How Indie Animation is More Unique Than TV Animation

Update: I somewhat disown this video now. You can still watch it but personally, I don't like it anymore. The Roundtable did a better job explaining the unique styles of indie cartoons compared to the beanmouth trend TV cartoons tend to have.

Note: Just because the TV cartoons I listed have the thin beanhead trend doesn’t mean they’re bad, just a little lazy with their art style.

Extra Note: The BGM might glitch a bit since I had to export it in different parts, and a few of them still had the music playing.

No, calling it “Calarts style” doesn’t fit because some creators didn’t graduate from Calarts in the first place. Plus, it gives the institute a bad name. How about we call it “Thin beanhead” instead?

Indie cartoons I shouted out in the video:
Mentioned (You should still check them out):

[xantheburns-price]

Pov: you mention anything to do with object shows
The entire fandom: WE HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

[katylepetsos]

I’m so happy more people are starting to talk about Monkey Wrench, it absolutely deserves the recognition and support, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help fund the show as well as the other projects too, they are all something very special and have a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing more.

[Xian_Drawings]

I think both Tv Animations & Indie Animations can both get very unique at parts. I’m more off a indie animator because…like come on I’m in High School. But me personally I love any type of animations

[movie]

Thank you so much for calling it the "Thin Bean-Head Style".

[grunch]

Haven't watched the full video yet, but really i think the reason most tv shows have the same artstyle is because it's not really their choice, but corporate's choice, look at the Steven Universe pilot for example, it has a much more distinct artstyle, but because corporate most likely saw that the Adventure Time style was more popular and it would take less money to produce, they picked that one
Edit: oh you made the exact same argument lol

[CassidyiszMe]

3:14
Match: Yeah, she was so surprised.
Pencil: Really?
Match: Oh for sure. I mean it wasn't really big, just a little bug but Flower went crazy!
Pencil: Wow, Flower's really afraid of bugs.

[meepypengu]

I’d argue that The Owl House doesn’t fit into the Calarts style. It doesn’t fall into the style’s tropes such as completely circular eyes with tiny pupils, noodle shaped arms, bubble-like heads, or even the bean mouth. I could only vaguely see characters like Luz and Willow fitting into the stereotype because of their face shapes, but others in the rest of the cast such as Eda, Hunter, Raine and Belos don’t have traits resembling the Cal-arts style at all. The only other thing I could really connect to to The Owl House being Calarts style would be that their clothing is pretty simplified especially in the 1st season, but that’s not really a Calarts exclusive trait.

[vincealvarez]

Fun Fact: Rebecca Sugar, creator of Steven Universe, graduated from School of Visual Arts, not from CalArts.

The fact that she had created her titular character with a thin bean head is unintentionally.

[Ender-Eye]

My few favorite indies include, The earth guy, Bee and puppy cat (not the Netflix one), ENA, Lumi and the great big galaxy, Atlas and the stars, and Murder drones.

[AJiguess_]

The 2010s were the last hurrah for normal television cartoons

[megamixit]

I think the art styles are actually usually diverse. The main problem is the character design. While a lot of art styles fall in similar lines, it usually is only compared due to the fact that main characters of shows are pretty similar in mainstream cartoons right now. I also think that adventure time is absolutely not the cause of this (though it did add a little fuel to the flame) art styles have been going in this direction for a long time as shown by stuff like whatever happened to robot jones, Billy and Mandy among others whose art styles and character designs are very close to what we have now. This sameness does not really carry into the actual artstyle such as in the case of thundercats roar, which has an extremely unique art style, that only has a “samey” art style is because of the bean head character design. Also it’s not very fair to say that indie shows have more diverse art styles because they are all disconnected from each other and the mainstream so there isn’t really a collective “indie” art style as much as there is a mainstream one, which is more focused on marketing. Besides, just dipping a toe into adult animation makes the bean head argument disappear since a lot of great shows are coming out without replicating this style. Along with that John k’s original article was talking about stuff like the iron giant instead of television animation like it went viral for.

Good video and all I suppose, I enjoy this channel but this is not a logical argument to say. I’ve been rambling to long

[mrodd-wlmf]

Finally someone that mentions bfdi as a indie show

[UziDoormanWISEdits]

OH MY GOD FINNALY ALPHABET LORE IS ACKNOWLEDGED AS INDIE ANIMATION

[bella_daze]

3:59 oh, my fucking God, I remember battle for dream island😮 I nearly forgot about that show

[qiqi_playz]

BFDI AND MONKEY WRENCH MENTIONED?!1!1!1

[Rico_plush]

Indie animation should get their own streaming service

[ClabeTickel]

I gonna be honest, the other cartoons don’t even look that similar to adventure time they are still unique. Webearbears might look a little similar but even then it’s still unique with its story just like all other cn show

[pwas]

bfdi in the thumbnail sold me to watch this video

[mizosis]

i see firey in the thumbnail, i click.

[trulykm]

Honorable mention Ongezillig the show has animation to my knowledge not seen anywhere else but they do have the close up realistic gag similar to spongebob but isn’t super disturbing also the ost is so good