Toriyama's drawing style evolution

The evolution of style in Dragon Ball

Young Goku Adult Goku Every people who knows Dragon Ball from the first to the 42nd Manga can say Akira Toriyama have completly changed his touch: characters have so big and squarred muscles we feel the author is drawing with a ruler. But fans of Akira know he has already drawn 18 mangas of Dr. Slump and he drew the same way all others authors of humor manga: simple and round pictures. When he began to draw DBZ, Toriyama took the "Super-Muscle" and squarred touch idea.

Left image : Before  Right image : After

The evolution of aliens pictures

Like lots of authors, Akira Toriyama have aliens in his mangas. Green, with antennas, who lay eggs with their mouth, namecks are good aliens. But at the begining, Piccolo was not supposed to be an alien. Akira said it in interviews, at the begining, he absolutly didn't imagine Piccolo would be an alien and Son Goku a Saiyajin.

Piccolo Senior Piccolo Junior In fact, Piccolo was a demon. An earthling demon. The Evil Piccolo (father) and the Piccolo (son) are very different: Piccolo son doesn't have a hooked nose, he has a smooth face. Why? Because he is intended to become a good guy, instead of evil Piccolo (father) AND maybe because he is intended to be an alien.

The first apparition of Piccolo shew a big insect. See for yourself: his head looked like the back of a queen bee, and he has these round things on his arms they look like cocoons.

Insect Cell Perfect Cell Now, aliens are all the same: They all look like Freezer, with an almost-human body with sometimes a carapace, and a face limitated by differrents colors. The only exception was Cell. He looked like an instect, but his transformation made him human.
(Left) Look at Cell: anormal mouth, none-useful wings, and horrible feet. well, a monster !
(Right) And this one? An Akira Toriyama pure touch head, with perfect teeth and a sharp nose. A human face, just like Son Gokuu and Vegeta. We could say he is good-looking :-)