For this year's NATA I'm looking to continue a single story from start to end. This is the beginning of (hopefully) a multiple piece series. For this piece we watch as a young man starts his Most Important Mission to save his kingdom.
The Crystal of Zanthar series seems like it would be an epic one, especially since it has the warrior be the son of the king, making him the prince. My expectations are high in this expertly-animated video, and I believe that this won't disappoint.
Also, is it me or does the dragon kind of sound like Duke Fishron from Terraria?
hrm. not bad! I like the backgrounds. HOWEVER, thinking as a writer, i find that the music is too busy and inappropriate to the mood, and the guy should not be smiling in that situation; it's grave determination he should be comveying, with a bit of snark, unless I'm missing something. Also, the animation does not match the lovely background enough for them to work well together. change one or the other to better match. i would suggest changing the animation style to match the backgrounds a tad. ;)
Thanks for taking the time for the review!
Yeah, looking back after the rush of making something complete in a short-ish amount of time the music is very cluttered to me as well so that is something I'm looking to change up if I make it into the next round. And if I have enough time this round I'd love to smooth out the animation more. I was working in anywhere from 12-6 FPS where i usually work in 24 so it's a bit choppier than usual.
You actually nailed a huge misstep in my plot as well. Looking back I didn't want the prince (blonde main character) to be happy at the end there. I put that expression kind of as a place holder and wanted to go back and make him look concerned, confused, and angry. Regardless of me getting into farther NATA rounds I'm going to continue the story line and re-polish this animation with a lot of the critiques everyone has been saying and that's very high on the list. Hopefully it won't confuse viewers in my future animations for this story.
Sorry for the novel, thanks again.
Cheers!
-J
Hey man!
First of all I enjoyed the anymation a whole lot. The story was fun and I liked how the boy seemed very sure of himself, keep the good work up, definately would want too see more of you. Though the setting confused me rather much. The music and the backgrounds reminded me of Asian influences, most likely Japan, yet the characters and the castle were more European style, now this is all fine if that was your intention, it was just a bit odd.
And why you get 4 stars instead of 5 is because the animation could have been a bit more fluent and polished, plus the music really did not work that well. The drums through the rest of the soundtrack constantly made me wonder if I was having two tabs open or some other music playing, so I hope you might find a way to make it more one soundtrack.
But in any case, keep the good work up!
Love to see more of this guy!
Hey Xeha!
Thanks for taking the time out to write a review and I'm glad that you liked my piece! I didn't really have an overarching theme to the location and wanted the pieces to kind of come organically. It's set in a fictional world that was actually originally inspired by a combination of China's floating mountains, standard Medieval Castles and whatnot, with a splash of steampunky stuff here and there. The design of the prince's airship has an Asian influence as well.
I really wish I had more time to polish this piece up too. I agree there is a lot of potential for improvement in the smoothness of the animation and the balance of the music. Unfortunately when you have to write, design characters and worlds, animated the character and worlds, and write and create music in 20 days, some thing unfortunately get left by the wayside.
Thanks again!
Cheers.
I really liked this! Woohoo! Heheh. Oh, to be more constructive, I just think everything flowed together very well. I liked the design and the music and the look and feel. Good job!
I sure hope this gets continued.
