I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about how the art style in Steven Universe is inconsistent, and I’d like to offer a rebutal.

There was a panel she was last year in where she brings this up. In this video at 29:10 she talks for about 5 minutes about the creative and collaborative process that goes into each scene. In short, she describes how the show is storyboard driven and artist driven. One of the major changes she made after the pilot was to give the characters and settings easily recognizable designs. That way, each artist has the opportunity to draw the characters in a way that fits their own style and, express their own vision in a scene, but it would still fit the central character design and the show’s visual aesthetic. And come on. With the comparison above, and any other comparison about the show, no one would ever look at it and be confused as to why you’re comparing completely different characters. Plus, the artists aren’t working in a vacuum. In the panel, Sugar also talks about how they communicate on everything. They discuss what’s happening in the scene, how the characters are reacting, how it ties into the continuity, etc. They put a lot of effort into the show, guys. The art styles aren’t an oversight.

I believe that if the show was script driven, and didn’t allow the style to evolve or let the artists express their own visions on the show, Steven Universe wouldn’t be nearly as vibrant and diverse as it is today.