In my days of drawing, I stumbled upon this principle of animation: Appeal. I was like, "Isn't appeal subjective?" I had a really hard time just defining it since it's such a subjective thing. But anyways, here's what I believe appeal to be.
Yeh, this is the biggest part of appeal. Our brains are trained to accept friendly looking characters, like women, kids, and animals and find them appealing, especially if they've got big eyes and small noses like Clampett's Porky and Raven's Steven have. This is why SpongeBob and Steven Universe are more popular than....
Exaggerated posing is another way to appeal, I think. It immediately catches the audience's eye more than any of the poses you see on Family Guy do.
Cartoony emotions are very appealing, too.
Artists To Study When Searching For Appeal.
Katie Rice is a very cool designer and a profoundly underrated artist. She reminds me a lot of Over The Garden Wall, Adventure Time, and the like. I believe you can check out her work on @katiejrice! I'd like to post some of her art on Skadi and Camp Weedontwancha, but unfortunately, some of them are lost.
Molisee worked on Ed, Edd, N' Eddy as a storyboarder, and it shows in her Steven Universe work! Her expressions are very loose and wacky, yet adorable at the same time. Especially when she draws steven. Such a shame she left the show. You can find her on @raveneesimo
Alas, Chris Reccardi's gone to his final reward. But his reputation as an ANIMATION LEGEND lives on! His poses are full of zest and appeal, just stripping an action to their most wackiest essential! ESPECIALLY in Hermit Ren and Hard Times For Haggis.
I'd post more of appealing artists, but i'm running out of time, and besides, my computer's lagging. Just remember the principles of appeal:
Cute, or minimalist characters that are easy to see, and easy to draw. (Clampett, Molisee, Rice)
Funny poses that strip down an action to it's most exaggerated variant (Tex Avery, Reccardi, Kurtzman)
Exagerrated faces that are funny but not grotesque (Modern SpongeBob Crew, Reccardi, Bob Camp)
That's all for now! I'll talk more about this some other time.