Mightydein's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Yonder Ho! - Episode 11]

Your backgrounds have always been my favorite visual element of the yonder ho series; However, a lot of it's moving parts were a bit distracting.

It sometimes took attention away from your characters.

Your backgrounds can both look cool and assist with bringing increased attention to your characters.

Think of the background as creating an invisible frame.

Work on training your audience to pay most attention to the important parts.

Your characters will need to behave in ways to attract attention to themselves.

This might mean hair and clothes moving in the wind but slightly faster than the background plant life.

I don't often see plant life moving in the wind included in a whole lot of animation.

moving backgrounds was a cool addition and I hope my criticism will help create improved new episodes.

This series is really good and pleased to notice that you never settled on the same battling average.

Your always trying to make the show better and it has shown in your work.

I hope your future movies start winning awards and front page placement.

Keep up the good work and I hope my small bit of criticism helps.

-Mightydein

Bertn1991 responds:

Thank you so much for watching! I completely respect your criticisms and appreciate the honest feedback. You are truly the best kind of fan :)

The look of this episode was very experimental. Maybe you're right, though. Maybe there is too much movement. With the new episode I'm working on I've been messing around with blur effects to try to take focus off of the backgrounds so maybe that'll make things a bit better.

Front page you say? You're very kind, but I don't think I'm there quite yet hehe. Maybe if I keep listening to you, huh ;)

[Rpg battle in create.swf]

You show a lot of potential in your work so far.

The previous submission watched while bad shows a very high level of potential to be very successful.

I really like the cute character designs.

Your characters are really cute.

If you can get your buttons to work than you can easily create a very interesting game.

Do you have flash?

A game could be created from primitive action script.

You have a very cool idea and I would like to see you become a lot more successful.

You are off to a better start than most other artists on this site.

-Mightydein

scottie2006 responds:

First of all, this was my FIRST project,and got deleted,SECOND,I learned more about using this.

This could be a game sometime.

Just gotta fix the problems,and time to work on the story!

-SCOTTIE2006,Flash-imator

[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.

[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 :-)

[Mi nena]

This fanime still needs more polishing in terms of the graphics department.

Try to understand your characters and drawn objects as an individual three-dimensional entity.

Carefully observe your subjects before drawing.

You may need more reference material beside anime for your drawings.

Borrow off of multiple sources including real life observation.

You also gotta pay close attention to creating effective character poses.

Your characters will not only express emotions in the face but body language speaks volumes too.

Do whatever is needed to work out the poses in each drawing.

Act out the poses, have friends act out the poses and use toys of your characters if possible.

You could create clay toys based on your drawings.

You could even have a friend help you with brand new character designs.

I personally think character designs that deviant away from anime would work for this cartoon.

Try applying more of your own twist onto the anime art style.

Be sure to create a kick ass new animation and enjoy the process of creating new submissions.

I hope this review guides you towards a more successful direction.

Best luck on your journey to success.

-Mightydein

FotAnimaciones responds:

thanks very complete