Week 6: All About Art

Biah S -

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a lovely spring break.

This week I’m doing more research on art and the effect it can have on children. Since this whole project is about determining how art in animation can be stylized to have a positive impact on their younger audiences, I needed to first determine the qualities of an art style that I’ll be looking at. I came up with five broad categories to focus on: color, animation technique, level of detail, level of abstraction, and realism. That last category more refers to the fantastical elements involved in the art rather than how close to photorealism a style is, which is covered by level of abstraction. This has more to do with the content of the media than the other categories, but it can have a large influence on how a story ends up looking, so I decided to include it in the factors I’m researching. So far this is the category I’ve been reading about the most, and I thought I’d share some of what I found with you guys.

One fantastical element that many children’s animations share in common is anthropomorphized or talking animal characters. Some research has been done that suggests that children, especially when they are younger, view these kinds of animal characters as having lower capacities than human characters, which can make it difficult for them to interpret their behavior and understand their emotions. As moral dilemmas and more complex social relationships are things we tend to associate with humans, it is easier for children to comprehend stories with these features if the characters going through them are human. Although this effect doesn’t seem to be greatly detrimental, it is something to consider when creating media that is intended to influence and teach children. It may be best to create stories featuring largely human characters in order to minimize confusion and to effectively convey prosocial messages.

Another interesting article I read on the representation of different races in cartoons found that fantastical features such as unnaturally colored eyes and hair could actually increase engagement among wider audiences as they remove racial cues and make the ethnicity of the character more ambiguous, allowing viewers to project their own identities onto them and better relate to them. Fantastical elements in general tend to increase engagement, but balance is important when including them in children’s content, as they can end up being more distracting than anything. 

I hope to cover more of the categories I mentioned over the course of this week, and I’ll update you all on that in my next post. I hope to see you then! 

Amy Shirong Lu, Green, M. C., & Alon, D. (2023). The effect of animated Sci-Fi characters’ racial presentation on narrative engagement, wishful identification, and physical activity intention among children. Journal of Communication, 74(2), 160–172. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad030

Russell, S. J., J. Jessica Wang, & Cain, K. (2024). The influence of story character realism and theme on protagonists’ internal states and dialogue in children’s retells. Cognitive Development, 71, 101458–101458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2024.101458

 

 

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Comments:

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    madison_d
    Hi! I imagine you'll cover this in future posts, but how are you defining "animation technique" and how is that different from the photorealism or level of detail in a show's animation? Do you have ways to differentiate animation styles like 3D vs 2D or does it refer to the literal way in which the animation was created?
    March 20, 2025 at 3:12 pm - Reply
    theodore_t
    You put a lot of focus on the art this week, but I’m curious, what about stories that didn’t have art? For example, books with many words could potentially be as engaging, and from my own childhood experience, I found audio retellings of stories by another person to be far more engaging that normal picture books, games, etc. Is it possible that the absence of a visual medium could lead to stimulating more imagination from the child, forming a stronger connection with the characters?
    March 21, 2025 at 10:14 am - Reply
    Abijah Semwaga
    Wow, interesting! I hadn't considered that anthropomorphized characters might actually make it harder for children to understand feelings and moral concepts. And how fantastical details can make characters more relatable is also cool—it's amazing how much effect small design choices can have on engagement! Can't wait for your next update!
    March 23, 2025 at 10:15 am - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Madison! I came up with the "animation technique" category with 2D and 3D animation in mind since the difference between the two comes down to how they were created (traditional vs computer generated). However, the research I do for this category will more so focus on how viewing these different kinds of animation affects children's perception of the content rather than the process of creating them.
    March 23, 2025 at 1:45 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Ted! That's a very interesting question! I've mostly been looking at the benefits of visual media, but non-visual media could definitely help to foster creativity in children since it creates a blank canvas that allows children to come up with and project their personal interpretations of the visuals of the story.
    March 23, 2025 at 2:21 pm - Reply
    Asher
    Hi there! I was super interested in how children seem to have more trouble relating/interpreting the emotions of cartoon animal characters because I feel like most cartoon characters for young children are animals. For example, Mickey Mouse and his friends. Usually shows for young children are educational and try to teach kids about making the right choices. If children generally have a harder time understanding those concepts with characters that are animals, I'm surprised there are so many of them out there! What do you think?
    March 23, 2025 at 7:49 pm - Reply
    Drostan
    Hi! When designing an animation and art style for your game, how can factors such as level of detail be balanced to create engaging gameplay without sacrificing support for weaker hardware?
    March 23, 2025 at 8:59 pm - Reply
    rudra edupuganti
    Hi, You mentioned that unnatural features engage the audience significantly more than average features. Do you believe that shows implement characters with unnatural features to engage the audience more and build a larger community.
    March 24, 2025 at 6:44 am - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Asher! I think so much children's media includes animal characters simply because children find them engaging and often respond positively to them. This may be more of a priority for some projects than the benefits of using human characters.
    March 24, 2025 at 10:10 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Drostan! I'm not looking too far into the tech side of things for this project, but I imagine since a lot of art for children tends to be more simplistic, it may be easier to find a balance than some other genres. I'll definitely know more when I look into that category next week!
    March 24, 2025 at 11:09 pm - Reply
    biah_s
    Hi Rudra! I think that's definitely a primary reason unnatural features are included in character design. Aside from the reasons I talked about in my post, since they are by definition out of the ordinary, they can be more visually interesting and grab people's attention better than "normal" features.
    March 24, 2025 at 11:16 pm - Reply

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