Simply put, an artstyle with no outlines.
In animation, outlines are used to provide a clear separation between characters, objects, and backgrounds. But what if there were no outlines? No-line animation (or lineless animation) gets rid of those pesky outlines. The reason why usually varies, but many lineless cartoons favor clear shapes and bold forms. Most examples of this kind of animation come from after the Turn of the Millennium thanks to modern software making it much easier to do than with traditional ink and paint on cels.
No-Line Animation is the norm with CGI cartoons, so as not to fill this page with works in the third dimension, only 2D examples should be added.
Contrast Thick-Line Animation and Thin-Line Animation.
Examples:
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Advertising
- The infamous "Corporate Memphis
" art style, also known as "alegria" commonly associated with Big Tech corporations is characterized by bright, geometric shapes and a noticeable lack of outlines.
- Erin Esurance, the short-lived mascot for Esurance, was designed in a lineless style.
- The packaging and one advertisement for the drink mix Funny Face use no outlines for the characters, and so did its failed product line created almost half a decade afterwards.
- The gamified language learning app Duolingo uses no outlines for its mascot characters, though with a distinct style from Corporate Memphis.
- PBS Kids advertisements and branding since 2013 featuring Dot, Dee, and Del use an lineless style
Anime & Manga
- BNA: Brand New Animal: The end credits sequence uses no outlines and a minimal colour palette.
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!: Scenes in the real world use outlines, but the finished animations created in-universe by the main trio are done in this style.
- SHIBOYUGI: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table: Zoomed-out shots in the anime frequently leave off outlines, causing the characters to resemble impressionistic paintings.
Comic Books
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): In the Chaotix's 30th Anniversary Special, each member of the Chaotix tell part of a story about one of their past cases, and their stories are accompanied by flashbacks, each one with a different art style. Vector's part of the story is black-and-white, has no lineart, and has high contrast visuals and silhouettes — doubling as a Shout-Out to Sin City.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: One Sunday strip has the world drawn in black-and-white with no outlines at all.
Film — Animated
- The Princess and the Frog: During "Almost There", Tiana's vision of her restaurant is done in a lineless style based on the work of Aaron Douglas, an artist from the Harlem Renaissance.
- The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water: The scene at the end with the reprise of the SpongeBob SquarePants intro theme and then the rap battle between a dolphin and the seagulls changes the art-style from Live-Action and CGI into a 2D style without outlines. Afterwards, the credits feature the main SpongeBob characters also rendered in a style without outlines.
Video Games
- LocoRoco does not use outlines at all. According to the game's designer, Tsutsomu Kouno, this was a deliberate choice to make the game stand out from the rest of the PlayStation Portable's library.
- All of the backgrounds in Papa Louie Pals have no outlines, though the characters themselves and all the props do.
- Patapon: Since the series was inspired by the works of French artist Rolito, it does not use outlines for the titular Patapon.
- Pikuniku has a very simplistic artstyle, with the game mostly consisting of simple shapes.
- Rhythm Tengoku: The Spaceball and Wizard mini-games have no outlines. When Spaceball returned in Rhythm Heaven Megamix, it was given outlines, however.
Web Animation
- Cubecat Says No: This web series has a geometric art style without the use of lines to design any characters or props, giving an abstract vibe.
- GoAnimate / Vyond:
- The Business Friendly, Contemporary, and long-discontinued Space Citizens themes (different art-styles for animations) entirely lack outlines.
- The backgrounds of the discontinued Lil' Petz World and It's Happy Bunny themes also lack outlines, though the characters themselves in both themes have black outlines.
- Some miscellaneous backgrounds in the "common" theme accessible in most other themes are in an art style with no outlines, such as one of a backyard that was later remade into a Lil' Peepz background, though with outlines now.
- Hanazuki: Full of Treasures: The show has a style similar to most 2010s cartoons but uniquely lacking outlines.
- Homestar Runner:
- In the short "The King of Town's Very Own Quite Popular Cartoon Show!!", the characters are illustrated in a lineless, picture book-esque style. This contrasts with the colored-outlined style of the standard show designs.
- In the Strong Bad Emails episode lackey, if you click Doreauxgard at the end, you would be treated to an easter egg depicting Doreauxgard and Homestar in a lineless style as apart of "The Homestar Runner and Doreauxgard Show".
- In the short The Actions You Can Do, Homestar is depicted and animated in a lineless style similar to the easter egg in lackey.
- Kurzgesagt uses a lineless art style to explain scientific and philosophical concepts.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball:
- Some characters, like Molly, Penny (in her fairy appearance post-"The Shell"), and the Parham family do not have any visible outlines.
- In "The Kids", Gumball and Darwin adopt a no-outline appearance at various parts of the "Enjoy It While We Can" song.
- Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom has a simplistic, lineless art style that gives the show a child-made feel.
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Most of the imaginary friends are drawn with no outlines to differentiate from the human characters and non-imaginary animals, which are fully outlined. Bloo, for instance, is basically a blue thumb shape, the only lines being in his eyes, mouth, and arms when they are within his body.
- Hey Duggee is usually animated in a flat, Bauhaus-esque geometric style, except for a few Art Shift scenes.
- The Magic School Bus Rides Again: By the third season, the art style changed, with the Bus being animated in CG, the controversial whitewashing fixed, more detailed animations, and the characters' outlines removed.
- The series of shorts Mr. Pig & Mr. Duck on Playhouse Disney has an art style featuring no outlines, and unlike most other lineless cartoons, also features shading and highlighting on characters.
- The Christmas Special Olive, the Other Reindeer is a combination of both lineless 2D animation for the characters and 3D CGI models for the backgrounds.
- Similarly to Mr. Pig & Mr. Duck, the Nick Jr series Oswald also lacks outlines but features shading and highlighting. To be expected, as both series were created by Dan Yaccarino — In fact, many other works by Yaccarino seem to tend to lack outlines.
- Puffin Rock has a lineless art-style with painterly textures that add detail.
- An early example of the style is in the UPA cartoon "Rooty Toot Toot". The characters are depicted as shapes of flat color, with lines used only for faces, limbs and interior details.
- The action cartoon Samurai Jack famously lacks outlines as a way to sell the fighting scenes.
- Skunk Fu!: The show’s art style has no lines on anything.
- South Park lacks outlines as it emulates Stop Motion cartoons made with construction paper.
- Vivi: The characters are drawn without outlines, with the exception of Backpack's dark-yellow outlines in his torso to distinguish it with the rest of his body.