Requesting an animation critique.

[LilMako17]

So this is my second 'serious' flash animation (aka more than 6 hours of work) and I am seeking a critique.

Link to Animation (its only a minute and a half, what do you have to lose?)

Currently I am really frustrated because it came out sloppy...again. I can't seem to get nice clean lines like you would want to see in animation. Is it just my art style? Are there any tricks? Do I just need to put more work into it? I would love to get some input from some other frame-by-frame artists.

On top of that I am a crummy background artist and my pacing isn't the best in the world either. 60 hours of work (not including storyboarding, animation research, and pre-loader), and all I can turn out is this?

Please give be advice to become better. Thanks.

[Coaly]

it looks like a bunch of parts are rotoscoped? The animation isn't bad, but like you said it's sloppy, or choppy. You should try using the brush tool more, I'm not sure but it looked like you were using the line tool a lot, of course, ultimately smoothness is the result of hard work and drawing ability. A tablet can help a lot if you don't already have one.

[LilMako17]

actually the whole thing was done with the pencil tool (set to smooth) using a tablet. You don't think the brush tool would give you more inconsistent lines because of the varying width? Well, I'll have to try it out sometime.

I did indeed rotoscope about 70% of the frame by frame parts from various sources. Is that really bad? Can I still add it to my portfolio, or is it considered just amature tracing? Maybe next time I'll try doing something completely on my own, if I can ever work up the motivation to start something new.

[Senti]

At 5/30/08 12:50 AM, LilMako17 wrote: I did indeed rotoscope about 70% of the frame by frame parts from various sources. Is that really bad? Can I still add it to my portfolio, or is it considered just amature tracing? Maybe next time I'll try doing something completely on my own, if I can ever work up the motivation to start something new.

Rotoscoping isn't bad at all. In fact, some of the most highly praised animated pieces have plenty of rotoscoping. But think of it like this. The reason animation is popular is because it's a medium of entertainment that enables the impossible to become a temporary reality. For example, no one can jump to the top of a building, but you can animate it and make it look realistic. Now, there is nothing wrong with rotoscoping and it does give it a pretty cool look, but in order for your work to be really impressive you'll have to EXAGGERATE when your are scoping off of. One example I can think of in your animation is when that guy is swinging the pole around, you could make it bending like really far behind him and snap around real quick so it looks like it's moving really. I'm sure you can think of others.

Your pacing seemed fine to me, although I'd work on organization, I wasn't entirely sure what was going on quite a bit of the time.

Is this a final for school or something? I'm going to assume your of non-Asian decent, and say quit the anime feel as soon as you can. If you are looking for a job in the animation field, American companies aren't interested in that look and feel, and Japan doesn't want you. Just a note of advice!

Besides that, keep it up! You definitely seem to know what you are doing, you just gotta refine it a bit. Good luck!

[LilMako17]

Thanks for your advice, however getting into the animation industry is nothing more than a small fantasy of mine that I'm not really willing to retrain my art style to suite the needs of one industry (and I'm not weeaboo-crazy enough to go job-hunting in Japan either). I'd much rather just continue to do this for fun. Although, it can be very frustrating at times when you can't get the finished product to live up to your visions.

Yea this was a final project of an 'intro to the adobe package' class which ended up being a complete waste of time because I'm already a bit beyond that level technical wise. But I suppose it was worth it because I work much better under deadlines and the pressure of grades than I do on my own time (*sifts through various unfinished projects*).