Non Standard Character Design / Western Animation

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Examples of Non-Standard Character Design in western animated series.

• 64 Zoo Lane: The Snip Snip Bird is drawn with purple outlines, while everyone else is drawn with dark blue ones.
• Dulcinea in The Adventures of Puss in Boots is far more cartoony than any other cat character in the series, even having four fingers instead of five. In the last season it's revealed that the goblin Cleevil also looks nothing like a goblin should and the common thread between the two characters is that they are both artificial spirits created by a mage to watch over the town.
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • The episode "Zoobotnik" featured Katella the bounty huntress who was drawn more human like than the rest of the humanoid characters.
  • Even Sonic and Tails are this, as they're from the games, and the show's character design style doesn't really match the game style. Likely the reason Robotnik was redesigned for the show.
• Adventure Time:
  • The Lich's design is far more detailed than the rest of the rather simplistic cast. This just makes him creepier.
  • Lemongrab has actual pupils and sclerae, in a show where almost everyone else just has Black Bead Eyes. This makes his constant freak-outs even more disturbing.
  • Minor villain Ricardio and Gareth from "One Last Job" have realistic human faces, something none of the other characters have. Abraham Lincoln is also more detailed compared to the rest of the human characters.
• A Little Curious: The Shoe Family don't have proper faces and can't show facial expressions unlike the other characters, because of course they're a pair of shoes.
• The Amazing World of Gumball doesn't have much of a standard character design, from the flat 2D Flash animation of Gumball and his family to the CGI animation and claymation of other characters, including a photo-realistic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Still, humans manage to stand out by how they are either depicted as live-action (usually on television) or animated in the style of Filmation-era cartoons. Neither is common for the show, since the former is often left out in favor of using a variety of animation techniques (the only live-action non-human is Sussie the chinface, which is technically a form of puppetry and thus could also be considered animation), and the latter are designed to look crappy and choppy while it's clear that the animators are making the other characters with their best foot forward. Lampshaded in "The Saint" where Gumball tries to make Alan look bad by using his account to say he thinks 3D people are better than 2D ones.
  • Many non-anthropomorphic animals stand out for being drawn in an extremely realistic art style, while the Cube Dogs are cel shaded 3D models, both are fairly rare for the show as most things intended to look realistic are either CGI or live-action while even the most cartoony 3D models typically aren't trying to look 2D.
• Mayor Toadstool from Amphibia is the only major toad character drawn with flat teeth instead of sharp teeth, displaying how he's less threatening compared to your average toad.
• The Angry Beavers:
  • Mom's assailants in the episode "The Mom from U.N.C.L.E." were depicted as relatively anatomically accurate humans with unusually heavy inking.
  • The Beavers' cousin in the episode "Kreature Komforts" is a photo-realistic beaver that acts like a beaver actually would, much to the annoyance of the protagonists.
  • Whenever the beavers watch an old B-movie, its characters are drawn realistically. The contrast is clearest in the Halloween Episode, when Dag and Norb meet the actors and get involved in their adventures.
• Animaniacs:
  • Unlike the other characters (even Slappy Squirrel), the Warner Siblings have designs that look rather like those of inkblot style characters of the late 1920s and early 1930s, albeit with ovular Animesque Black Bead Eyes. This because they were first drawn around that era, but proved too wild for audiences of the time, so they had to be locked away in the water tower.
  • In the episodes featuring The Flame, the people look rather realistic, unlike Mindy, Ralph, Mr. Plotz, and other people in the show. The Flame himself has orange pupils and yellow sclerae and eye highlights.
  • "Slappy Goes Walnuts" showed a squirrel that not only was non-anthropomorphic, but also looked more realistic than Slappy, Skippy, and other squirrels in the show.
  • Pinky and the Brain are among the few characters in the show who don't have highlights in their eyes.
  • Buddy in this show, although an inkblot style toon like the Warners, has Sphere Eyes and Pie Eyes.
  • Katie Ka-Boom in her human form is drawn closer to a Disney character than the Looney Tunes inspired look everyone, even her family, follow.
  • Death from "Meatballs or Consequences" has five fingers on his hands instead of four.
• It's subtle, however, Betty in Archie's Weird Mysteries has blue eyes instead of the Black Bead Eyes everyone else has.
• Arthur:
  • All the characters in are Inexplicably Tailless except for Nadine, who is DW's Imaginary Friend. She is also a Barefoot Cartoon Animal unlike everyone else.
  • When there are celebrity cameos the person is drawn as a Funny Animal, however they are drawn far less cartoony than the others.
  • Ryan, one of DW's kindergarten classmates in "Arthur's First Day" is a tapir. His design is more animal-like than any of the other anthro characters seen on the show, making him stick out like a sore thumb compared to the other characters.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Aang falls into this when he tries out some ridiculously badass and over-detailed armor in Season 3. It's meant to lampshade how impractical the armor is to use or, from a meta standpoint, animate; Aang can barely move in it, and aside from the scarf and Lens Flare, the armor itself only has a single animation drawing that's just rotated for when he falls over.^note According to the commentary, the character designer often drew armor like this before being told to make simpler designs for animation purposes.
  • Jet and his gang were a stylistic departure compared to the other characters, much more closely resembling the style of Cowboy Bebop, but were kept because the creators loved the designs too much.
  • The Lion Turtle is drawn with a much more detailed and realistic style than anybody else, to reflect him being a powerful, ancient figure.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • Baby Doll is more wide-eyed and cartoony than the other characters, looking like she came from Tiny Toon Adventures.
  • To a lesser degree, The Joker's face is much more angular and a little more cartoony than most of the other characters, and he has Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness despite being in a series where everyone else has regular eyes (though that might be due to him falling into a vat of chemicals). Season 4 takes it even further, making his face even more angular than before and his yellow eyes were turned black.
• The title characters of Beavis and Butt-Head, who have gigantic heads compared to the fairly realistic design of the other characters. This is lampshaded when the police show a composite sketch◊ depicting them as they would look like if they were drawn like everyone else.
  • The animals tend to look very cartoony compared to the show's usual pseudo-realistic art style, making Beavis and Butt-Head themselves look realistic by comparison.
  • In the revival streaming movie Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, Daria's character design for her non-speaking cameo is adapted from her spin-off TV series, where she had undergone significant Art Evolution compared to the rest of the cast.
  • The title characters stick out even moreso in the second revival series when the bystanders have undergone Art Evolution to look even more realistic and polished. This made the legacy chracters like Anderson and Van Driessen who retain their classic cartoony style to stick out too.
• Beetlejuice (1989): Mr. Monitor is a recurring villain in the series who's the closest thing to being the Big Bad. But while many Neitherworld characters and villains tend to look undead or supernatural, Mr. Monitor looks like he's something out of a science fiction series, with four television monitors for his head.
• The titular character of Blaze and the Monster Machines is the only character other than the two Token Humans to have colored eyes (blue); all of the others have the standard black eyes.
• Blue's Clues & You!:
  • The "Puppies" are animated in 3D as opposed to the 2D animation of the other recurring characters. This is justified, since the magical puppies don't come from Storybook World.
  • Pearl, one of Blue's school friends, has large trembling Innocent Blue Eyes that highlight her among the 2D characters who have Black Bead Eyes, to highlight her blindness and albinism.
• Bluey:
  • The old pug in "Granny Mobile" looks more like a real pug compared to Buddy and his mum, and she also always has a frown and angry eyes, which means that she's a "grouchy granny".
  • Most of the characters don't wear clothes, or only wear accessories, but Indy and Bucky both wear shirts, and the eponymous tradesmen from "Tradies" wear shirts and pants. Sparky, one of the tradies, is also drawn with a Plumber's Crack, despite most of the dogs not having visible butts.
  • Socks used to be more doglike compared to the rest of the characters, walking on all fours and sitting like a real dog. After she turned two years old, she became more anthropomorphic.
  • Most of the characters don't have eyelashes, but Coco does.
• Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot: True Heart Bear appeared only as a plush toy and sported a multi-colored pastel tie-dye like design for her main fur color. This is opposed to the normal Care Bear look, which is a single color for the primary fur, other than the white belly with the belly badge and white inner-ear coloring.
• The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show: Truffles from "The Lost Ballpark" is the only character drawn with white irises and black pupils instead of the Black Bead Eyes the other characters have.
• Cococinel: Ben-Oui & Ben-Non, the ladybug twins, have long, mole-like noses unlike the other ladybugs, whose noses resemble those of cats or bears.
• Numbuh 362 (Rachel) from Codename: Kids Next Door has brown eyes in a series and Henrietta Von Marzipan has blue eyes, where almost everyone has Black Bead Eyes.
• Lampshaded in an episode of Cow and Chicken, where the title characters take part in a Plastic Surgery Tournament, and one of the task challenges at hand includes recreating a "photo-realistic beaver".
• The attractive women in both Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel with their big eyes, small mouths and baby-like faces look out of place in a world were everyone else (including the animals) are stretchy and grotesque.
• The main characters from UPA's Dick Tracy cartoon look more realistic than the supporting cast with a more standard cartoony design typical of UPA.
• In the show Dinosaur Train, all of the younger dinosaurs are drawn in a more cartoony manner, while all of the adult dinosaurs are drawn more realistically.
• Disenchantment has the angels in Heaven looking like Kewpie dolls or 60s cartoon characters, as opposed to everyone else being drawn in Matt Groening's trademark style, sphere eyes, overbite and all.
• Owning to his debut being in a standalone Silly Symphonies cartoon, Donald Duck, and the rest of the duck characters are fairly distinct compared to the rest of the classic cast. Mickey, Goofy, Pete and the others all have designs that grew from their Inkblot Cartoon Style and the fact that they're anthropomorphic animals rarely if ever comes up. Donald, on the other hand, started with a more "theatrical" design that was simplified to fit and his status as an anthropomorphic duck is emphasized by his voice and mannerisms. (Donald waddles when he walks, for example.)
• Edgar & Ellen: Most of the characters look like regular, realistic humans, but the twins have long, pale faces, pointy chins and round, bulging eyes.
• Elliott from Earth is set on an intergalactic alien space station with beings from all over the universe and thus has highly diverse character designs, with some not even sharing the shows main art-style, however a few characters still manage to stand out:
  • Lord Kallous and Prince Cryon are Expies of Skeltor and He-Man, respectively and are thus drawn in a slighty more realistic cartoon style
  • The Head isn't really a singular character as such, being the product of an artificial Hive Mind consisting of countless different aliens. Their default form can best be described as "a series of multi-colored dotted lights forming the shape of a face".
• The Fairly OddParents!: Outside of having four-digit hands, Princess Mandie's taller and closer to real world proportions make her look more like a Danny Phantom character than one belonging to this series.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum:
  • The title duo themselves are constructed more realistically and carefully than the rest of the characters. Especially prominent in this shot◊.
  • Janitor Poopatine is the only character with an eye color (possessing Supernatural Gold Eyes), while the rest have the standard black eyes.
• Santa and Mrs. Claus from The Flintstones Christmas had more realistic designs compared to everyone else.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Rumble McSkirmish from "Fight Fighters" is a video game character brought to life, and as such is rendered as 16-bit pixel art reminiscent of Street Fighter.
  • There's also Xyler and Kraz, who look like they're straight from an '80s cartoon than the original designs from the show.
  • The Boy Band Sev'ral Timez are few of the only characters in the series with visible blue irises in their eyes instead of just pupils. Later characters that have visible colored irises are background characters in "Soos and the Real Girl". One is a Mystery Shack customer that was scared off by Soos and the other is a clerk at Beeply Boop's.
  • Gabe Bensen from "Sock Opera" stands out for having blue dot pupils instead of black dot pupils.
  • .GIFfany, another video game character in "Soos and the Real Girl", has a very Animesque design, since she's meant to invoke the image of a character from a Japanese Dating Sim game.
  • "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" has a number of claymotion monsters in its final short, which, as the name implies, resemble claymation figures.
• Hamster & Gretel: Gretel Grant-Gomez is styled more uniquely than the rest of the cast, such as large, oval eyes, a broad mouth, and her head is twice the size of a regular human.
• The Loparts in Handy Manny have smaller pupils than the other human characters in the show.
• Harley Quinn (2019) : Robin's big eyes and Shōnen Hair are much more Animesque than any of the other characters.
• Mr. Akiyama Makuro, owner of the titular Hero Factory is a humanoid robot like most characters, but he stands out for being an elderly man who walks with a cane (why would a robot be elderly?) and his green face is too humanlike compared to others, resembling the green mask of Turaga Matau from LEGO's previous action figure line, BIONICLE. He even wears a robe like a Turaga. One might chalk this up to a simple reuse of assets, as the cartoon is set in a LEGO world, but Mr. Makuro is a character exclusive to the show and was not based on a toy. In 2023, 13 years after the series debut, his design was finally explained: Mr. Makuro was meant to be a BIONICLE character living in the Hero Factory world, specifically an evil Makuta disguising himself as a wise old Turaga, causing conflicts in secret to be solved by his Factory. None of this reveal ever panned out once LEGO decided to simplify the Hero Factory series, so Mr. Makuro canonically remained a kind robot gentleman who just happened to be a lookalike of a character from a different franchise.
• Hey Arnold!: There are a few characters (usually Ink Suit Actors) who are considerably less cartoony than the other characters, such as Mr. Simmons, Dr. Bliss and Alphonse Scheck in Hey Arnold! The Movie. In that same movie, Arnold, Gerald, Helga and Scheck all have detailed shadows and highlights unlike the rest of the characters, likely due to the film being rushed to theaters at the last minute and the animators not having the time to do it to everyone.
• Kit Kat from HouseBroken has purple fur. The rest of the animals on the show have standard fur colors.
• Penny on Inspector Gadget looks ridiculously more realistic than everyone else on the show, who have exaggerated cartoony features. The more realistic/cute look was frequently shared by incidental or single-episode female characters, unless they were MAD agents or intended to be unattractive, in a sort of reverse Gonk effect. Averted in Gadget and the Gadgetinis, where her design is closer to how everyone else in the show looks.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Jade's eyes are a lighter shade of brown (almost honey-colored) than those of her family and other brown-eyed characters such as Viper and Paco. Then there's Ratso, who, despite being human as far as we know, has green skin and green hair.
• Kaeloo: All of the recurring cast are Funny Animals except Game Rule, who is a talking exclamation mark who can shapeshift.
• The title character of Kappa Mikey is drawn in "American" style, with a thick black outline, while just about everything else is uses an Animesque style. This is because he's an American Animated Actor in Japan. He's also the only character who cannot become Super-Deformed, and lacks the Mouthflaps and Motionless Chin when speaking.
• The titular character of Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil stands out from the rest of the cast because he's Animesque; also, he lacks a visible nose.
• Cotton on King of the Hill has Black Bead Eyes, separating him from the rest of the cast, who have realistic-looking eyes.
• Koala Man: Michael Cusack's characters Damo and Darren are recurring characters, but their hideous appearances look very out of place with the more simplistic character designs.
• The first episode of the Krypto the Superdog cartoon has an appearance made by Superman, who's sporting his DC Animated Universe looks. This is in contrast to all the other characters, who are drawn in an art style reminiscent of Dennis the Menace or a classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
• Queen La from The Legend of Tarzan looks nothing like the characters from the Disney film Tarzan and looks more like a character from Atlantis: The Lost Empire instead, a hint towards her true heritage.
• Lilo & Stitch:
  • Mr. Stenchy, Thresher, Skip, Clink, and Snafu are actually the only alien experiments from Lilo & Stitch: The Series to have sclerae and pupils instead of the solid black or single-colored eyes their "cousins" (including Stitch) actually all have. Clink resembles an Earth crab while the others mostly resemble mammals, reptiles and birds.
  • Glaringly obvious when the series crossovers with other Disney Channel cartoons with vastly different art styles such as American Dragon: Jake Long, Kim Possible, The Proud Family, and even Recess. It can become rather unsettling when having Lilo and the other potato-nosed realistically proportioned Hawaiian inhabitants interact with the American Dragon with Skintone Sclerae, the teenaged crime-fighter with the exaggerated proportions, or Penny Proud and her family's overly expressive faces.
  • The third season of the Stitch! anime series expands the "experiments with sclera" thing to include Bragg/Flute, Witch, and Mr. Stenchy's Distaff Counterpart Mrs. Sickly. However, in this series, experiments who are controlled by Hämsterviel have their pupils dilute just enough to reveal their irises; Bragg/Flute and Witch were among those under his possession and we never see if they would have normal experiment eyes if they were not serving him.
  • The Chinese animated series Stitch & Ai drops all the first 625 experiments with new ones that Jumba makes inspired by creatures of Chinese Mythology. However, much of these Chinese experiments look so radically different from the original ones that some don't even look like genetic experiments at all, just looking like straight-up mythological Chinese creatures brought to life.
• The Lion Guard:
  • Kion stands out amongst all other lion cubs from the extended Lion King canon because he has rosettes, like a real-life cub.
  • Makini looks very different from her mentor Rafiki in that she looks more like a real mandrill than he does.
  • Kinyonga looks different than the other chameleons seen in the background in that she looks more realistic.
• The 1991 Looney Tunes cartoon "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" lampshades this greatly. Daffy, Elmer and Yosemite Sam are mysteriously replaced with doppelgangers that looked as if they were designed and animated by the likes of 50s Hanna-Barbera, its imitators and even the creators of Clutch Cargo.
• Looney Tunes Cartoons: In "Happy Birthday Bugs Bunny," one of the characters seen in the background at the beginning is Cool Cat. While the series returns the characters to their 1940s designs, Cool Cat (being introduced in 1967) keeps his Hanna-Barbera-esque design, making him stand out.
• In The Looney Tunes Show episode "Casa de Calma", Daffy gets massaged by a giant, hairy man named Leslie, who looks like he came straight out of The Ren & Stimpy Show. To further emphasize the contrast, Bugs gets massages by an attractive woman named Joe.
• The Loud House: Most of the baby characters don't wear pants, but Carlitos wore pants even when he was a baby.
• In The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Flapjack, K'nuckles, and Bubbie are drawn in a bit of a more cartoonish style than the rest of Stormalong Harbor.
• Milo Murphy's Law:
  • While most of the cast has multicolored pupils in their eyes, Melissa has visible irises with black pupils inside.
  • Diogee looks a lot more cartoony than the other animals, who are drawn more realistically.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Most of the characters have two catchlights on their pupils (foals have three); very few have a single catchlight, specifically Granny Smith, Big Macintosh, Snips, and Snails.
  • In addition to having a single eye catchlight, Trixie has her eyelashes protrude outward, instead of inward. Starting with "To Where and Back Again" however, Trixie is depicted with the traditional double-catchlight, inward lashes eye design.
  • Due to the show's colorful and cute art style, the villains like Queen Chrysalis, King Sombra and Lord Tirek are drawn with a rather grotesque and scary design.
  • Fluttershy's foal self is very different from the more traditional design, as she's slightly larger and has more prominent legs, resembling a more traditional foal in real life. Said design was later used for "teenage" ponies like Plaid Stripes and Spur. ^note This implies that Fluttershy was already a teenager when she got her cutie mark, and since all the Mane Six got their cutie marks at the same time, Fluttershy might actually be the oldest.
  • Pinkie Pie stands out from the rest of the Pie family as she's the only one whose coat and mane are not dull earthy colors, instead opting to two-tone bright pink, hence her name. This was even seen on her as a filly, which likely served as a foreshadowing to her cutie mark talent.
  • Spike plays with this trope — he's the first dragon we ever see in the series, but the more other dragons we see, the more abnormal Spike's lack of wings and stout, pudgy body shape appear. The episode "Molt Down" has Spike gaining wings, with the explanation being that wings are gained during dragon puberty and Spike just wasn't old enough before. We also do meet Smolder, who's similar in design aside from being female and orange.
  • In the episode "Dragon Quest", the Paper-Thin Disguise adopted by the ponies following Spike is accepted by the teen dragons because it looks identical to a dragon named Crackle. Unlike most dragons, who are slender, streamlined, and elongated, Crackle is squat, rotund, GemEncrusted, and has eight legs.
  • Bulk Biceps, a Recurring Extra pegasus with an abnormally muscular physique, visible veins, a large muzzle, defined hooves, and tiny wings.
  • The delegates of Saddle Arabia in "Magic Duel" have a design making them resemble real-life horses, rather than the anthropomorphic Animesque design used for the show.
  • The Season 5 opener "The Cutie Map" has the mane ponies end up trapped in an equality village where its residents have equal sign cutie marks, as well as faded coat and mane colors. Starlight Glimmer, the leader, stands out from the village because her coat and mane are not faded, which is the first visible clue that she's not like them.
  • Trouble Shoes from "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" is modeled off a Clydesdale horse, down to the typical face coloring. As the largest pony character to be ever designed, he's at least twice the size of a typical pony (he would even give Celestia a run for her money), and has visible and defined hooves rather than the solid-colored lower legs of most pony designs. The same body model, colored differently and with added clothing, was later used for Rockhoof, one of the Pillars of Equestria, with his magic-enhanced size.
  • Speaking of Celestia, the alicorns are always taller, slimmer, and have more horselike heads than ordinary ponies. Twilight grows slightly taller after gaining wings and sports a body design more like Celestia's in the distant future ending,
  • "Canterlot Boutique" ends with the appearance of a chubby pony quite different from the design of any other pony yet seen.
  • The unicorns in Rarity's story in "Campfire Tales" have longer horns that curve upwards and end in a sharper point than those seen on typical unicorns.
  • In "To Change a Changeling", Thorax's brother Pharynx had a purple carapace and eyes and a red neck fin instead of the changelings' standard blue-and-cyan color scheme, and is the only changeling to do so. Even after he transforms into a more typical "bug-horse", he still retains a much darker color scheme than the other changelings.
  • Ocellus, another changeling appearing in Season 8, is smaller, skinnier, and has a translucent frill on the back of her neck, as well as a more uniform blue color scheme. Her parents and siblings also have unique colors that none of the other changelings have.
  • Then there's Thorax, the leader of the changelings after they defect from Queen Chrysalis. He is larger, has gem-like bumps on his chest, and a pair of mandibles on his head resembling antlers. Also, prior to his metamorphosis, he stood out from the other changelings due to having rounder eyes and a different colored carapace.
  • Applejack's baby design on her birth certificate in "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows" looks different from the design for other baby ponies (including even her baby design in "Apple Family Reunion"), as she has more normal-looking eyes. Said design was later used in "The Crystalling" for Cadance and Shining Armor's newborn daughter Flurry Heart. Flurry Heart also has much bigger wings than most winged baby ponies, and her diaper is blue while most baby ponies on the show wear white diapers.
  • Maud wears a dress all the time, despite most of the characters not usually wearing anything more than accessories unless it's a special occasion.
• In My Little Pony: Make Your Mark, the villain, Opaline has sharp, angular eyes with Excessive Evil Eyeshadow. Her horn is a sharp, curved one that resembles King Sombra's and her nose is noticeably sharper.
• In The Octonauts, most of the titular crew have round, peanut-shaped snouts. However, both Peso and Shellington have noticeably different snouts; a beak and a flat, triangular nose, respectively. Justified in the former's case, since he is a penguin.
  • Kwazii also stands out for having slanted eyes as opposed to the crews large Black Bead Eyes.
• Out of the Inkwell: Koko the Clown looks more realistic compared to the cartoony cast of Fleischer's works, a result of being rotoscoped.
• Auntie Whispers from Over the Garden Wall has a much more jarringly inhuman design than the other characters, while most of them have fairly realistic (albeit cartoony) proportions, Auntie Whispers is massive, with a bulging head, froglike eyes, and an all-black mouth filled with rotten teeth, all of which serves to make her extremely creepy. Which makes it all the more surprising when it turns out she's Good All Along.
• The Owl House: Unlike all the other humanoid characters on the show, light doesn't naturally shine in Emperor Belos' eyes, as shown here. It's subtle, but it's an effecitive way of demonstrating that there's something unnatural about him. This only applies to his present-day appearance, not his previous appearance as Philip Wittebane.
• In Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures, most of the cast consists of either spheroid Pac-Man-like characters or ghosts. Ghoulasha the witch, however, looks like a regular human witch.
• Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: Rippen’s grey skin, yellow sclera, red irises, Creepy Shadowed Undereyes, and long, pointy ears make him look very out of place next to the other characters, who are much more normal-looking. Justified in that he isn't human, he's an alien from another dimension who came to Earth for his part-time villain career. He also has a devil tail that he keeps hidden in his pants.
• Peppa Pig: Discussed in "Pretend Friend" — while he's not shown to the audience, Suzy's Imaginary Friend Leo Lion is said to wear red trousers and a blue-green shirt, despite the "real" male characters usually being drawn in onesie-like outfits instead of shirts and trousers.
• In the short-lived series Popeye and Son, most of the characters have typical late 1980s Hanna-Barbera designs, while Popeye, Olive and Bluto have their designs closer to the comics and cartoons.
• Phineas and Ferb: Milks this for all it's worth with its primary characters. Each lead character is designed around a certain geometric shape, in contrast to the stylized but more realistic-looking recurring and minor characters. Phineas and Doofenshmirtz both have triangular heads; Candace and Isabella are half-circles; Ferb and Perry are rectangular. These designs were lampshaded repeatedly over the course of the show's run, especially Phineas, with everyone from Candace to Spider-Man commenting on his triangle head.
  • Then of course are the Ink Suit Actors who occasionally have guest roles, who are much less cartoony than anyone else on the show.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
  • The eponymous girls, besides lacking hands, feet, or noses, are drawn with a focus on curves rather than the heavily angular designs of most other characters to make them stand out even more. There is one episode that shows what they would look like if they had been born as normal little girls, but those designs still seem... off. Their nonstandard designs are even more noticeable in the 2016 reboot where the background characters are stylized like something out of Steven Universe and Clarence (2014).
  • Madame Argentina and Fred, the villains from "I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future", are drawn in a very Jay Ward-influenced style, as the episode pastiches the cartoons he produced.
• Primos: Baby Bud, Gordita and ChaCha are some of the few characters to have visible irises.
• In the obscure cartoon Project G.e.e.K.e.R., the title character is drawn in a simpler and more cartoony style than the rest of the more realistic cast. Justified in that he's an artificial human with incredible shape-shifting abilities, and it's even lampshaded a few times in the show (like when he tries to grow extra fingers on account he's the only character on the show with Four-Fingered Hands).
• The Proud Family:
  • Oscar's scrawny (almost twig-like) appearance stands out among the more realistically proportional characters. He also makes the most exaggerated and cartoonish expressions.
  • Most characters have realistic skin tones and hair colors. The Gross Sisters have blue skin and dark blue hair. This is an artistic exaggeration to show that they have extremely ashy skin.
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: Mike the microphone lacks the stick-figure arms and legs that most of the show's other Animate Inanimate Objects have, instead hopping around on his base and using his cord (which is of indefinite length and always appears to be plugged in to something just offscreen) to hold objects.
• In Ready Jet Go!, as opposed to the huge, shiny, semi-circle eyes that most of the characters have, Mr. Peterson has tiny eyes. It makes him stick out like a sore thumb amongst the cast.
• ReBoot has an Amazing Technicolor Population, but due to technical limitations of an All-CGI Cartoon of the time there were few human-like characters and instead had characters anthropomorphized with simpler shapes like binomes (a stack of three boxes with arms, legs and a single eye), zeros (spherical shape with arms, legs and two eyes) and numerals (shaped like numbers). These were often used to fill out crowd scenes and easy to modify the models to become different characters. Some characters though do not fit into those categories at all, with no other character presented like them. Foremost is Phong, more machine like with a blocky body balancing on a gyroscopic ball and a long neck. Frisket is the only dog ever seen. Viruses appear to be unique, and done on purpose to highlight their danger to the system. And there are random background characters never given any real focus, like a Shout-Out of the Penguin from Wallace & Gromit.
• Recess: Randall Weems looks more like a character from The Simpsons compared to everyone else.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show has the space monster disguised as a female Chihuahua in the episode "Marooned", who looks more realistic compared to the more abstract Ren, and Cat Jesus from the unproduced "Life Sucks", who has a realistic cat body compared to the more bean-shaped Stimpy.
• Rolie Polie Olie: While most characters have the simple, cutesy designs with Black Bead Eyes (with the exception of Pappy and Aunt Polie-Anna); Gloomius Maximus stands out from the rest of nearly everyone: He has individual teeth over the default Tooth Strip, more textured than the others (you can notice this on his chin and hat), and having flat, non-beady eyes. This makes him rather unsettling for a show with a preschool demographic, but despite all of this, he used to be the Big Bad.
  • Another offender is the Galaxy of Goofs, almost all of them have a much more cartoony design, don't have beady eyes, and have fully modelled mouths.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • The Hex Girls from Scooby-Doo! and the Witch's Ghost stand out amongst everyone else as they're depicted in a less cartoony style and their movements are less exaggerated.
  • In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, most of the human characters are drawn quite realistically (in Warner's typical "house" animation style of the time), and even Fred, Daphne and Velma had been redesigned a bit to fit with the show's art style (Velma noticeably got slimmer and more shapely.) But Shaggy still retained his classic semi-cartoonish design (albeit with eye sclera now), and the cartoony Scooby-Doo still stuck out from the rest of the realistically-drawn animals in the series.
• The Simpsons:
  • The show underwent significant Art Evolution early on, resulting in most of the character designs becoming considerably more realistic and less stylized—but the main characters maintained the same general appearances, since they had become far too iconic to change. Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are among the only characters who have hair exactly the same color as their skin, with no visible hairlines (making them look like they just have oddly shaped heads). Homer has a protruding muzzle-like mouth (colored brown to indicate stubble), an elongated cylindrical head, and a scribble on the side of his head to indicate baldness, three traits shared by very few other characters who aren't related to him. And Marge has a comically tall "beehive" hairdo that would be nearly impossible for a real woman to maintain. The show has lampshaded this several times.
  • God is the only character in the show to be drawn with five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot.
  • The Space Coyote in Homer's hallucination from "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" (voiced by Johnny Cash) is drawn in a boxier style partially to resemble the style of coyotes in Native American sand paintings.
  • A lot of characters from earlier seasons are drawn in a looser and more cartoonish style, while later seasons draw supporting characters slightly more realistically and consistently. Comic Book Guy has his beard drawn as a zig-zagging line, shared with a number of similar characters introduced in the early seasons. Sideshow Bob has an unusually skinny face, sharp features and Wild Hair.
  • When Hank Hill and other King of the Hill characters made a brief cameo, they looked exactly the same as they did in their own show, skin color and all. A sort of Series Continuity Error is created when the show had a Crossover with The Critic, where Jay Sherman was yellow (albeit still drawn in the same style as his show). In "The Simpsons Guy", the Griffin family also appear normal colored. This is lampshaded on both ends, with Homer referring to the Griffins as "albino" and Peter remarking that everyone in Springfield looks like they have hepatitis.
  • Most characters on the show have simple, C-shaped ears. However, Seymour Skinner (and his mother, Agnes) have their ears shaped realistically.
  • Lampshaded in an episode in which Homer imagines his children as horrible mutant inbred freaks if he and Marge become brother and sister. Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are briefly depicted as ordinary adorable cartoon children with tanned skintones, blue eyes, blond hair, five fingers on each hand, and no overbites.
  • Only a select few characters are drawn with eyebrows, most notably the Van Houtens.
  • Most of the characters don't have gaps between their eyes, but there are some exceptions, including most of the Asian characters, Skinner, Krabappel, Chalmers, Moe, Snake, Milhouse, Mr. Burns, and Smithers.
  • In general, the Caucasian characters are all yellow, but Wendell, Sherri, and Terri are drawn white instead.
• Smiling Friends animates the main cast as colorful blobs, and nearly every other character wildly differently. The Boss is drawn in a surreal semi-realistic style. Desmond is stylized grotesque. Satan and the forest demon are made from photorealistic parts, animated at a lower frame rate than the main cast to make their motions harsh and jerky. Jennifer is a fully realistic human. Mip is a highly detailed hobbit Expy animated at a higher framerate. And so on.
• South Park:
  • Every recurring kid in the boy's class/age group have identical body types, except for their hair and clothes; this has been lampshaded a few times, like when they join a cult and can't tell each other apart because of their identical outfits and shaved heads. The main exception, of course, is Cartman being significantly fatter than the others. Henrietta of the Goth Kids has the same design, and Michael is also much taller and drawn with a nose, probably indicating that the Goths weren't originally meant to be recurring characters.
  • From the beginning, Ike was drawn with Black Bead Eyes and a head that seems to disconnect when he talks. Terrance and Phillip were designed the same way. Eventually it was revealed that all Canadians look like this, and that Ike was adopted. Whether or not this was planned from the beginning is unknown, though in the Season 1 "Starvin' Marvin" episode we can briefly see an Ethiopian baby with an Ike-style head, indicating that it's possible all babies on the show were originally supposed to be depicted this way. The Danish, who are referred to as "the Canadians of Europe," have a similar design (except for the eyes), though most Canadian celebrities who appear on the show don't. (Also, seemingly anyone on Terrance and Phillip's show look this way, including Iraqis.) Interestingly, the Danish aren't depicted this way in the 20th season.
  • In the episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", Richard Stamos stands out from the other characters in having a realistic appearance and slightly rounder eyes.
  • There are also a few characters whose heads are just taken from celebrity photos. A handful of examples include the Christina Aguilera monsters that Cartman sees in "Timmy 2000", Mel Gibson in his appearances, Ben Affleck at the end of "How To Eat With Your Butt", Mr. Garrison after his nosejob in "Tom's Rhinoplasty", and of course, Saddam Hussein.
  • Also the band Korn in "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery". The band are meant to be a parody of the Scooby-Doo gang and aren't designed like South Park characters, but how they would be in a Hanna-Barbara cartoon.
  • In the episode "Here Comes The Neighborhood", Aslan the lion is animated like he was in the animated film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from the 1970's.
  • Mr. Mackey has a huge head compared to the other adults. In one episode it was revealed his head was actually a balloon, and if he loosened his tie a bit it would shrink down to a more normal proportion. His body is also very different from the other adults; his frame is so slim that he looks pencil thin and his knees and elbows look pointy and angular when they bend.
  • The head Sixth Grader's eyes are slanted compared to the typical circular eyes of the show, though this may just indicate he's Asian.
  • Osama bin Laden is wildly different from the standard designs: he is a caricature but doesn't have a photo for a head, and is much more detailed and narrow-bodied than the other characters. The difference can be jarring.
  • When Dr. Katz made a cameo in one episode, he appeared in the usual construction-paper style, but with a filter applied to evoke his usual Squigglevision appearance.
  • PC Principal has a more realistic body, head and face compared to most of the adult characters, and the difference is absolutely noticeable.
  • During the first four seasons, Bill, Fosse and Terrance had much thicker eyebrows than the other characters. After Season 4, their eyebrows were now drawn normally.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • Most of the cast are of sea creatures, with the exception of the eponymous character himself, who's more or less an artificial dish sponge with arms and legs — even unlike his parents. It's unusual.
  • Squidward (and by extension his relatives and Squilliam) looks more humanoid and intricate compared to the cutesy, fairly simplistic designs of the other characters. This is especially jarring when compared to other octopuses and squids, who look more like what you'd expect them to.
  • The occasionally seen news reporter/anchor fish is a photograph of an actual fish.
  • In the later seasons there are plenty of background characters who look like humans with odd skin colors and no noses. It's implied that they're supposed to be fish, but. . .
  • Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy appear to be humans (the former being an expy of Aquaman) that are drawn in the show's usual animated style while any other human that appears in the show is live-action. Notably, this contrasts with the usual scale since other humans are portrayed as being like giants to the main cast. Then again, Mermaid Man does have a shrink ray.
• Spy Groove features a recurring villain named Rock Debris. In a world filled with otherwise vibrant, flamboyant, and lovably ridiculous villain designs, a gaunt man in a pale suit who rarely even smiles sticks out like a sore thumb.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks has a Rick and Morty-ish design scheme (since the showrunner previously worked on that show), with big round eyes and slightly-exaggerated proportions. But as a Mythology Gag to the 1970s animated series (which, being a Filmation production, was full of Limited Animation and simplistic yet realistic character designs), any time characters from that era are depicted, they're in the style of that show.
• Star Wars Resistance: Flix, co-owner of the Office of Acquisitions, is an alien with a design which, in contrast to the Star Wars universe's usual aliens, is much more simplistic and silly, like something you'd see in a Studio Ghibli movie.
• Steven Universe:
  • Rose Quartz is drawn in a slightly more detailed Animesque style than the rest of the cast. Her hair and face are more detailed as she often has a good deal of highlighting and shading. She looks almost like she belongs in a shoujo manga. Rose Quartz is also the most humanoid looking gem shown (as opposed to the others, who tend to look more abstract). She appears to have breasts and her skin is human toned. She essentially looks like a very tall woman with long, pink hair. Justified since Rose Quartz is actually a shapeshifted guise of Pink Diamond, who grew to love humanity and wished to live among them. Of course her preferred form would resemble a human.
  • Yellow Diamond has a far more detailed face, even moreso than Rose. Blue Diamond in turn has a design inspired by Leiji Matsumoto, which gives her a very ethereal and ghostly presence.
  • White Diamond's body is mostly obscured by the light emanating from her gem, making it look like her entire body is made of light^note which it is (to the point that her head looks almost like it's two-dimensional from some angles). She also stands completely motionless, her arms outstretched in a crucifixion pose which, when combined with her dissonant, monotone voice, makes her seem almost robotic. The only part of her body that makes any movement is her face, making it seem disconnected from the rest of her body, and she's the only Gem who always has visible eyebrows. Moreover, she is drawn in the style of the show's background art, as if to further emphasize her rigidity and immobility. Her design is specifically based on the works of American artist Nell Brinkley, while the other three Diamonds curb influence from Japanese manga and anime artists. When she does start moving in "Change Your Mind", the animation only adds to her unsettling nature as her face and fingers constantly distort, resulting in some unnerving facial expressions.
  • White Pearl floats around on the tips of her toes while remaining in the same pose as her Diamond, has a crack going through what should be her left eye into her hair, and is Deliberately Monochrome, also like her Diamond. Also, unlike all other Pearls seen up to that point, she's not voiced by Deedee Magno-Hall, instead having the same voice as her mistress, Christine Ebersole until she's released from mind control, and regains her own (Deedee's) voice.
  • Spinel of Steven Universe: The Movie has a distinctly different design than other characters. For one, she's one of the few characters drawn with distinct irises and pupils. In addition, she has Rubber Man powers that make her look like she walked out of a Rubber-Hose Limbs cartoon. All of this makes her look intentionally unsettling. Before her Evil Makeover, she looked like a much more benevolent twist on the same (though still recognizable as a gem), and was even the only Pie-Eyed character.
• Superjail!:
  • The Warden is far more cartoonish than every other character appearing, often distorting his body into shapes and having stretchy limbs.
  • Aside from his oversized head, Jared is depicted as having four fingers on each hand, while other characters tend to have the standard five-digit hands.
  • Although it's not as visible when they're shown by themselves, the Twins have wider and larger heads compared to the rest of the cast, whose heads are (mostly) more proportionate to their bodies.
• One gag in one of the Superman Theatrical Cartoons involves Lois leaving Clark talking to himself. A man next to Clark gets mad when he thinks that he's referring to him as "Lois", not "Louis". The man is far more stylized than everyone else, who are drawn in a more semi-realistic way.
• The valley girl in the newscast at the end of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 miniseries. A very minor character, but very weird-looking compared to everybody else.
• Aqualad, Miss Martian, and Superboy appear in the "Let's Get Serious" episode of Teen Titans Go!. They are drawn in a more stylized version of Young Justice (2010) style that looks different from the Super-Deformed style of everyone else.
• Thomas & Friends:
  • Unlike all of the other mechanical characters in the show, for some reason Jeremy the Jet Plane has his face drawn on his cockpit like the characters in Cars, while everyone else's are drawn either on their smokeboxes (most of the steam locomotives, Trevor, George, and Buster), their front panels (Toby, Spencer, Cranky, Colin, Kevin, Rocky, Harold, Daisy, Boco, Diesel 10, Elizabeth, Isabella, Madge, Derek, "The Diesel" aka D261, Bulstrode, Thumper, Scruff, 199, and most of the rolling stock), or their grilles (Salty, Rusty, Diesel, 'Arry and Bert, Mavis, Splatter and Dodge, Den, Dart, Sidney, Norman, Paxton, Dennis, and most of the non-rail vehicles).
  • An earlier example would be the bee that stings James in the episode "Buzz Buzz". In a series that consists mostly of model trains, the bee is fully animated in 2D. Said bee is also very anthropomorphic compared to other animals, and especially the bees shown in later episodes.
  • The City of Truro is The Blank, unlike all the other locomotives.
  • Caroline the car, unlike other road vehicles introduced before and after her, has her eyes on her headlights instead of her grille.
  • Harold the Helicopter, Annie and Clarabel, the Troublesome Trucks in Season 1, the coaches from the Skarloey Railway in Season 4 and the Slip Coaches are the only characters who don't have grey faces, but instead, have their faces embedded in their surface similar to some characters in The Railway Series. An early idea for season 12 was that Annie and Clarabel were going to be redesigned with grey faces, but for unknown reasons, they remained the same, even after the show's CGI transition.
    • In the 2021 reboot All Engines Go, Harold was given a grey face to match the engines, but Annie and Clarabel remained with embedded faces.
• In El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, Frida's blue hair and goggles look like they would fit better on an Anime character.
• A possibly unintentional example with the titular characters themselves in the Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Gene Deitch. While Tom and Jerry's designs strongly resemble their recognizable Hanna-Barbera-era selves, most of the other characters to appear in the shorts generally bear the hallmarks of Gene Deitch's minimalistic and more abstract art-style, causing Tom and Jerry themselves to often look somewhat out of place. This is particularly noticeable whenever Tom and Jerry themselves are next to their Deitch-era castmates, such as in ''Tall in the Trap◊", "Landing Stripling◊", "Sorry Safari◊", and any of the shorts that Tom's Deitch-era owner◊ appears in.
• Total Drama:
  • Justin is the only character in the entire franchise to have colored pupils instead of just irises, most likely to accentuate how handsome and defined his characteristics are.
  • Along with the obvious of having arms and legs, Fang is a light gray (compared to the other sharks dark blue), and his appearance is more cartoonish than that of the other sharks, or even the other mutants. This gives him a more expressive range, but it also makes him look like he got imported from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
  • Max has one of the most bizarre designs to date. He has extremely pale skin, an over-sized head with no neck (similar to Owen but with no point of separation of his head and body), a pig-like nose, purple hair, as well as being excessively short.
  • Unlike every other character in the show, Scary Girl's teeth are often drawn in detail to show each individual one, which helps make her Slasher Smiles even more unnerving.
• Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race: It's subtle, but watch how the Goths blink... they don't, they slowly close and reopen their eyes. They also blink by raising their lower eyelids, something impossible to humans. The only time they blink normally is when they are un-gothed, and they go right back when they get regothed.
• Twipsy draws a sharp distinction between humans, who're drawn in a style vaguely reminiscent of Rugrats, and AIs like the title character, who resemble nothing so much as Cubist portraits.
• In Undergrads most of the characters are relatively realistically drawn. Except for Gimpy, who has a lizard like face, one bulging discolored eye, and looks like a cartoon character that's been microwaved.
• Westley the Watchdog from Wander Over Yonder differs from the standard Watchdog model in that he is shorter, stockier and wears a two-piece suit.
• Every single female character that's not a kid or a senior citizen in Winx Club have an Impossible Hourglass Figure and model-perfect looks. Every character except Lucy, who prior to the Nick remake was the only girl drawn to look unattractive, and despite the rest of their figures the only one who looked anorexically thin.
• Omi from Xiaolin Showdown looks a little different from the other major characters. He is bright yellow, in contrast to the others' normal skintones. He also has black dots for eyes, while the others have colored, slightly more detailed eyes.
• In David Feiss' Gag Dub of Yoohoo & Friends, Father Time and Feiss' other characters clash severely with the original show's animesque artstyle. Conversely, Yoohoo and his friends are the ones who look out-of-place whenever they appear in one of Father Time's framing segments.