Person Asked “Show Me The Worst Character Designs You’ve Ever Seen”, And Here Are 39 Of Them
When we were kids, the cartoon characters in the shows we’d watch were absolutely flawless. We’d laugh, enjoy their hilarious antics, and get swept up in the brilliance of their storylines. But as we got older, it became a bit harder to see past the weirdness of some cartoon and anime character designs.
Some are so bad that no amount of good storytelling can hide that fact. That’s why we’re here to ruin your childhood just a little bit more with this list of abominable character designs from movies, shows, and anime.
More info: Reddit
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Cats - Live Action Movie
I'm amused by the theories that covid was a divine punishment for this.
I do too. The cast was clearly having a wonderful time and the dancing was insanely good for the most part. Honestly only Rebel wasn't a dancer, but that was sort of the point and she still put all her energy into it. I was sold on enthusiasm plus the kids giving proper reverence to Judi Densch and Ian McKellen. Dunno why people expected Cats to suddenly make sense as if it weren't already Andrew Lloyd Webber at his cocaniest.
Load More Replies...I saw the musical on Broadway three weeks after it opened. It was wonderful. Somehow making a movie out if it made it grotesque. It destroyed the magic.
The problem with this musical is that it's so abstract that it's impossible to translate it to the big screen. While other musicals, such as The Sound of Music and West Side Story have coherant plots that make them perfect for adapting to the big screen, Cats is basically just a bunch of poems/songs about various cats with a rather loose plot about selecting a cat that will be reborn into a new life.
Load More Replies...Should have gone with actual costumes than this creepy CGI nonsense. The actual costumes for the show are awesome.
and the thing with the stage show costumes is they were designed to minimize the human-ness. Big wide wigs, arm and leg warmers, they help to disguise the human proportions.
Load More Replies...I agree with the reviewers - longterm musical theater fans, mostly - who said that the real problem with the movie was the twin issues of mostly casting non-dancers in a dance movie, and allowing them all to sing at their own pace and expect the orchestra to figure it out in post production. In other words, it was a really bad adaptation. And since the performances didn't draw people out of their seats into the movie, we were all stuck staring at the weird costume/character design choices. If it had been a better MOVIE, we wouldn't have cared as much.
Victoria and Skimbleshanks are principal dancers at the Royal Ballet, and Munkustrap at the New York City ballet.
Load More Replies...Agree 100%, couldn't even finish watching because the characters were so bad
Cats the 2019 dumpster fire gets ONE compliment from me: I like Beautiful Ghosts. Otherwise, that movie was a nightmare and I couldn't finish it. While some people do enjoy it, I am not one of them.
I still swear this movie was a fever trip. This is beyond the uncanny valley. This is just pure nightmare fuel that has crawled its way up from the deepest circle of hell.
Spiderus From Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends
Tika - Barbie Movie
Bored Panda has curated this list of terrible, weird, and creepy character designs that people have come across. Although a character’s design isn’t the only thing that makes the show good, it can add a lot to the overall storyline. One of the important parts of designing a good cartoon character is understanding their anatomy.
Designers need to first know the rules of human anatomy before they break them. Many animators don’t understand or choose to ignore anatomy rules and then end up with the oddest characters. According to Pixune, “researching a body shape’s anatomical structure, whether a human, animal, invented creature, or machine, is essential to creating a unique character.”
Globglogabgalab - Strawinsky And The Mysterious House
Becky - T.u.f.f. Puppy
It keeps alternating between looking like a nose and a hole aaaaahhh
Jay Jay The Jet Plane
When it comes to misunderstanding realistic or anatomically correct character design, one of the weirdest offenders of this was Paramount Picture’s Sonic the Hedgehog. When the production company released the first trailer for their live-action movie, there was public outcry over how creepy and unsettling the character looked. Many unhappy fans found his teeth to be too detailed and his eyes not conjoined enough.
To Paramount’s credit, they took all the fan feedback into consideration and pushed back the film’s release date by a year. By listening to what people had to say and making Sonic look more cartoon-like, they were able to find the most pleasing character design for their film.
Tales In Mushroom Village
Sonic The Hedgehog
Kid - Foodfight
Another interesting thing to keep in mind about good character design is having identifiable silhouettes. This means that each character’s body shape should be distinctive enough to be recognized by an audience without any other details.
According to Walt Disney, “when designing characters, artists often use a silhouette to test whether the character’s basic design ‘reads’ to the audience. From the silhouette we are able to see a distinctive and recognizable design without details and understand what the figure is saying with its overall form.”
The Problem Solverz
This is what i got in those make a character with google slides things you do in elementary school.
Peppa's Guinea Pigs
Every character on Peppa Pig should be pictured here. That show has lazy sloppy illustrators pretending that they're edgy.
Fanboy & Chum Chum
Some designers also make the mistake of overdesigning their characters by adding way too many details or accessories that make absolutely no sense. It can be an eyesore for viewers and even leave them feeling confused. Animators especially do this when their designs look too similar, and people need to tell the characters apart.
An important thing to keep in mind is that overdesigned characters can create a cluttered mess. With too many colors, body features, and intricate details, the character will look unnatural. Designers should use other distinguishing factors for their animation and give their protagonists a cleaner look.
Peppa The Pig
Billy From Monster By Mistake
Joshua And The Promised Land
Another movie that was guilty of creating unsettling characters was The Polar Express. The characters in this movie were supposed to look human and life-like, but instead, they had uncanny valley characteristics. Many people found issues with the eyes of the animated characters, which seemed crossed and unfocused.
The film team was also one of the first to use motion capture suits and computer rendering technology on such a big scale. This might explain why the movie’s characters looked so weird while moving and speaking.
Kamichama Karin
Gakuen Handsome
Buttercup From The Power Puff Girls
Cartoons aren’t meant to look realistic or be perfect, but designers should definitely not just throw a bunch of things together to create a character. It’s safe to say that many of the characters in this list are nightmare fuel for that exact reason. That’s why this post received 23k upvotes and 3.8k comments with many of the most jarring examples of character design ever seen. Let us know which of these animations shocked you the most.
Bigby Wolf - Unstable Fables
xxxHolic
Teen Girl Wolf - Unstable Fables
Squirrel Daredevil Dan - Foodfight
Howie And Poodle - Almost Naked Animals
The Joker
Sid Phillips - Toy Story
Okay but to be fair people were just learning how to animate and model stuff like that when that movie came out. The design did always kinda scare me as a kid though ngl
Jonny - The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest
Groucha - Téléchat
This looks like that kind of weird $hit you find on the dark side of Youtube.
Bozz And Doody - Cubeez
Purple Monarch - Miraculous
Everything about this show is just awful. No offense to the fans out there 🐞
Maury The Hormone Monster - Big Mouth
Kindergarteners From Leo
I don’t think it’s that bad of a design. It’s just unrealistic cuz it’s a cartoony style, and they look pretty funny
Alpha And Omega
Barb - Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
Ginger - As Told By Ginger
Królestwo Zielonej Polany. Powrót
Muscle Man - Regular Show
Mr. Rzykruski - Frankenweenie
Beavis and Butt-Head
Johnny Test
hey! this one doesnt belong. sure, it had its issues, but it was a solid show
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More than half of these are just cartoony art styles with unrealistic proportions or exaggerated features to appear funny or ugly on purpose, not genuinely bad character design…
Yep, and a bunch of the rest are early CGI which suffered from technical limitations of the time. How many polygons can we use to create this character? Three. Three thousand? No, THREE!
Load More Replies...half of these are just characters being styalized and people not liking it, that's all
Uhhh. that's pretty much what took "worst design" to mean. Did you think we meant poor load-bearing strength or something?
Load More Replies...The early 3D/computer animation that didnt age well is forgivable, IMO. As for others, I'm all for creativity but do some cartoons have to be downright hideous?
Seriously? No mention of Coredor, the claymation alien with a v4gina for a face from australian children's tv?
All of the above is like Studio Ghibli compared to "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa". The best part is "Malfunctioning Grandma" (the voice actress recordings for Grandma got messed up when encoding, but the producers put it in anyway. Talk about lack of quality control). Embrace the horror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpVc3EO-6gA
Oh my god, that was funny. Thanks for a good laugh.
Load More Replies...Literally EVERYONE in that kids show 'Wiggles Space Dancing' like they used to give me nightmares! LOOK AT THIS e2fac99e3d...7a6f60.jpg
This list is lazy. There are many designs that were actually bad but instead some that shouldn't be on this list were included
Mental note to self: if I ever want to animate using a computer, buy the GOOD computer software 👍
Most of these can be explained by the fact that most animators are OUT OF THEIR G0DDAMMN MINDS. Source: I was one, went to school with many, and worked with a few more.
Do people expect all cartoon shows to have correct anatomical proportions?
i'm surprised that one Transformers show isn't on this list. with the really awful cgi. Beast Wars, I think. look it up. it looks really terrible
Early CGI animation needs to be given a pass to some degree. Fully CGI animated/3D animated shows was a new technology/concept in the early to mid 90's, and from what I found, this show aired between the 1996 and 1999. It hasn't aged well, I'll give you that. But some early 3D shows need to be given some slack because the technology was new.
Load More Replies...Half of these are just because they are very stylised, not everything HAS to be realistic.
Guys... the blue guy in "im blue", and, the vodacom meerkat... horror. d8ac1a3a-9...537175.jpg and https://twitter.com/Luunga___/status/827543070321278976
I always hated the character designs of the animated Star Wars prequel series
More than half of these are just cartoony art styles with unrealistic proportions or exaggerated features to appear funny or ugly on purpose, not genuinely bad character design…
Yep, and a bunch of the rest are early CGI which suffered from technical limitations of the time. How many polygons can we use to create this character? Three. Three thousand? No, THREE!
Load More Replies...half of these are just characters being styalized and people not liking it, that's all
Uhhh. that's pretty much what took "worst design" to mean. Did you think we meant poor load-bearing strength or something?
Load More Replies...The early 3D/computer animation that didnt age well is forgivable, IMO. As for others, I'm all for creativity but do some cartoons have to be downright hideous?
Seriously? No mention of Coredor, the claymation alien with a v4gina for a face from australian children's tv?
All of the above is like Studio Ghibli compared to "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa". The best part is "Malfunctioning Grandma" (the voice actress recordings for Grandma got messed up when encoding, but the producers put it in anyway. Talk about lack of quality control). Embrace the horror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpVc3EO-6gA
Oh my god, that was funny. Thanks for a good laugh.
Load More Replies...Literally EVERYONE in that kids show 'Wiggles Space Dancing' like they used to give me nightmares! LOOK AT THIS e2fac99e3d...7a6f60.jpg
This list is lazy. There are many designs that were actually bad but instead some that shouldn't be on this list were included
Mental note to self: if I ever want to animate using a computer, buy the GOOD computer software 👍
Most of these can be explained by the fact that most animators are OUT OF THEIR G0DDAMMN MINDS. Source: I was one, went to school with many, and worked with a few more.
Do people expect all cartoon shows to have correct anatomical proportions?
i'm surprised that one Transformers show isn't on this list. with the really awful cgi. Beast Wars, I think. look it up. it looks really terrible
Early CGI animation needs to be given a pass to some degree. Fully CGI animated/3D animated shows was a new technology/concept in the early to mid 90's, and from what I found, this show aired between the 1996 and 1999. It hasn't aged well, I'll give you that. But some early 3D shows need to be given some slack because the technology was new.
Load More Replies...Half of these are just because they are very stylised, not everything HAS to be realistic.
Guys... the blue guy in "im blue", and, the vodacom meerkat... horror. d8ac1a3a-9...537175.jpg and https://twitter.com/Luunga___/status/827543070321278976
I always hated the character designs of the animated Star Wars prequel series