Drawn traditions9
Cel Animation
An inked character in flat paint, laid over a painted background that is made a different way.
Rubber Hose
Limbs drawn as bending tubes with no joints at all, and a body built from circles.
Ligne Claire
One line weight everywhere, flat unmodelled colour, and no shadow at all.
Cartoon Modern
Flat angular shapes on textured paper, with the drawing pulled apart from the colour.
Rotoscope
Live action traced by hand, so real proportion and real weight sit under a drawn line.
Xerographic Line
The animator's own pencil line photocopied straight onto the cel, sketch marks and all.
Storyboard Frame
A quick rough drawing made to test a shot, with the marks that explain it left on.
Model Sheet
One character drawn several times on one page, so anybody else can draw it the same way.
Concept Painting
A fully painted still made early, to fix what the finished thing should feel like.
Anime and manga8
Anime Cel
Flat colour with the shadow cut into one hard graphic shape, under a thin even line.
Impact Frame
One high contrast frame at the moment of a hit, with the drawing reduced to two tones.
Shonen Ink
Heavy black, a line that swells and tapers, and a body drawn at full stretch.
Shojo Ink
A fine even line, huge eyes, and backgrounds made of flowers and light rather than places.
Screentone
Grey built from printed dots and lines stuck to the page, never from a wash.
Chibi
A character redrawn at two heads tall, with everything except the head made smaller.
Speed Lines
Speed drawn as straight lines behind the subject, rather than blurred by a camera.
Mecha Line
Hard surfaces divided into panels, with every edge, seam and vent drawn as a line.
Painted7
Watercolour Bleed
Transparent washes bleeding into wet paper, with the white of the sheet as the only light.
Ink Wash
One ink diluted to many strengths, so the whole picture is built from value alone.
Soft Pastel
Dry pigment dragged across textured paper, sitting on the surface and catching the tooth.
Limited Palette Dry Brush
Three or four colours only, laid with a nearly dry brush so every edge breaks up.
Oil Impasto
Paint thick enough to hold the mark, so the surface has real height and casts shadows.
Gouache Flat
Opaque matte colour laid in flat even areas, with light painted over dark.
Scratchboard
White lines cut out of a solid black surface, so the drawing is made by removal.
Made by hand10
Claymation
Modelling clay reshaped by hand, so the surface carries every fingerprint.
Puppet Animation
A built figure on a jointed metal skeleton, dressed in real cloth and photographed.
Cut-Out Animation
Flat paper pieces pinned at the joints and moved by hand on a lit surface.
Brick Built
A figure built entirely from interlocking plastic bricks, studs and all.
Sand on Glass
Loose sand pushed across a lit sheet of glass, so the image is made of grain and gaps.
Paint on Glass
Slow drying oil paint worked wet on glass, so every stroke smears into the last.
Shadow Silhouette
Jointed black shapes lit from behind, so only the outline carries the picture.
Needle Felt
Loose wool stabbed into shape, so every surface is soft and slightly hairy.
Paper Craft
A three dimensional figure folded and glued from flat sheet, so every curve is a facet.
Wire Armature
The skeleton on its own: bent wire, visible joints, and nothing built over it.
Rendered in 3D11
Toon Shaded
A rendered model lit in two or three flat bands instead of a smooth gradient.
Hand-Painted Texture
Light and shadow painted into the texture itself, so the renderer barely lights anything.
Voxel
Everything built from identical cubes on a grid, so no surface is smooth.
Clay Render
One matte material on everything, so only the form and the shadow show.
Felt and Fabric
A rendered figure surfaced in wool and cloth, with fibre standing up at every edge.
Plastic Toy
A figure rendered as a moulded plastic toy, complete with seams and sprue marks.
Papercraft Render
A rendered figure surfaced as folded card, with a crease at every facet.
Stylised PBR
Physically correct materials on exaggerated shapes, which is the modern feature film look.
Subsurface Character
A figure made of something light passes through, so the edges glow from inside.
Vinyl Designer Toy
A collectible vinyl figure: one piece, no articulation, matte and slightly soft.
Diorama Render
A tiny complete world on a base, shot as though it were a real model on a table.
Soft materials10
Flocked Velvet
Very short dense fibre standing straight up, so the surface absorbs light and has no highlight.
Tufted Carpet
Dense cut pile with a flat trimmed top, so the surface looks mown rather than furry.
Long Pile Fur
Long soft strands with the ends uncut, so the silhouette dissolves into a halo.
Beaded Scatter
Thousands of tiny spheres covering a surface, so every form is built from dots.
Knitted
A surface of interlocking loops, so every form is stepped by the stitch grid.
Crochet
Chained loops worked in spirals, so forms are round, chunky and slightly lumpy.
Embroidered Patch
Raised thread laid in one direction, with a rolled edge that ends the shape.
Quilted
Padding held down by a grid of stitch lines, so the surface puffs between them.
Inflatable
A sealed skin under air pressure, rounded everywhere and pinched at the seams.
Jelly
A soft translucent solid, wobbling slightly and glowing where the light passes through.
Gradient and noise5
Mesh Gradient
Several colour points bleeding into each other across one smooth field, with no edges at all.
Grainy Gradient
A smooth blend broken by heavy noise, densest where the two colours meet.
Iridescent Gradient
A form with no colour of its own, washed in a continuous spectrum that ignores its materials.
Dither
A gradient faked with a regular pattern of two-colour dots, because the palette has no in-between.
Chromatic Split
The red, green and blue channels pulled apart, so every edge fringes in colour.
Applied over4
Doodle Overlay
Flat cartoon marks drawn over a real photograph, with neither layer pretending to be the other.
Marker Annotation
Circles, arrows and handwriting over a photograph, added to explain rather than to decorate.
Sticker Bomb
Printed die-cut stickers layered edge to edge until the surface beneath disappears.
Photo Collage
Photographs cut out and layered on a surface, with the cut edge left visible.
Character shapes12
Big Eye
Eyes drawn far larger than life, with everything else on the face reduced to make room.
Bean Construction
A body built from one curved bean shape, so the whole figure leans in a single arc.
Noodle Limb
Very long thin limbs that bend smoothly but still have a shoulder, an elbow and a wrist.
Blocky Build
A figure built from squares and rectangles, with a heavy silhouette and no curves.
Funny Animal
An animal built on a human body plan, with the species reduced to a few clear signals.
Outline Weight
One decision about the line: the same width everywhere, or thick and thin.
Flat Shadow
All the shading reduced to one hard edged shape in a single darker tone.
Ramp Shading
Light divided into several flat bands, so a form turns in visible steps.
Sticker Character
A character with a thick white keyline around it, cut out and stuck on.
Mascot
A character designed to survive being printed small, in one colour, forever.
Plush
A character rebuilt as a sewn and stuffed toy, with seams where the panels meet.
Caricature
One or two features pushed hard while everything else is held accurate.
Studio looks8
Soft 3D Character
Exaggerated proportions with physically correct skin, lit warm and shot on a long lens.
Hyperreal CG Creature
Photographic light and real fur on an invented animal, with no stylisation at all.
Sprayed Halftone Comic
A 3D render treated as cheap comic printing: dot screens, misregistration and ink lines.
Painted Gouache Background
A flat cel character standing in a fully painted world, with the two made differently.
Anime Feature Film
Cel characters inside a photographically lit world, with lens effects over everything.
Replacement Face Puppet
A stop motion puppet whose whole face is swapped each frame, with the seam left visible.
Broadcast Flat Cartoon
Thick uniform outlines, flat fills and a small loud palette, built to be made fast.
Cutout Web Cartoon
Flat paper shapes with hard drop shadows, moved as pieces rather than redrawn.
Technical drawing7
Blueprint
White line on a deep cyan ground, with no shading and no colour anywhere else.
Orthographic Projection
The same thing drawn from front, top and side at one scale, with no perspective at all.
Patent Drawing
Ink line with hatched shading, every part numbered, and no colour at all.
Exploded Diagram
Every part pulled apart along one axis, with dashed lines showing where each returns.
Cutaway
The outer shell opened or made transparent, so the inside is visible in place.
Isometric Infographic
One solid view with every parallel edge staying parallel, drawn at a fixed 30 degrees.
Wireframe
Edges only, with the edges at the back drawn rather than removed.
Three rules under all of them
- Name the material first
- Clay, cut paper and a rendered surface are three different pictures of the same character. Say which one before you say anything about the drawing.
- Say how the line behaves
- A line of one weight all the way round is a different tradition from a line that swells and tapers. Naming it is what separates two styles that share a palette.
- Describe the craft, not the studio
- Rubber hose limbs with no joints and a constant line weight is a technique anyone can use. A studio's name averages forty years of output, returns something different every run, and dates.
Try one
Every model prints its dollar price before you sign in. You pay for the run, not for the month.
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