Mightydein's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ryu Hayabusa vs Scorpion]

The fighting poses in your animation can be a bit more exaggerated.

Creating more customized sprites will help with blending the sprite poses together.

The two sprites are from unrelated video games and their fighting poses don't blend together.

Modify your sprites to work together with your fighting animations.

Not only are individual poses important.

But the character poses also interact with the characters and environment.

Learning how to create effective poses will take a lot of practice.

I usually draw my poses multiple times until it looks right.

I'll act my poses.

I'll get my little brother to act out poses and take pictures for reference.

It takes a lot of observation to create interesting animation poses.

The last screen shot had an interesting look for the replay button.

I like the camera angle.

The poses might look a bit better if you acted them first.

Try drawing the pose once and multiple times.

If still doesn't look right.

The next step is acting the poses out at the intended camera angle.

Take pictures of the poses or video.

Grab screen shots of a real life poses and than draw.

Add a bit more exaggeration to certain poses if necessary.

Just do whatever is needed to work out your poses.

Posing is important for any animation including; Stick figures, sprite movies, CGI, Hand drawn, Anime,Cartoons, ect

Your sprites had great poses but combining unrelated sprite sheets have downgraded the poses.

The poses have to interact with each-other.

This would require an increased level of customized design for your sprites.

You would need to manipulate some of these sprites pixel by pixel.

Many of the best sprite animators add their own customized animation poses.

I don't see why you can not join their ranks.

I hope my advice helps.

- Mightydein

BigroomBlitz responds:

Ok I'll keep in mind most of those tips, thank you for the feedback!

[Pony Talk]

I'm personally not a fan of any incarnation of My Little Pony.

I like how you drawn each pony in your own style instead copying the originals.

The pony characters have cute designs.

The movie itself is mostly a silly skit.

I wasn't expecting you to deviate away from Fay.

- Mightydein

willcamick responds:

There from a cartoon of a cartoon. This is just something I did on My netbook. Im not home at the moment so Im just doodling as I hang out in a hotel room. Ill be doing more fay when i get back.

[Yonder Ho! - Episode 10]

The video begins with a thunder-cats PSA about the dangers of alcohol.

The public service announcement was pretty funny in a very unintentional manner.

Your audio distortion effects for that skit were weird.

The beginning skit and some of the video footage could potentially get you into trouble for copyright reasons.

The actual video itself has plenty of animation without any need for filler.

A lot of these skirts take a lot of focus away from the overall story.

I would try producing an episode without those fake commercial bumpers.

I do like those mario paint commercial bumpers and a few of the animated skits are entertaining too.

I like a few of the backgrounds used for the Yonder Ho episode.

The character of Mint is beginning to develop more as a character.

I like how you explored, Jenemazzi's past experience of being bitten by a cat as a small child.

It's not really needed to explain why Jenemazzi hates cats.

I've known plenty of people that hate cats without an actual explanation.

I like Jenemazzi's nickname.

Perhaps, Pete's nickname for his sister could catch on.

I've sometimes gave other people nicknames and eventually other people use the nickname too.

The story still has plenty of room to explore more of mint's personality.

One of the major characters has died.

The next episode could explore the impact of this character's death.

What has changed and how does it impact your characters?

You can use that character's death to take the show into new directions.

The robots used during the battle could perhaps make a come back.

Are these robots sentient or cold machines?

Do the robots talk?

You could treat these robots like brand new characters.

This movie had a ridiculous number of characters without extra time for revealing information about each character.

The main protagonists are; Pete, Jenemazzi and The Fox.

The other secondary characters also place a major impact onto the plot.

The actions of the characters including the bit players seemed to have impact on the storyline.

I hope these future episodes continue to pickup from where the last episode left off.

I prefer the serialization style of presenting Yonder Ho episodes.

The show really picked up during the cat episodes.

If you return to using stand alone episodes be sure to keep a consistent continuity.

Each episode should impact the next even if the changes maybe small.

Sorry, I didn't write my review in a more timely manner.

I just had to think of new criticism without repeating stuff said in pervious reviews.

I hope to have succeeded.

- Mightydein

Bertn1991 responds:

Forgive me, but I have a lot to say...

I thought the ThunderCats bit was pretty funny. "Obey the code! Don't drink Alcohooool." The distorted audio is from it being recorded with a VCR. I spliced in footage of Dragon Ball Z when planet Namek exploded. People will watch it and think "Why did Lion-O destroy the world?"

I'm not concerned with copyright infringement. I know how to get around it so sites can't detect anything. I'm not sure if Newgrounds does anything like this, but YouTube will auto-detect copyrighted video and audio and they can outright ban you from the site. They're super strict and you can easily get in trouble if you don't know what you're doing. For songs, I change the pitch very slightly so YouTube can't detect it, and for video, I change the cropping and add odd filters. Nothing to be proud of, but I don't think it really matters all that much since there're so few people who watch the show. If the show was more popular, I'd probably be more careful.

Maybe all the skits and fake commercial take some focus away from the story, but I think they add a certain uniqueness to the show. I find randomness to be very funny, and you never know what to expect from the "commercial" breaks. I usually agree with you 100% on things, but I'm afraid the break segments are here to stay. And I'm glad you do enjoy the Mario Paint bumpers. Those are definitely here to stay!

I'm happy someone likes the backgrounds! Believe it or not, I sometimes spend hours working on them. It's a good time to listen to audiobooks.

I'm also glad you liked Mint's character. You don't see a lot of amputees in cartoons. She's gonna be in more episodes. But yeah, I'm glad you liked Mint. I was afraid how people would react to a little girl missing an arm. I think she's an interesting character. She's missing an arm, but she never lets it slow her down, and she still manages to knit. I don't know if you've ever tried to knit, but it's not easy. The fact that she does it with one hand is impressive. I actually did research to find out if it would even be possible. Anyway, really glad people are liking Mint's character. I would like to explore her a little more....Gee, that didn't come out right.

I thought it would be interesting to explore Jenemazzi's past. She hated cats because she was afraid of them. None of that was even in the script to be honest. And about her nickname, maybe it should catch on.

I've actually become super attached to the robots. I've been working on a short story about them. I might try to make a web comic. They are definitely sentient robots with colorful personalities. And yes, they do talk! They're definitely gonna make a come back someday. I might share the story about them in a forum when it's done. They're a group of mercenary robots who are occasionally the bad guys. Kinda different I think.

My goodness there are indeed a lot of characters. Most of them aren't even mentioned in the script. In fact, pretty much all of the cat's actions are completely unscripted. Having so many cats on screen made it difficult to animate. Mostly because my computer is ancient.

I'm very happy you like the characters for the most part. It means a lot. Having so many, it can be hard to explore each one though.

The next episode will be connected to previous episodes, but tell a completely new story. The show was suppose to be about Pete looking for his parents, but it doesn't really focus on that too much.

I liked that you called them "the cat episodes." That pretty much sums them up. I'm very glad you like them of course! They were by far the most difficult to make. The last three episodes took 6 months to complete. The first episode was made in 5 days. That's partly because I'm going to school now and I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on stuff. I'll admit, the show was pretty sub-par in the beginning, but I think it's getting better. It's become its own thing over time.

After making 10 episodes, I've learned quite a bit. I've made a lot of mistakes, and that's a good thing! I welcome criticism as long as it's thoughtful. I take notes and try to do better next time. I've still got a lot to learn, I've only been making cartoons, and drawing in general, for about 4 years now. I really appreciate you taking the time to write these reviews. They've been very helpful. Making cartoons is sorta what I'd like to do for a living.

Yes, I will make sure to keep a consistent continuity, but I'd also like to make a show that anyone can jump into and not be totally lost.

The last three episodes has had a huge impact on the show's world. Every cat in the world is giant and has pink eyes now (with a few exceptions.)

This is getting pretty long, so I'll wrap things up now. Thank you for watching all 10 episodes and reviewing each one. You're reviews are always well written and thoughtful. I hope you liked the reference I made to you in the last episode.

You are cool : )

[The Last Day at School]

I instantly knew your drawing style without checking your screen name for reference.

I noticed you are now experimenting with different color outlines for your drawings.

The characters eye shades changed very frequently.

A shift in eye shaped is very effective for conveyance of emotion.

The voice acting can be improved upon by getting more lost in the fantasy.

The drawing of the school house can be improved upon.

I assume you are a student.

The next time, You go to school.

Take out some art supplies and carefully observe the details of an actual school.

Buildings have a lot of interesting shapes in it's overall form.

Each school house has different kinda of building structures and there are different ways to draw any building.

Buildings can be difficult to draw correctly.

You could create many different backgrounds by exploring your school.

Explore your environments and draw what you see.

Reference material exists in the form of reality, other drawings, ect

No matter the selection used for reference material.

Take your time while observing your forms.

Treat certain drawings like a meal.

You eat a meal slowly to appreciate the textures and tastes.

Same rules apply whenever you want to create a more polished drawing.

Train yourself to develop thick skin because a lot of criticism can often be cruel.

Some critics can often be harsh enough to cause you actual stress.

Don't get discouraged since many of these critics can often be jerks.

Get your revenge against these critics by producing new work out of pure spite.

The best revenge is success.

Keep experimenting with your colored outlines, color selection and drawings.

Utilize observation more often for each drawing.

If you are really stuck than other artists may gladly provide assistance.

Do some collaboration with other animators as an opportunity for more practice.

I hope my advice helps you become more successful.

Keep making those new cartoons.

- Mightydein

LightningBolt13 responds:

Thank you, Mightydein. I'm always trying to improve.. And I do know that I need to start taking reference of my surroundings, reference makes everything look better!

[Allen & Merve]

This cartoon looks a lot like animation recorded onto a VHS tape.

I usually find tracking errors and VHS artifacts to be very visually annoying.

Bad tracking can sometimes render the tape as unwatchable.

The VCR effects actually has the appearance of being VHS in origin.

Most simulated VHS effects use filters created in image manipulation programs.

The VHS tape illusion in other submissions don't look nearly as convincing.

Did you actually tape this animation on videotape?

Your effect on animation on VHS could be more polished by using other special effects too.

You could create animation in Mario Paint and record it onto a blank tape.

You could also create animation using a rostrum camera, film and different art supplies.

After the film is developed than the next step is transferring the footage to video.

Filming animation with a rostrum camera and transfer to VHS is a very expensive process.

You could also utilize your scanner, art supplies and image manipulation program to create traditional animation.

Edit the images together in a video editor.

You can than record the resulting animation on a VHS tape.

You can also create simulated VHS tape effects in an image manipulation program.

There are a lot of possibility with the VHS effect.

Some of my ideas might actually cost money to do.

I merely include these ideas to inspire your imagination to create inexpensive ways of creating cool animation effects.

Free is the optimal for your animation budget.

This submission was a very entertaining watch and was a pleasure to watch.

- Mightydein

Gerkinman responds:

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I actually did all the animation in flash and the VHS effects were created in After Effects with a mixture of post and real VHS footage used with different blending modes. I work as a visual effects artist so the effect only took a couple of hours. I am glad you found it convincing, that means I pulled it off! ^^

[Another Planet]

The narration made a lot sense out of the details in this stick figure battle movie.

I love the added touch of on-screen text to represent character names upon introduction.

The character animations moved with your characters.

The stick figures have better poses than lots of other submissions.

Creating dynamic poses can be transfered onto other forms of drawing.

Nicely done and very entertaining.

I will review the other episodes later.

- Mightydein

LetThereBeLenny responds:

thank you brother!

[Solace vs Bartholmhew]

This submission has an interesting visual style.

I found the live action backgrounds to be off-putting.

Lets ignore the live action backgrounds for the rest of this review.

I love how you place a lot of effort into working out the poses.

The stick figures have some very great fighting poses within the animation.

The stick animation would look more polished if lights and shadows were applied.

The lights and shadows on your stick figures could interact with the environments.

I enjoy seeing the characters move with the backgrounds.

That is a really cool animation technique and I may need to steal that trick.

This movie looks promising.

You are off to a good start.

- Mightydein

LetThereBeLenny responds:

thanks for the review! i really appreciate your advice, the entire movie is actually right here in 4 episodes

http://www.newgrounds.com/playlists/view/4e98d118d234560a4131e23d84815588

please watch them! i would love to hear what you think of them seriously!

[Dates]

I noticed some uncolored areas and gaps on the pine apple character.

Take extra time into searching for uncolored areas and fill them in.

Most animation programs have a zoom-in and zoom-out feature.

Use different shades of white for eyes, teeth and other things.

Two objects can be the same color but in different shades of color.

Play around with your colors more often.

Your characters could use some more lively poses even just for a conversation.

Real people often move their hands during conversation to hold your attention.

If you are uninterested in the topic of conversation; The person talking to you becomes increasingly animated.

Your talking characters need to display more body language and facial expression during conversation.

The two characters only moved their lips during conversation.

Body language is a missing element in the conversation between your two characters.

Try to imagine watching your cartoon without sound.

Would it still be entertainment without the added element of sound?

Sound added a lot to your cartoon.

The audio was very humorous and some of the sight gags were very silly.

That pineapple character looks silly.

You are on the right-track by using sight gags and playing around with the camera.

You just need to play around with the body language of your characters more often.

- Mightydein

Megacharlie responds:

Thanks for the suggestions, but we did make this in about 1 hour XD

I'm currently working on a new episode of Stretchyman (my main cartoon) and I've been working on it for about a month and a half now XD

Thanks!

-Charlie

[Moos]

The animation for your movie was choppy in a lot of places; However, I'm pleased to notice careful attention placed into the poses.

I love the exaggerated poses combined with some squash and stretch technique.

The character design for your character looked crude.

You used a lot of very basic shapes for the character's facial features.

A bit more detail could make the character design more polished; However, animation becomes increasingly difficult to create with added detail.

Understanding the human form will help you with creating a stylised versions of human characters.

People watching will give you a lot of inspiration for character designs.

The way you draw hands needs a bit of work.

Take the time to observe your subjects in full detail.

Draw your subject based on these observations.

You can still simplify the forms of your drawings while making observations.

Movement of your drawings is more important than an unnecessarily high workload placed into detail.

You want to include good drawings combined with the illusion of movement.

Keep experimenting with your animation and continue trying new things.

You are on the right track.

- Mightydein

cecameron responds:

This is an excellent critique, I just find it odd you'd leave it on such a quick project - I'm interested in what you'd have to say for some of my other works.
Thank you for the comment!

[Family Man]

I like how you placed your own twist onto your drawings of Homer simpson and Peter griffin.

The voice impressions of each character were bad and laughable.

The bad impressions add an extra layer of comedy to this submission.

The way homer said, "Doh" was very funny.

I don't get your slenderman references because of my lack of knowledge about that video game.

I would have liked to see more lively poses in your animation.

Peter and homer just stood there.

Most of the humor of that scene needed the voice acting.

Practice creating more dynamic poses for your characters.

The slender man section of your movie had much more visually appealing animation.

The slender man section shown a lot more experimentation with the drawings.

You could have done more experimentation in the familyguy/simpsons section as well.

Play around with the colored outlines, backgrounds, drawing style, ect.

Just be sure to have fun playing around with all of the visual elements inside your cartoon.

You created a funny cartoon but with some more playing around with the animation.

You can also make the silly cartoon a bit more visually engaging.

Keep animating and always try new things.

- Mightydein

GuiltyPixel responds:

Thanks for the constructive criticism. :D I'm working on trying to get better with poses and anatomy right now, and also backgrounds. And I also need to get better at animating movements while they're talking so it's not boring.