"...Those FOP outlines also prominently feature a style known in the industry as Eddie Murphy-ing. Y'know, 'cause they're black, fat on the outside, and haven't been popular since 2007."
— Harry Gold explaining
the thick-line art style.
the thick-line art style.
An animation style characterized by visible heavy black borders around characters and objects.
This style began being used by a few animation companies in the early 1950s (mostly UPA, of Gerald McBoing-Boing and Mr. Magoo fame), and became dominant in American TV animation during the '60s and '70s, eclipsing the more naturalistic style used in most animation during earlier decades. It was phased out during the early '80s, when more naturalistic styles again became dominant in American animation, but then became the standard yet again (on television at least) during the late '90s, and has remained in active use to this day — shows animated in Adobe Flash and Toon Boom tend to look especially good in this style. However, as of The New '10s and carrying on into The New '20s, most mainstream television animation in the world (mostly the US) has switched to its less detailed, more expressive cousin: Thin-Line Animation. Now, that's not to say this style is dead, as it is still used in many productions, just not as many as it used to.
This is sometimes considered to be among the most defining traits of modern day American animation, mostly when contrasted with the similar "anime=big eyes" notion to emphasize the differences between U.S. and Japanese animation. When this art style does show up in Japanese media, it tends to have uneven lines and crayon shading in imitation of children's doodles (rakugaki).
Compare and contrast Limited Animation, Web Animation, Super-Deformed, Mismatched Atomic Expressionism, or No-Line Animation.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Advertising
- In the '50s, several TV commercials featuring Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Peter Pan advertising several different products used this kind of art style, despite Walt's personal dislike for the style. A Jell-O commercial featuring Alice talking with the Griffin and the Mock Turtle even had the outlines on the animation recycled from the movie thickened to match.
- Some Pokémon artwork on the newer Pokémon-related advertisements are depicted in this manner, with Pikachu being depicted with an oval head in this artstyle. note
Anime & Manga
- Attack on Titan: For the first three seasons. It's not of uniform thickness, though, giving the impression of a brush pen. Averted in the fourth and final season, which switched to more Thin-Line Animation.
- Aggretsuko used the Japanese variation of the thick-line animation.
- Close-up shots in Casshern Sins are animated with large outlines.
- Some episodes of Digimon Data Squad animate the child-level mons in this style, particularly in the series' tail end. It's very inconsistently done and is probably a product of the Off-Model Art Shifts which plague the series.
- Used in the Dragon Ball Z film Fusion Reborn during the comedic scenes set on Earth. It's particularly noticeable during Goten and Trunks' fight with The Dictator and his army. For all other scenes, such as those set within the Other World, the art style reverts to the standard used throughout the rest of the franchise.
- The fourth episode of Dragon Ball Super is full of thick-lining, particularly the scenes with Emperor Pilaf.
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba often uses thick lines in some shots and comedic takes.
- Fullmetal Alchemist has done a couple Art Shifts to this type of style for some comical moments.
- The first ending of Brotherhood is entirely animated in thick lines and crayon colors, representing drawings made by Ed and Al before they lost their bodies.
- Hellsing is different in how the anime and OVA series averts it when the manga has very noticeable thick line drawing.
- The mochi segments in the fifth season of Hetalia: Axis Powers use bulky outlines.
- The anime adaption of Samurai Girls uses large lines in the character designs and weapons. The general art style resembles traditional ink painting.
- Kaiji and Akagi both the works of Nobuyuki Fukumoto and both animated by Madhouse, are animated with thick lines.
- Appears in episode 7 of the Katanagatari anime, which is closer to the art style of the original light novels' illustrations.
- Koe de Oshigoto! uses rough lines as an artistic direction; it's used to emulate the look of Eroge CG's.
- The Gainax anime Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, which was inspired by American cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls (1998), utilizes the trademarks of the style like chunky outlines and basic angular designs.
- Thick lines are applied at times on the character designs in Samurai Champloo.
- Cartoonish geometric designs with coarse lines are utilized in Super Milk Chan making it look a lot like a mix of Ren & Stimpy, Dr. Seuss, and The Powerpuff Girls (1998).
- Yu-Gi-Oh! features heavy outlines from time to time. Notably during closeups of the characters' faces.
- Any work of Kouta Hirano, where it's used to accentuate the angular, dynamic designs of his Noodle People characters, though it's less pronounced in the TV version of Hellsing. OVAs and Drifters, OTOH...
- The anime for Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun consistently depicts characters and objects with thick outlines.
- Anime produced by Warner Bros. under the "Gokko" brand in the likes of Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes feature the Japanese variant.
Asian Animation
- The characters in Happy Friends have always been drawn with noticeable outlines, but the outlines become thicker in the art style from Season 10 onwards.
- Pucca: The outlines are bulky and the designs are angular.
Films — Animation
- 101 Dalmatians particularly invokes this style barring some reminisce to the works of UPA, especially since the Xerox process made the lines more thick than any other Disney Animated Canon film of its time.
- Aladdin utilizes this sort of style to mimic the inking of Al Hirschfeld's drawings.
- In Fantasia 2000, the Rhapsody in Blue segment utilizes this to a greater extent, being more directly based on Hirschfeld.
- Fixed: As the first Sony Pictures Animation movie to be made in 2D, it features geometric designs with heavy outlines which its director, Genndy Tartakovsky, is fond of.
- The Secret of Kells, though it was invoked purposely to resemble medieval illustrations.
Live-Action TV
- Llan-ar-goll-en: All of the Roger Rabbit Effect animals are animated in this style, with any accessories they may be wearing being a darker colored outline.
- The Joey Ahlbum animations from Sesame Street are drawn in a geometric style.
Softwares
- Adobe Flash is notorious for having many works that use heavy outlines.
- The Windows 10 emoji art since the Anniversary Update. Besides fitting with the flat Metro look, it also helps it show up better on backgrounds of any color.
Video Games
- Early cel-shaded games such as Jet Set Radio and Cel Damage utilized bold outlines.
- Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and Super Meat Boy, all made by the Newgrounds.
- Angry Birds games (mainly those from 2009 to 2012) have the characters designed to be simplistic shapes (mostly circles). Starting from the Star Wars game the lines would become thinner, keep their thickness or the games would be made in 3D.
- Battletoads (2020): The art style is composed of angular shapes and heavy outlines. The game visuals are often confused with the Thin-Line Animation because of the cartoonish direction the redesigns were taking.
- Bendy and the Ink Machine gives most objects scratchy outlines of varying thickness to look like a black-and-white cartoon from the 30s. The characters notably have no outlines, although Bendy and the Dark Revival gave them thin glowing white outlines for a more convincingly hands drawn appearance.
- The Binding of Isaac uses this animation style to take the edge off of just how screwed up everything is.
- Borderlands uses this effectively for comic like graphics.
- Cuphead, a game inspired by the works of Max and Dave Fleischer, uses a 1930's cartoon-esque art style with thick outlines to resemble a cartoon from that era.
- Champions Online features a Cel Shading option, which gives the characters thick black outlines.
- Friday Night Funkin', given its heavy inspiration from 2000s-era Flash games and animations, which also used thick-line animation.
- Ittle Dew, a twisted Zelda tribute game, utilizes an artstyle resembling Wind Waker's 2D artworks.
- A few games from The Jackbox Party Pack utilize thick outlines. Of particular note are the ones directed by Owen Watsonnote , which have a pseudo-Hanna-Barbera look to them.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Bowser's Inside Story had somewhat of a graffiti-style to it, with thick outlines.
- Mario Strikers: Battle League: When the characters perform their Hyper Strikes, sport designs resembling the series artwork which feature hefty lines.
- Paper Mario: The character outlines are bulky but they're designed with circular shapes, except for Super Paper Mario where either the new characters as well as the backgrounds sport blocky designs in order to be translated to the view switch mechanic.
- Super Princess Peach uses large outlines in the cinematics and in the bottom screen animations.
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3, as part of the game's comic book-inspired artstyle.
- The cover art for Ninjabread Man, along with the loading screen, give the characters thick outlines.
- Rakugakids: The characters, being children's drawings are depicted this way, clashing with the realistic-looking backgrounds.
- The GBA game Sonic Battle, which sported a thick-lined graffiti style.
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS adds black borders around characters to make them more visually distinct on the handheld's relatively small screen, although the option to make them thin or remove them entirely is included.
- Yoshi's Island
- Yoshi's Island and its DS sequel zig-zag this. The characters (excluding the bosses) have slim outlines for the average sprite size. But the backgrounds and objects lines vary between thin and thick.
- Yoshi's Story uses heavy outlines in cutscenes, giving them a somewhat childlike feel.
- Zenless Zone Zero juggles a lot of artstyles to help flesh out it's world but the chibis used in the game's Special Programs◊ and elsewhere are in this style as fitting of the Turn of the Millennium-esque universe the game is set in.
Web Animation
- Most of the assets in Battle for Dream Island are depicted in this style. It's much more notable in the earlier episodes, as the outlines would gradually become thinner and more refined as the series went on.
- In fact, most Object Shows would qualify for this trope, with a notable thick-lined example being Brawl of the Objects.
- Bloody Bunny is a Thai example.
- While CartoonMania firmly plants itself in Thin-Line Animation territory, the StickFigure Brothers (Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry) stand out among their 300+ animated peers because of their comically thick outlines.
- Disventure Camp, a show that wears its Total Drama influence on its sleeves, has thick-line animation much like its inspiration.
- Gameoverse is the first Glitch Productions show to use this style. Hefty lines and geometric shapes are all commonplace with the character designs.
- A few GoAnimate themes (like "Li'l Peepz" and "Cartoon Classics") make liberal usage of thick outlines.
- Happy Tree Friends' art style is a variant in that the characters have mostly colored outlines instead of only black outlines (which, in this case, are only used for their eyes), and the backgrounds, while still distinctly shaped and designed in a thick-line style, completely lack outlines.
- Wolf Song: The Movie for the most part uses this, although the art style does vary slightly (despite almost the entire thing being animated by the same person).
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: As the artwork began to improve, the outlines became thicker.
- Penny Arcade used to have thick outlines (especially in the 2000-2003 strips), up until about 2008-2009, in which the outlines slowly became thinner.
- Most of the early VG Cats strips (mainly those from 2004-06) were depicted in this fashion. Later comics would feature much thinner outlines.