Steven Universe - IM LAUGHING SO HARD WHAT THE F--- IS THIS

sigh Yeah…

This really is the biggest issue the show has. Which is sad, the artstyle is so beautiful, they just need to not fuck with it. Especially when it's for some inane tripe such as letting the animators "be free" or whatever their excuse is.

People tear apart both anime and western cartoons constantly for not keeping consistency and going off model. This show shouldn't get a pass by any means.

It's because they want to give that "freedom" to the Storyboard artists. This allows each storyboarder to give the characters their own flair. Normally it isn't that bad, but the image above isn't that uncommon in quality.

I also don't buy the argument because you have a model sheet and still have differences to each story board artist and studio. Just look at something like Tiny Toons

Each animation Studio was given the same base character sheet from Warner Bros. But each depending on their particular style of animation added different flair. But at the characters are still the same at the core.