Mightydein's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Zapp'd]

Your character's legs are too far away from each other.

Actual human legs are a bit more close together.

You can practice drawing walk cycles by carefully observing the complexities of the human form first.

Than carefully observe how the joints in the human form are all connected to each other.

The foot alone has a lot of flexible parts in it.

Wiggle your foot and you notice a lot of movable parts inside.

Act out your poses to create reference material such as photographs or video.

My little brother once helped me with a drawing by acting out poses.

You will need to see what your intended pose looks like ahead of time.

Acting out your pose and creating reference material will make your work a lot easier.

The actual movie itself is not just some random walk cycle.

I seen random walk cycles posted here all the time.

A walk cycle by itself is not very entertaining to watch.

The walk cycle is used to get from point a to b.

Your character walked towards an electrical outlet.

That same character than stuck his finger into that same electrical outlet.

The next part of the movie than concluded at a quick punch line.

This quick gag movie had a very simple start, middle and end.

Start- walk cycle.

Middle- walk cycle ends at electric outlet. Your character sticks his finger in outlet and gets a shock.

End- Punchline to the movie.

This movie has entertainment value and it quickly made it's point without filler.

The walk cycle and poses can use a bit of improvement and hopefully my review has helped provide constructive criticism.

Keep making those movies.

-Mightydein

TreeBoar responds:

Yeah I didn't intend for the walk cycle to be a main focus of the short. But yeah I'll use more reference material next time I can totally see how that would make my work easier. I'm not sure I'd call the character a human haha. Not quite sure what he is.

[Sorry 1]

The colorless animation and sad music have been combined to establish a mood.

Film can often convey strong emotions and display artist's own state of mind.

This cartoon is expressing an honest feeling rarely ever expressed in public due to fear of ridicule.

Your character Fay is all alone in a drab colorless world.

The combined effect with no color and music seem to convey a feeling of loneliness.

Your character Fay is not a very popular guy and has a very small social circle.

He seems to be universally despised by his peers and the poor guy wants to be loved.

His cute character design easily makes him a more sympathetic character.

Future movies about Fay should delve deeper into his relationships with his friends, peers and even enemies.

The overall movie had a brutality honest approach to it's intended overall mood.

Something about it seemed to be very personal to you.

I look forward to seeing your new submissions.

- Mightydein

[Maudeville - "The Storm"]

I haven't been keeping up with your work lately and now noticed you have uploaded lots of brand new submissions.

This new submission shows an improvement in your own drawing technique.

The bed room background has a lot of attention to detail.

The bedroom has a bit of clutter on the floor and the wall is covered in posters with details of it's own.

The posters on the wall can be improved by adding bits of tape to hang each poster.

Other props on the wall could be held by nails, tacks or whatever.

What matters is something holds the pictures up.

It's one more subtle extra detail to add to a series of already subtle details.

The girls playing the music have the same usual design of perfectly round heads.

Try to experiment with drawing different styles of jawlines for future characters.

Real people often have a variety of chins, jaws, noses, eyes and general facial features.

It is possible to draw a more stylized version of a real person.

Other cartoons draw stylized versions of people all the time.

I can list off examples from anime, cartoons, deviantart submissions, newgrounds submissions, youtube cartoons and other art forms.

The world of online animation has a surprising level of variety in genres, art styles and other possible entertaining factors.

I'm glad to see you are still creating new stuff and learning more with each new cartoon created.

Despite the evolution of your drawings, backgrounds and even improvement towards music created for this piece.

This submission was basically a simple looping animation.

I'm personally not a fan of overly simple animation loops to be perfectly honest.

I would like to see you create some animated skits, shorts, movies, games or whatever.

I'm very pleased to notice that you are still creating new stuff.

Keep up the good work.

- Mightydein

Bertn1991 responds:

It's good to hear from you again : )

I'm grateful for your detailed review, but I disagree on many levels...

This is a music video, so the main focus was the music obviously. I was hoping more people would appreciate the piece, even if the animation wasn't tip top. It's something I made in just a few hours to go with the song. The background on the other hand is something I made a while back that took a full day or so to draw. I almost put this in the mature category for some of the stuff hidden in the background, but I figured no one would notice, and apparently no one has, so it's all good.

As for round heads, that's just my style. I don't always use them, but it's just easier because I draw everything with a mouse so more complex shapes can be difficult for me to draw. With circles I can just use a circle tool. Also, I just like the look of round-headed cartoons. And also also, Marleen's (the girl with the top hat) head isn't a circle. It all comes down to personal preference though. Just because something can be drawn differently doesn't mean it should be.

As for loops, there really aren't any aside from parts of the song that loop, and even then the animation is never completely the same. I'll admit, most of the effort went into Esther's animation (girl with the viola) I actually thought her animation was very well done considering that I don't use animation software. To animate something complex like playing a viola was a bit tough, but I'm actually very happy with how it turned out. As for the others, they all play clarinets so there really wasn't as much I could do. Evelyn (the girl on the far right) makes funny faces and stuff though.

Anyways, I do appreciate the review, I do, but I feel that 2 stars is a bit harsh. I felt that even your own words were more favorable than your rating of 2 stars. It sounded like you enjoyed it, even if you had some gripes, but 2 stars would imply that you thought it was very bad. While the animation is simple, it wasn't bad. The background is colorful and full of detail, polished artwork and hidden objects. A lot of effort went into the background. I'm going off topic a bit, but when I put up posters, say in my actual bedroom, I put the tape on the back so it isn't seen, and so the poster itself isn't ripped if ever it should be taken down. Just a little trick I picked up. As for the props on the wall, the only objects are a spoon, which is visibly taped, and a few paper notes, which have colored thumb tacks in them. And finally, the music, which was the main focus, I thought was sorely neglected in your review. I think you may enjoy it more if you give it another shot. Try to focus on Esther. I think she's the funnest one to watch. You really get an idea of her character, her very bored and cynical personality. More importantly though, try to enjoy the music!

Regardless of my disagreements with your review, thank you. Again, I'm happy to hear from you again. I guess you saw that post I made about you. Thanks again for your review! Sorry my response to your review was longer than the review itself. I know you can't respond to the response, but if you do give it another shot, just drop me a message :-)

[CCC Bombah]

I already mentioned that a black and white look could work perfectly for any of your other future cartoons.

It is important to compensate for a lack of color by using different shades of white including grey.

Old black and white movies look a bit more colorful whenever it is compared to your new submission.

You could compensate for a lack of color by using cross hatching, dots, comic book graphics and other technique imaginable.

It is possible to create the illusion of grays using a coloring technique called Grey scale.

I recommend using a different color outline for your characters against your background.

This will work as a simple trick for creating more depth for your characters.

If you can create a 3D like illusion in this manner.

It'll be all the better and create a more polished looking cartoon overall.

I look forward to seeing your new movies.

Keep up the good work.

Another review from a long time fan.

- Mightydein

[CCC city]

It appears that you decided to go with a back and white aesthetic for one of your new movies.

This actually hurts your movie a little bit because color not only enhances your work but the audience expects it.

A black and white movie is gonna be held to a higher standard than a cartoon created in color.

It is entirely possible to create a polished cartoon without color but it is important to compensate for a lack of color.

Teach yourself how to use any of the possible techniques for working with extremely limited colors.

Look to Comics, Manga, Old movies, Old tv shows for sources of inspiration.

Lots of media exist in black and white form.

The black and white look can actually work for some of your new movies but you need to teach yourself ways to compensate for a lack of color.

I look forward to your cartoons and keep on trying new things.

Keep up the good work.

-Mightydein

[Kool Kat vs IHE]

All this cool cat internet drama has generated a ridiculous level of free publicity for an otherwise obscure movie.

A large number of movies released to public will usually fall under the category of obscure.

Only a small number of movies will be lucky enough to avoid obscurity.

The market place for movies is generally not a level playing field since the entertainment industry intentionally does things to keep competition out.

I used to be able to call my local movie theater and could potentially rent a screen for my own movie.

I actually called the movie theaters corporate office and ask them about renting screens for any potential film created by me.

That same theater later changed owners and it is no longer possible for me to rent any screen.

The movie theater under a new owner does not have an easy to find phone number for small companies.

Most theaters and stores in Nova Scotia will stock your movie if it has been rated by the alcohol and gaming authority.

I've also called the alcohol and gaming authority to ask them questions about their movie ratings.

They were surprisingly polite and actually introduced themselves to me by name.

The rater on the phone was very helpful.

I don't have any story's about actually releasing a movie to public in real life but still learned a lot by making phone calls to theater owners and the local ratings agency.

The extra difficulty of reaching the public from all directions can easily be bypassed by offering your movie to the internet.

Coolcat DVD's were sold to members of the public directly from the internet.

Derek Savage managed to avoid the extra difficulty from having to call video stores, theater owners and any local ratings agency.

Derek Savage is very lucky to be able to reach the public and sale some Cool cat DVD's.

The bad reviews have actually taken an otherwise unwatched internet DVD out of obscurity.

Derek Savage should be thanking IHE for all of this free publicity.

Derek Savage would have otherwise need to spend a ridiculous sum of money on advertising to generate a fraction of that publicity.

I would have never even heard of cool cat without IHE's review.

This movie has a nice usage of color and I like shadows applied to the characters.

The overall drawings look excellent especially considering how quickly it was made.

All of this cool cat internet drama is still very much new.

I like the voice acting in this submission and each character has it's own distinct voice.

IHE could have voiced both himself and Cool cat.

IHE does a hilarious impression of Cool cat and only one voice actor would have been needed for this submission.

Normally, I would recommend using only one actor per character for cartoons but since IHE can also do a funny cool cat impression; An exception for the one actor per voice can be made.

This was an overall enjoyable movie and tried my best to offer my own overall point of view.

I look forward to seeing your other cartoons.

- Mightydein