There are so many factors that play into commercial artwork—the technology that was available at the time, the timeframe that the artist had for making the artwork, demands/preferences of the company that hired the artist, the additional demands/preferences of Intellectual Property (IP) owners, the stylistic trends in the marketplace etc—that have nothing to do with the actual skill of an artist. One of the best pieces of animation I ever did was rejected by the producer in favor of something that was physically impossible and looked ridiculous on screen. But he preferred the revised version and I was being paid to achieve his goals, not my own.

Do I look at pins and shake my head at some of the creative choices? Sure—I’m human and I at things me or my own team produces too occasionally. But it feels like the exercise of creating a list and debating specific perceived or real shortcomings puts a high level of criticism on one person—the artist—without really acknowledging how commercial artwork results are driven more by all the other factors and stakeholders that I outlined than the artist themself.

I think a more even-handed discussion might be “What artwork choices were clearly driven by the timeframe that would be handled very differently now?” I think the Big Game “bingo cards” fall into that category because at the time the game came out, there was still a lot of general interest in Bingo type games. It would’ve resonated a lot more with consumers at the time than it does now.

Nope, what you are referring to are generally known as model sheets. But any major intellectual property also has a style guide that defines all sorts of mandatories that *must* be met if you’re working with those characters, logos etc. On top of that, in live action properties the actors often have a second level of approval. There’s quite often ZERO leeway in how the artwork must be used. Pretty much every status meeting I run for my team has at least 1-2 projects at risk bc we’re struggling to get approvals from the partners despite using the guides they send us.

In your post, you mention rules about sizing in relation to other characters, color of characters, etc specific to animation or comic books. Those instructions are model sheets and are specific to illustrated artwork. However ANY licensed material generally comes with a toolkit of assets and broad rules on using the assets. Theses assets can be photos, illustrations, logos etc., and occasionally model sheets if relevant. Some partners are open to letting you play with their assets. We were considering doing something really wild and one of our IP partners was like “We’re all in!”. Others are super strict and will tell you that you *must* use the assets they provide even if it doesn’t fully fit your needs. With those partners it is very much what you’re asking about. You have to use what they give you and nothing else.