimbettes have 3 different hair styles and 3 different color dresses, but in various scenes the colors of their dresses keep changing. In addition, their hairstyles are all the same at the end of the "Gaston" reprise.
    • A few of Belle's scenes were done by a different animation team, giving her face a somewhat different, more rounded look. It's probably most noticeable when she enters the bookshop in the opening song.
  4. Characters.Help Im A Fish: His Design will inconsistently change throughout the film. Normally the black and grey color on his nose would change from left and right. and near the climax of the film, after Crab injures fly, his face suddenly changed to gray, it stays like this until crab died.
  5. Garfield.Tropes H To O:
  6. Manga.Miss Kobayashis Dragon Maid: Occasionally, in the manga, the dragon's bust sizes will vary from standard. This isn't usually noticeable, unless you're paying attention, but it's occasionally really obvious, like when you see Elma, one of the bustiest characters in the series, drawn with a completely flat chest.
  7. Series.Dino Lab: Using different CGI models for the same creatures means that, for instance, the T. rex and the Quetzalcoatlus drastically change their appearance from lab scenes to Stock Footage shots. Not to mention the Triceratops-Zuniceratops confusion. See Artistic License – Paleontology, above.
  8. TabletopGame.Galactic Heroes: Kargorr's original design included giant buck teeth, which showed up in four episodes after they were removed. Ziggle got it even worse: he had five different models. It's not obvious from the example, but this is describing an in-universe show.
  9. Toys.Uglydolls: David Horvath's drawings and the physical Uglydolls haven't matched in color, face, or shape all of the time, such as repeated instances of a three-toothed Chuckanucka and blue Uppy.
  10. TransformersPrime.Tropes G To R: The eyes of the robots mix the colored shapes that were used for most all prior incarnations and the pupils are the intricate "adjusting camera lens" look that the movies introduced. Depending on the episode certain characters' pupils (most often Bumblebee and Starscream) vary between the camera lens look and being just filled with color.
  11. Webcomic.How I Became Yours: Not simply compared to the original character models, but heavily applies by simply comparing different shots of the same characters. In fact, the title page demonstrates the recurring issue of Katara's skin tone varying wildly from page to page.
  12. WesternAnimation.The Magic Riddle: Lots of instances of these. Many of the scenes have many differing art styles and direction, given the main directors all have their different styles. As a result scenes will look very off and include lots of animation errors. One minute you'll be having the movie looking like this and then the next minute the next scene completely whiplashes you with THIS.
  13. WesternAnimation.Yogis Gang: Pretty frequent given it's a Hanna-Barbera show. For example, characters will be miscolored or missing colors or lines entirely. This also includes when the recycled Limited Animation is facing the wrong way or badly assembled (leaving things like faces and limbs pointing the wrong way.)

    "Bad Animation" / "Bad Art" / General Complaining 
  1. Anime.MD Geist: The series is quite possibly the poster child of anime for this. A non-exhaustive list includes strange lighting, objects (or characters) teleporting or disappearing, limbs moving in strange ways, multiple coloring errors on one object, drawing errors, and Krutz's corpse levitating in the air for a second.
  2. Anime.Pokemon Zoroark Master Of Illusions: A minor case, but the animators never can seem to make up their mind whether or not Zorua's hind legs have ankle joints.
  3. ComicBook.Yoko Tsuno: All of these just seem to be talking about poor art in general.
    • Leloup seems to have some trouble with bodily proportions, curiously mostly when drawing characters from a distance. Although this has always been somewhat of an issue, it has gotten worse in his latest books.
    • Also, Yoko and other Asian people sometimes look extremely yellow, depending on the print run. That this is not Leloup's fault is evidenced by how the colors are better calibrated in recent compilations.
    • As the series go, faces are drawn more inaccurately, which could be contributed to Leloup's advanced age. The contrast is especially jarring with the scenery and various devices which are still as detailed as ever.
  4. CoversAlwaysLie.Literature: The series of Sonic the Hedgehog novels in the early 1990s where rife with this; often shoddily drawn and seemingly the artist had no clue what the book was about outside of the title...
  5. Creator.MAPPA: Have gotten this in more recent years thanks to series like Banana Fish and Dororo having wildly inconsistent animation quality between episodes. In more recent years, the use of dozens of animation directors, some from outside companies such as Studio Massket, has drawn ire from fans, with the results being markedly visible onscreen.
  6. Horrible.Toys: Bear in mind, this is not only from a toyline that's universally reviled amongst the fandom (barring the Vehicons, which actually saw some praise) due to its inaccuracy to the show, and the general quality (or lack thereof) of its Basic-class figures note , but also from the same line that introduced the short-lived "Supreme" sub-line - a series of figures that are supposed to be more show-accurate than its counterparts, yet fail hard. Case in point: Supreme Cheetor, a figure hyped up by Hasbro themselves to be as show-accurate as possible...only it's hindered by its obtrusive gimmicks (which affect arm articulation horribly), butt-ugly design, completely inaccurate color scheme (his normally-purple spots are black, and he's suddenly sporting green abs with no explanation), and a complete inability to stand under its own power. Needless to say, the experiment bombed, and the figure was relegated to bargain bins almost immediately after its release.
  7. Memes.Blaz Blue: Ice Brick Explanation  Wick is inside the note
  8. WebAnimation.Nyan Neko Sugar Girls:
    • The worst parts are when Koneko-chan's tail starts to look like a certain male body part.
    • Raku-chan's constantly growing and shrinking breasts are pretty bad. At least Koneko-chan's are more consistent.
  9. WebOriginal.Dead Bart: : The animation is described as less stable than the original "Some Enchanted Evening", and that's saying something. As the crying scene continues, the animation gets even worse. It's in-universe bad animation, but still bad animation
  10. YMMV.Cans Without Labels: The short has dizzying, seemingly endless camera movements that feel more like someone messing around with the camera tool in real-time than anything planned. Worse, the 2D characters never conform to the 3D objects and background, meaning that they're constantly changing size and shape in relation. Even for John K.'s trademark Off-Model motion style, it just doesn't read. What even is an Off-Model motion style?
  11. YMMV.The Asterisk War: The first episode has students forming to watch the fight between Ayato and Julis except that they're all horribly animated and in obvious CGI. It's just outright hilariously bad.

    ZCE / Stray Potholes / Stray Wicks 
  1. ComicStrip.Flash Gordon: When the strip began, the people on planet Mongo all had yellow skin (most of the time, anyway). Plus, Princess Aura was a redhead, and Prince Barin was bald. A few years in, the yellow skin-tone was dropped and the humanoid denizens of Mongo started being drawn as white. At the same time, Aura became a blonde and Barin suddenly sprouted a full head of black hair (which the strip lampshaded as him defying Ming's decrees on proper court fashion).
  2. ContinuitySnarl.Transformers: The most infamous of the movie's continuity questions is Cyclonus. In the final cut of the film, the body of the Seeker Thundercracker gets turned into Scourge, while the Insecticons Kickback and Shrapnel get turned into his soldiers, the Sweeps. Then the bodies of the Insecticon Bombshell and the Seeker Skywarp are turned into "Cyclonus and his armada." The "armada" in question is one guy who looks identical to Cyclonus... and in the very next shot, he's no longer around, and Scourge now has three Sweeps instead of two. Outside of animation errors, the armada would never appear again. ... A lot of this is down to script rewrites, which originally intended Cyclonus to have been created from neither character and for the armada to be a large number of minions.
  3. DrinkingGame.Yu Gi Oh Arc V: Another meta-wise, take a shot when an episode with Animation Bump is followed by an episode with many Off-Model moments. Same can be done for its reverse.
  4. Creator.Big Star: Dan Vs. has a tendency to veer into this.
  5. Fanon.Warrior Cats: The Warrior Cats (manga) often features completely Off-Model designs that fans dismiss as non-canon. The sole exception is Scourge, or more specifically Scourge's collar as depicted in Warrior Cats: The Rise of Scourge. It's purple in the manga. Thus, his collar is usually purple in fan-works.
  6. Funny.Cryaotic: By the end of the main story, Cry holds the game in high regard (despite a lot of technical issues) and is intensely satisfied with what he has played. Then he decides to play through the DLC episodes. His hysterical reactions to the bizarrely low-budget, Off-Model anime interludes and the hilarious stupidity of the Street Fighter crossover battles form a massive, unending Funny Moment all on their own; their low quality almost seems to degrade his opinion of the whole game by the time he's done.
  7. Manga.Nichijou: Yukko's 'cool guy', George Samidare.
  8. LightNovel.MM: Legs just don't bend that way.
  9. Trivia.Yuri On Ice: The figure skating scenes; the fact that the team behind the anime was willing to fully animate the skaters' programs without resorting to stills or CGI models of the characters, even if it sometimes resulted in Off-Model shots in the later episodes, is pretty commendable. It's taken further on the DVD/Blu-ray releases, where the animation is improved and some crowd reaction shots are replaced with more skating footage. Director Sayo Yamamoto has said that she'd wanted to make an anime about figure skating for a while, but had trouble finding a studio who would be willing to animate it (especially considering the differences Yuri!!! on Ice has from most other sports anime, such as focusing on adult athletes and having many non-Japanese characters).
  10. VideoGame.Reader Rabbit: Many of the pre-rendered cut scenes.
  11. Webcomic.APT Comic: At times, as it's drawn fresh every time and the author's not very careful.
  12. Webcomic.Mag Isa: Trope-Name Only
  13. WesternAnimation.Neo Yokio: Co-Animated by Studio DEEN and Moi Animation (with Titmouse and Digital eMation for the Christmas special) to boot. The style imitates anime of the early 2000s, complete with frequently off-model characters, flat coloring, and many hallmarks of the genre that have fallen out of favor like sweat drops, nosebleeds, and chibification. It also seems to reference low budget anime dubbing, with poor lip synching and voice acting of varying quality.
  14. WesternAnimation.The Night B 4 Christmas: Trope Name Only
  15. YMMV.Kono Suba: On anime image boards, a lot of people have taken to posting pictures of the cartoonish facial expressions. Including Deen itself puts a few prominently in S2's OP.

    Other/Unclear 
  1. BlackButler.Tropes O To R: Second is ZCE, first is fine.
    • For some strange reason, the normally Chibi Tanaka seemed to go through a temporary growth spurt (as in, stomach-length of Sebastian) near the end of Season 1, episode 15.
    • Elizabeth gets some of this, too, in Chapter 58.
  2. Characters.Okami: The official art depicts her with a flame on her hat, which is like Manpuku's fire hair, but in-game it seems to be a flower instead as it lacks the fiery effects which Manpuku's hair has. idt having a different in-game design counts
  3. DarthWiki.Toon World: Crappily-animated Toons will be as jerky and as limited in animation in ToonWorld as they are in their origin cartoon, but when that Toon enters another dimension (such as the "Noble" dimension, housing fantastically-drawn characters, landscapes, and vehiclesnote ) or even the real world, the Toon gains surprisingly smooth animation, although wackiness in proportion may still apply. It's in-universe and I'm not sure how to categorize the scenario.
  4. Manga.Shadow Star: The car chase scene in episode six of the anime. Sudo apparently drives three different cars, and the patrol car keeps changing. Sounds like a blooper.
  5. Pantheon.Romantic Loss: No, Mr. Smithers was never a black man. That was a tan.
  6. Radio.John Finnemores Souvenir Programme: A Series 3 Patsy Straightwoman sketch sees her interviewing artist Stanley Meadows, whose specialty is "slightly off" Disney characters on ice cream vans (a familiar sight to any visitor to the UK seaside). He explains that while the van drivers themselves either get the characters horribly wrong or exactly right, it takes real talent to paint them so that the individual components look fine (as opposed to, say, Pluto's nose being obviously too long), but put them all together, and the result is... slightly off. He adds to the effect by choosing a black paint that fades much more quickly than the other colours, so that after only a couple of summers, the "slightly off" Goofy is "staring at you with blank, sightless eyes". Parodied, I guess.
  7. Recap.OKKO Lets Be Heroes S 1 E 21 You Have To Care: Parodying off anime when commencing a fight scene; noticeable when Elodie's facial features are reduced to a simplistic frowny emoticon face. maybe Stylistic Suck???
  8. Recap.Odd Squad S 1 E 30 No Ifs Ands Or Robots Worst First Day Ever: this is a live-action show, so no animation errors
    • Olive's, Otto's and Oscar's badges completely disappear between shots as they run to another spot to evade Oscarbot 10. This comes directly after Olive tells Otto to destroy his own badge. It's shown later on that they fell off and shattered on the ground, but since they're clipped onto agents' suits, it's very hard for them to come loose unless the clip was attached improperly, or something knocked the badge off of the suit.
    • Similarly, Oscarbot 10's three shutoff switches are all located on its neck, and not with two in its ears as Oscar stated. Whether this was a poor design choice or a dialogue slip-up is unknown.
  9. TakeThat.Western Animation (re: Looney Tunes): The short "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" could be seen as a Take That towards over-use of Limited Animation and the various attempts to water down the Looney Tunes franchise. It involves Bugs Bunny's rivals being replaced by eerily-cheerful, badly-drawn and badly-animated clones from the planet Nudnik (named for a Russian Limited Animation series), including Daffy briefly being animated in Synchro-Vox. Seems to be invoked for the gag.
  10. Trivia.Scratches: Due to an oversight, the opening animation for two doors on the unfinished floor of the house are swapped, making a door with a right-side handle open the other way, and vice versa. Not a character

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 17th 2022 at 12:29:50 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#2: Dec 15th 2022 at 6:30:51 PM

Opened. I'd like to point out that "off-model" isn't a term we invented (this Wikipedia page could stand to be improved, but it cites a couple of animation-related pages that discuss the concept), so I'm against getting rid of the page entirely. I suppose making it definition-only (since it's industry terminology) would be option if having it as a trope isn't doable.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 15th 2022 at 8:39:04 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
WarJay77 Discarded and Feeling Blue (Troper Knight)
Discarded and Feeling Blue
#3: Dec 15th 2022 at 6:31:59 PM

My main concern is that people will still use it to complain about bad art.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
HamanaHamanaHamana Dog or Oni? (Bitroper)
Dog or Oni?
#4: Dec 15th 2022 at 8:22:58 PM

Agreed on Definition Only. As for the complaining, simply remove or question the edits that use the trope in question.

I swear Loid, you can't draw worth shit!
BlackMage43 Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#5: Dec 15th 2022 at 8:48:27 PM

A lot of media also intentionally uses of Off-Model for humor, usually to invoke Stylistic Suck. (For example).

I'm not sure about the "animation error" part of the trope. We do have Special Effect Failure, so I could see an animation-only version of that existing. But if folks don't find that tropeworthy on its own, then I think a Definition-Only or fanspeak page for "Off-Model" or "QUALITY" sounds like the next best thing.

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#6: Dec 15th 2022 at 10:26:32 PM

[up]If this becomes definition-only, we can list those examples under Stylistic Suck with references to the term Off-Model in the examples' text.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 15th 2022 at 12:26:48 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Amonimus the Retromancer from <<|Wiki Talk|>> (Sergeant) Relationship Status: In another castle
the Retromancer
#7: Dec 16th 2022 at 1:14:06 AM

The only reason I've agreed to make Plot Hole Def-Only is because Series Continuity Error existed, so I've thought it's more of a duplicate. If it didn't, I wouldn't have.

Same here. While I think it's a trope, I don't see meaningful differences between Off-Model and Special Effect Failure in terms of "distracting animation error", so I'd [tup] making Off-Model Def-Only and moving contextualized examples to Special Effect Failure, Stylistic Suck and Conspicuously Light Patch.

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 16th 2022 at 12:14:28 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
amathieu13 Since: Aug, 2013
#8: Dec 16th 2022 at 1:57:09 AM

I agree with WarJay's point that I don't think Off-Model is really a trope and believe Def Only is the best way to go.

Ayumi-chan Aramis from Calvard (Apprentice) Relationship Status: Serial head-patter
#9: Dec 16th 2022 at 2:11:28 AM

Definition only [tup]

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A
MorganWick (Elder Troper)
#10: Dec 16th 2022 at 3:17:23 AM

Sounds like whatever happens, this may need a dedicated cleanup thread.

themayorofsimpleton Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him from Elsewhere (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Abstaining
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GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#12: Dec 16th 2022 at 7:56:21 AM

Same here. While I think it's a trope, I don't see meaningful differences between Off-Model and Special Effect Failure in terms of "distracting animation error", so I'd [tup] making Off-Model Def-Only and moving contextualized examples to Special Effect Failure, Stylistic Suck and Conspicuously Light Patch.

We can list those on the page if we make it definition-only, with a note next to Stylistic Suck saying it's for intentional examples of the trope (such as parodies), as opposed to the others being for unintentional examples.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 16th 2022 at 9:56:47 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
nw09 Since: Apr, 2018
#13: Dec 16th 2022 at 4:02:49 PM

Some of these fall under Blooper as well.

WarJay77 Discarded and Feeling Blue (Troper Knight)
Discarded and Feeling Blue
#14: Dec 16th 2022 at 4:05:38 PM

Maybe a disambig / def-only combo like with Stuffed into the Fridge, then?

I'm still concerned about the complaining usage but if we make a cleanup then that can be combatted.

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ACW Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#15: Dec 16th 2022 at 4:46:49 PM

The laconic doesn't help either: "Animation errors". Is that even a trope? Maybe definition only and/or make it a trivia item.

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badtothebaritone (Life not ruined yet) Relationship Status: Snooping as usual
#16: Dec 16th 2022 at 4:48:59 PM

I perfer Def-Only over Trivia because I don't think this is even a trope and there's the complaining issue.

ACW Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#17: Dec 16th 2022 at 4:51:16 PM

Fair enough. I guess you can't really have a fictional off-model like you can for other tropes.

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Noaqiyeum Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they) from the gentle and welcoming dark (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
Trans Siberian Anarchestra (it/they)
#18: Dec 17th 2022 at 1:42:59 AM

Definition-only sounds appropriate.

(I remember the Creepily Off Model discussion, but I can't remember if any examples came up that wouldn't adequately be covered by Art Shift and Non-Standard Character Design.)

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable
Piterpicher Veteran Editor IV from Poland, for real (Series 2) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
Veteran Editor IV
#19: Dec 17th 2022 at 6:06:26 AM

I suppose it could be definition-only.

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selkies Professional Wick Checker Since: Jan, 2021 Relationship Status: Star-crossed
Professional Wick Checker
Karxrida The Unknown from Eureka, the Forbidden Land Since: May, 2012 Relationship Status: I LOVE THIS DOCTOR!
The Unknown
#21: Dec 17th 2022 at 9:03:52 PM

Def-only. This is an actual term but it's very prone to complaining.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
harryhenry It's either real or it's a dream Since: Jan, 2012
It's either real or it's a dream
#22: Dec 17th 2022 at 10:11:27 PM

Def-only. As someone who's found themselves in several animation-focused communities, I can say that the reaction to animation (both western and anime) that is "Off-Model" varies wildly: Sometimes it's celebrated for making the characters and visual storytelling more expressive and fun, beyond the inherently limiting confines of stock model sheets. But in other parts of the community it's something to avoid at all costs, and that the results are inherently ugly and a sign of unprofessionalism.

Basically, being "Off Model" for some animation nerds isn't even an error, it's a mark of quality. But it's also too broad to quantify or turn into a trope list for the reasons given here and elsewhere, not to mention the complaining.

GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#23: Dec 17th 2022 at 10:13:19 PM

Calling in favor of making this definition-only. We can still have a list of related pages.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#24: Dec 17th 2022 at 10:28:15 PM

Got rid of the on-page examples (including cutting the subpages) and made Sandbox.Taking Wicks Off The Model to keep track of which pages have been looked through, since we're not removing all wicks.

Edit: Archived the wick check and pinned the opening post (though it isn't visible yet since there's still only one page).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 17th 2022 at 12:30:40 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
N1KF (Ten years in the joint) Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
#25: Dec 17th 2022 at 11:34:07 PM

Added Depending on the Artist to the disambiguation, since a quick search shows this kind of use on YMMV.Steven Universe.

It might be helpful to add Inconsistent Coloring as well.

Edited by N1KF on Dec 17th 2022 at 1:35:16 PM


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