Atzu's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[me blinking]

Somebody else already recommended you Richard William's Animator's survival kit. I suggest you to look for the chapter about straight ahead, pose to pose, and the third method which is a combination of both. That, and onion skin, will be your friends for keeping proportions.

"AlanBeckerTutorials" Youtube channel has a video about the twelve principles of animation. The part about pose to pose and straight ahead will give you more insight about that.

Something else that will help you as an animator. Act what you want to animate,imagine the action well or search for a reference and measure the time. Of course, as an animator time is something you can play, so you can increase or decrease the timing when interpreting the action as you desire. Imagine yourself as a sort of actor.

Blinks can be both fast or slow. Just be sure which you want.

[shape shiftier]

The frame rate is too low.

Reduce the ammount of exposition for each drawing and check your scene frame rate.
I've seen some animations pulling fluency when animating at 6 or 8 fps, but thats because the poses were very dynamic or the movement worked fine looking slow (one of those was an Oni turning into stone).

Imagine that you're animating three-dimensional shapes instead of moving lines. That will make a world of difference in whatever you animate. Unless you're animating something that looks flat on purpouse.

[FLEX CALIBUR]

Fucking good timing

[Jumbie Kids]

I enjoyed your story, but I loved your color palette.

I think you could have played a little more with the music and the moko jumbies, for example, making the drums a little louder each time the showed themselves, and then hiding again.

By the way, that's really fresh chicken that guy is serving hehehe

[BlueMango: Episode 1 part 1]

Both episodes remind a little Arzak Rhapsody and Gandahar. Not as surreal as the first, yet, but there's a lot going on that goes unexplained, not that it does. I'm not sure where does he come from or where he's going, but I still want to know where his journey takes him.

Is the hero related to the Sung Wu Kong, a cyborg and Chuck Norris by any chance?

Hoping to see the next one.

[T-Rex Doing a Sweet Kick Flip!]

Good Idea, your T-rex joke.

Bad Idea, having the same joke repeated 3 times instead of having 3 different knowing you can deliver good puns. If you wanted to tell only this joke, it would rise the views having it only once. Perhaps, I'm wrong, the rest of the reviews will tell.

Visually speaking: Nice one!

Keep it up.

jessejayjones responds:

Thank you for the feedback! You're absolutely right, so I cut out the repeating segments. Thank you for checking it out, I really appreciate it! :)

[Spider vs bats animatic]

I think you need to work some more in your timing and composition. Some shots were pretty slow for a fight scene, and others need improve in clarity / readability and focus. Having your characters drawn red and black helps identifying them, but still some of the shots were a little confusing or could be improved.

In any case, some of the shots are also visual candy, keep drawing those.

PD: Batman looks kind thing to me, but that's up to you as "art director".

Neochilds responds:

Thanks for you comment dude but this is an animatic. An animatic is a moving storyboard hence why you may think the pacing is slow. It's also to convey where and if I should or should not increase the pacing for a shot more so for visual reference but thank you anyway for taking the time to watch and provide your feedback. Unfortunately this project was shelved and the full production will not happen.

[Batman mines bigger]

Just like others say, you need to improve your audio design, and by that I don't only mean the quality of the samples but all the audio. It sounds weird when nothing sounds at all; some music and / or sound bed for the ambience will improve it.

Finally, work on your lighting too so your models (legos in this case) look better on camera. Keep them in focus and experiment with shadows too; take advantage of them (specially if you're doing something about batman or any similar).

Search for ilumination tips.

Overall, good job.

duffosaur responds:

yeah i admit the lighting was bad, i was trying to make it look dark but when i was filming it, it looked fine and i just got i new bulb so that will help
but thanks for the feedback

[GIRL & IT]

Composition, visuals and music were gorgeous.

Two tips to keep in mind for your next animation.

The expression of your characters. Your story is dramatic, and you have the privilege to tell it, so don't loose the oportunity to tell us more about the soul of it.

First I thought she didn't move her pupils because she was blind, but then I realized the hero's didn't move either. I don't know what software you used for animating, but Flash, Toon Boom, After Effects, Anime Studio, etc they all offer some way to animate them. One way would be swapping beetween multiple faces, just like they do for stop motion.

Second, your walk cycles.
Watch people and animals, there is an ease out and in vertically because of gravity. But usually we don't ease in and out every step horizontally unless its some special kind of walk. The movement is supposed to flow.

Personally, I found the ending kind of anticlimatic, I was expecting the man returning to claim the throne or even perhaps his children who would stop the killing. Stories don't always need to end like that. You're the director / writer and it's up to what you want to tell and I respect that.

Perhaps it won't be too easy distributing / spreading out / your animation because of the lenght, I wish you luck and will recommend other colleagues to watch it.

It was an splendid animation to watch.

Congrats.

[Short Fight]

It was well animated but it would "feel" much better if it simulated and ending. Perhaps not necessarily the whole story but some mayor point in the battle between them.

About the sounds, the link voice may do for the blue fighter, but I think you need to look for a more fitting voice for the red one, the age and archetype of cap falcon voice don't quite do for him.

philz0rd responds:

I agree with you.