Helltaker Chibi Idle Art Style / Helltaker Dance

About

The Helltaker Chibi Idle Art Style, aka the Helltaker Dance, refers to the dancing idle animations of the characters from the 2020 video game Helltaker. This popular art style inspired many fan-made illustrations and animations of various characters.

Origin

On May 11th, 2020, vanripper released the puzzle game Helltaker on Steam^[1]. Although he used his usual art style for the close-up representations of his various characters, during the puzzle gameplay, they are represented on the maps by chibi sprites, with rounded limbs and oval vertical eyes; moreover, they are posing with their hands on their hips, in the case of the demon girls (see below); and they are bopping their head while shaking their bodies left and right, which place the demon girls in a dancing idle loop, often referred to as the Helltaker Dance" by the fans.

This chibi artwork quickly became popular among the fandom, and led to many fanarts following those rules. The earliest one includes a looped animation^[2] of PeachSaliva and PatStaresAt posted by Drawer-sama on Twitter on May 30th, 2020.

Spread

Over the following several years, the numerous artists drew characters in the style. For example, on June 1st, 2020, Redditor sasqsass posted variations in r/crusadersquest,^[3] gaining 80 points in four years (shown below, left). On October 30th, Tumblr user mochiiskii^[5] posted an example featuring Marcelline and Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time, gaining over 2,200 notes in nearly four years (shown below, right).

On February 19th, 2022, Twitter user @atelier951^[4] posted a variation featuring Lucina from Fire Emblem, gaining 15 retweets and 39 likes in two years (shown below, left). On May 31st, a Redditor in /r/Komi_san^[6] posted a variation featuring Komi from Komi Can't Communicate, gaining over 1,200 points in two years (shown below, right).

Various Examples

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External References