Slackman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Theories and Practice]

Very cool!

This was pretty impressive. The visuals really matched the music quite well. The message was strong and clear. Furthermore, the audio you added worked nicely with the cartoon, and everything was well synched.

Here are my criticisms of the work. First of all, your drawings could be a little more clean, or a little more complex. Generally speaking those are the two routes you want to take. If you want to use simple characters, you should clean them up so although they look simple, they are bright and attractive. If you want to use a dirtier look, you should probably use more detail to compensate. This would make the drawings a bit more impressive.

You also might want to work on hands a bit. I only remember one shot where it really bothered me (the guy is shifting gears I believe), but I was once told that when people watch animation, the thing they're going to pay attention to most is the face and the hands. You might want to put in a little extra work to make your hands a bit more impressive.

Lastly, pay attention to scale. In some shots you use it really well. The morbidly obese lady in the small apartment for example. However, in the last shot which is a long shot in which nothing else is going on, we see the logger, who is bigger than a lemonade stand, as big as a tree and as tall as a piece of heavy machinery. You might want to shrink him down a bit, or make everything else larger.

Otherwise though, this is a really cool animation. Well done!

jackbliss responds:

I marked your review helpful as you have given me some wonderful guidelines and tips to help me make even better movies next time. Thanks for the time and effort :-)

[Crappy Days]

Friggen hilarious!

Well, allow me to say first that when the emo first popped up, I laughed my ass off. Well done. A story with a moral to it!

I've only got a few pieces of constructive criticism for you.

First, when the emo throws his hand up in the air, you might want to add a blurred frame or two. It doesn't look natural, like you just hit two extremes and missed the in betweens. While you get away with this in other places in the short, it just doesn't work that well there. It may be a lack of squash and stretch or something like that, but it's just a little off. Nothing big, but it's a little irritating.

Secondly, when he's bashing his head against the wall, I'd like to see a bit of a reaction from him. Here he's pounding his head against the wall, but we're not seeing any damage or reaction from him. I'd like to see his head swinging back and forth a bit, if nothing else. Have it rebound backwards a bit upon impact, or give us a frame of it smashing against the wall and being squashed upon it. Really, we need something to help us feel the impact a bit more.

One last thing. I'd never recommend doing the flashing, seizure-y thing that goes along with "moving all week with you". It's just kind of annoying to the viewer, and I know with me at least it's something I've come to associate with the large amounts of spam entering the portal. It does little to add to the cartoon, and it's just not that necessary.

But otherwise this is a fantastic piece. It's really funny and it got a good laugh out of me. Very creative, I can tell you that and it certainly brightened my day.

DAGamesOfficial responds:

LOL thanks, appreciated :) yeahI accept all constructve critisism, cus in all fairness it just generally gives me ideas for how I could improve in the next ones :) I take all your critisizm, and Ill mkae sure the next one is better xp

[Broked Heart]

Pretty good

Let me say first that I approve of how much FBF you did in this cartoon. Well done. There are only two things that I would take a look at if I were you.

The first is the guy's walk as he enters the stage. It's very unnatural. I'd recommend taking a look at how somebody actually walks. Stand next to a treadmill for awhile or something and actually observe it. It'll make things look a bit less awkward if you're working from observation. There's also a pretty decent tutorial under the Flash Tutorial section that can probably help you out, although I've found that there's no substitution for the real thing. Same thing with the dancing. Their legs aren't moving. If they were off the ground and floating, I'd understand it and it would looks less strange, but because they're on the ground just circling one another without moving their legs it just looks strange. Have them skip and side step a bit, or maybe hovering up and down in the air, whichever you prefer.

Secondly is when the girl's dress changes color. It's a cool effect, yes, but I'd be even more impressed if she was moving at the time. Something like floating into the air a bit while holding onto the guy's hands. That'd be cool. Really it just looks unnatural for the two of them to stop completely while the effect is going on. I'm sure with a shape tween it wouldn't be all that difficult to achieve a similar effect. Maybe she should just look down and raise her arms in surprise as it happens. Just don't have the two of them stop completely, especially after having done so much FBF earlier in the animation. It just looks strange.

Otherwise, good job though. It's a bit short and unpolished, but it was intended as a demo and was done in a few hours, so I suppose that's forgivable. That being said, you have time to shine it up a bit, just remember that your deadlines for the project outside of NG don't affect when you can put the final product on NG. No harm in putting in a few hours extra work to give it that extra touch if you know what I mean.

Prid-Outing responds:

WOW! Thanks for writing that LONG review :D

I know what you mean. But I had such a little time to finish it, so I had to do it as quickly as possible to show those other people! And thanks man, you've given me some ideas for my next romantic animation =)

Your review was long and nice. And I hope that you also find true love if you don't have one <3

Prid

[Dead Spyke 2]

Its OK

Generally speaking, it's ok. It does what it's supposed to do, but you should try and take it further.

One of my bigger problems with this is that it's just too short. There are only a few options and while each of them is pretty well done, they just don't take that long. A few more options could really perk this piece up.

Your animation is done relatively well for stick figures. Some things seem kind of abrupt, like when the guy stops before the pit. You might want to ease him into it, put in a few more frames and have him approach it more slowly. You might even want to have him look in the pit or something and then look at the screen. Something along those lines. It looks kinda jerky and unnatural to just have him stop. Also, when people walk, they tend to swing their arms. You may want to have your character do that in order to make him appear more human.

But that's not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem, hands down, is that you're simply just zoomed too far out. The viewer can't really see what's going on and there's a lot of dead space, which is both visually uninteresting and unnecessary. Zoom in on the pit a bit more and give us a bit more detail. It will make things interesting.

Your music, while not entirely appropriate, does seem to work strangely well with the piece. I would say that it doesn't reflect the material... being death, but somehow it works anyway. Good job. You could definitely benefit from some sound effects, but the music works.

You do show some potential here, but you need to expand upon it. Practice a bit more, and have some fun with it. You'll turn out a better project. Good luck on Dead Spyke 3!

xtended12 responds:

Oh thanks a lot!!! I be more careful next time with stick figure and I really do more stuff with arms and zoom in animation... About a music, when i was working on this project I was just downloaded Trance type music like Dj tiesto , it was fantastic to me ;) .... And really music works with animation... And yech I don't forget to put SFX on next my project.... Really thanks for the comment !!!!!

[Through the sky]

Unimpressive

Well, I don't mean to me rude, but this is an unimpressive piece. It's a short loop, and while it's not a particularly badly done one, it's still just a short loop.

That being said, if you want to mess around with wind effects, you should try messing with the alpha values. Depending on what version of flash you're using, there are different ways to do this, but if you turn the wind into a symbol, you should then be able to turn down the alpha value. This will make things transparent, and will help with your wind effects.

As far as the frame by frame goes, this works. It's not particularly amazing, but it works. You might want to put an extra frame of the dragon when it's wings are fully up in order to put a bit more emphasis on the movement. Also, you might want to turn up your frame rate a bit to make things more fluid. Adding in a few more in betweens would help even things out if you did that. Lastly, when its wings return up, you might want to have a frame of them folded going upwards. I personally think it would look a bit more natural than just having the wings go from the down to the up position.

All in all, you show ability to animate, but you're not really doing anything with it. I look forward to seeing you produce something a bit more ambitious. The skills are there, but you need to actually use them.

Mazzelh responds:

Oh hey, thanks for the con crit, I find it quite useful~

Thanks for the tip on the wind stuff too, will see if I can try that out. Don't think my version is has the option, though... It's not actually Flash, but an applet with the basic functions of Flash (shape tweening, vectors, paths... I dunno, most basic stuff, I think).

There is an extra frame of the wing going up, though, but since it's a five frame animation, it's gone pretty quickly when viewed, so no wonder you didn't notice its existence~

Still, again, thank you.

I shall now await the blamming of this. x_x

[Give Me Some Skin]

I like the concept

But the execution needs a little work. For one thing, the audio could use some beefing up. If you're ripping off skin, it's gonna make a noise. In order to push the concept, you should really add a ripping noise, maybe some grunting... you know, the works. Use your imagination.

The lip synching is fine. It works. It's nothing spectacular, but it gets the job done.

But really, you should try and have a bit more fun with the animation. When the guy starts ripping, you might want to try having him cringe. Experiment with the faces. If he struggles a bit more, it pushes the joke further. He could twist and turn, try and get a new grip, maybe he reaches a point where it gets stuck and he pulls out some scissors or something to finish the job. If you're going to go macabre, you might as well push it. As a finisher, maybe his organs could fall out? Something like that?

If you want to have him keep smiling, then push it further. Make him the sociopath that he seems to be. Push the smile, make it a bit more psychotic. He could show some gums, clench his teeth, open his mouth, stick out his tongue, start chewing on his tongue (I can see him struggling so hard that he bites his tongue off, that'd be pretty funny). The point is that you need to push it further.

Lastly, you might want to add a background or something. Just a gradient would add a lot. Music isn't necessary with a piece this short, but you can add a background in like no time flat and it would really help.

warefish responds:

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU!!

I will keep allot of this in mind. The only exception might be the background. The flash is based off of a webcomic I make, and this webcomic generally only has the three colours: white, black and red. If I added too much depth, it would defeat the abstract, geometric purpose of the comic/flash. If you have any further advice on how to create background with this concept in mind, it would be appreciated muchly. :D

But thanks again for the advice!!

[Desert for Two]

Not bad!

Let me start off by saying that this is probably the best clock submission I've seen recently. Well done!

Well, first off your drawings are really detailed. This definitely works towards your advantage, given how little of this is done FBF. Given you probably traced them, but it works.

Animationwise, there's only three things that I would change. First, there's a shot from the side in which we see the tires of the car rotating through a tween. Watching tires on actual cars, one tends to notice that it's not nearly as clean. Things get blurred and you really can't see detail all that well. I'd recommend looping a small FBF animation here of the blurred tire spinning, or finding some way to use blurring effects.

My second comment is about when the ship drops. I'd recommend easing the tween to make things more natural. It seems like it's dropping at a pretty constant rate which just looks unnatural and offputting. A little bit of easing will make things look more natural. I'd apply the same concept to when the clocks on hoverbike things rise in the distance, and you might even want to have them overshoot it a bit and waver back down to make it look that little bit cooler.

Lastly, when we see the side shot of the car being chased and the ship forming in midair, the background could use a little bit of tweening. We see the little things on the side of the road moving, but if the sand dune was moving in the background, maybe from one side of the screen to the other over the duration of the shot, it would be less offputting. Seeing all the debris flying by on the ground while the sand dune remains stationary just looks wrong. It doesn't need a lot of movement, but a little bit would go a long way.

But these are minor complaints. This is a well made animation, and it's entertaining to watch. On top of it all, I must comment that I liked both the music choice and thought the pre-loader was pretty funny. Well done sir!

RadioTubeClock responds:

Thanks, I'm glad you like it and that's all excellent advice. A couple of those things I probably could have put more time in making look good but I wanted to get the animation done in a relatively small time frame. That being said, I'll work on making things move more naturally in future movies and put some more time into them. Thanks for the review.

[Say No 2 fur coats]

Not bad, but needs a little work

You get your point across pretty well, so I'm not going to give you any advice on how to improve your story telling. Your animation however, well pretty impressive, could use some work...

For example, you might want to experiment with easing your tweens. Pretty much everything here move at a constant rate, stopping and starting nearly immediately. The truck was a good example for this. If you eased it into its stopping, it would look more realistic, rather than just having it stop immediately. Experiment with it, it'll help you.

The other big problem I had with this is your awareness of the stage. Keep in mind that everything on the stage will be shown to your audience unless you are using a camera device (I can't remember what they're called). A lot of times, we can see the edges of things around the background. When we see the line of coats at the end, we can see the white behind them. Make sure that you're filling your stage. At some points, zooming in a bit would cover the animation mistakes (take a look at the guy when he peeks into the bushes, he doesn't have feet at first).

But you show a generous amount of skill in animation. The things that you hand animated looked really good and even your tweens looked relatively natural (with the exception of the easing). Your drawing style is good. You just need to clean things up a bit, then you'll get a higher score. Keep it up though, I'm excited to see what you come up with next.

Rovertarthead responds:

Wow thanks alot thats some great info for me. Yeah i was having a little trouble with the truck driving part motion tween and on my computer when i play a test movie SWF file it looks all good that you can't even see where the edges are in the corners of my scenes. Its just when i put it on Newgrounds it automatically changed the screen size!

PS: I love drawing.

[Zelda : The capture Ep. 1]

I don't know much about sprites, but...

Here's what I can tell you about your animation. It's running too fast, turn down the frame rate or just put one picture every other frame. This will slow things down to a less ridiculous speed.

The sound is not synched because Flash has a flaw in it that causes that to happen. Place the sound inside of a movie clip and then place the movie clip wherever you had the sound, everything should sync up the way you want it.

On to the actual short. I have no idea who Vaati is supposed to be, and this short doesn't really have a plot. I don't know what a "rope" snake is either. If I wanted to see Link kill random creatures, I would play a Zelda game. You might want to consider coming up with a more complex plot or a way to use sprites that's more impressive than emulating the series of games from whence they came. Really, the entire short was pretty boring. Not all sprite movies have to be wacky comedies or anything like that, but you might want to take a look at some of the higher rated sprite movies and ask yourself why people like them so much. Take it from there.

globep responds:

DUDE ! READ THE DESCRIPTION SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO WASTE YOUR TIME WRITING THREE PARAGRAPHS ! Too bad ya don't read very much ! AND DUDE ! STOP ACTING LIKE A SMARTY PANTS AND GO ON WIKIPEDIA OR SOMETHING ! For the love of G-d and all that is HOLY >_< ! PLEASE GET A BRAIN !

[Pull Over]

Pretty good!

Well, it was short, but effective. I liked the joke, it got a smile outta me. The animation itself was pretty simple, but it got the job done. Stylistically this is very well done and the music compliments the animation well.

The only thing I can really judge is your drawing style. I was once told that when animating, the two most important things to focus on are faces and hands. Some of the faces are pretty good, for example the main guy and the cop. I don't know why you didn't bother to detail the wife's face that much however. I think the joke would have worked better if you went into extreme detail, kind of like one of those disturbingly detailed close ups from Ren and Stimpy. Also, the back of the cop's head isn't all that impressive. Try actually drawing the back of somebody's head from real life, see what it looks like then try again.

The hands in this could use some serious work though. Everybody's got sausage fingers and their hands look deformed. The best advice I ever received about drawing hands was that you should draw them like mittens, and then go into detail (dividing up the fingers, adding in knuckles, etc...). Try some life drawing, get the anatomy down. It'll help.

Some of the animation works better than other parts. The cop approaching the car for example is not that great, but while the guy is driving things work well enough. Nothing too serious, but it could use some tweeking.

But otherwise good job. You made a funny short, with a decent sense of style. Well done.

MrMeeky responds:

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Yeah, my drawing lacks a lot of things, really. I'm getting better all the time, though. I've never been able to draw hands but I'll take your advice!