i'm 19 though so it's not as good as helter skelter's


really the only thing good about it is the intro i guess


you can watch it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BVhtX6BN1g

i made it for a merit scholarship at my school. i'm a sophomore. this is currently my second year in the animation program, though it feels much more like my first (freshman year is just stupid art school foundation classes)


by the time i'm through with school i'll probs have a veeeery different demo reel. also this one has some stuff i made in high school so yeah


gimme some critiques, i like them

Its quite good. Looks much more fun than what I'm doing.

this rules fyi.

sorry that i can't crit it.

I didn't know that my age was displayed in my profile...

In general, you might find it effective to hold key positions more often. This means that, at certain points, really extend the timing of your animation with more drawings fleshing out key poses before a sudden acceleration to the next pose. In general, you seem to have a lot of fast action that doesn't let up. This is all well and good, but intersperse the super fast movement with exaggerated slow movement. Keep it musical, like ba-BUM-baaaaaa. Slow-fast-slooooow. Keep going, and wherever/whenever you can make sure to attend life drawing classes. Your university probably offers these. If not, consider finding some outside of class if you can.

I generally don't like offering criticism, so I'll say no more.

i always attend life drawing classes. i'm taking a figure drawing class and i go to a four-hour drawing co-op every sunday. i've read richard william's animator's survival kit in high school. i'm doing a walk every week and also have been focusing on animating splashes and explosions more recently.

i understand that i need to do more "slow" animation, but it bores the hell out of me. i also know about all that rhythm stuff, and i also took a few music theory classes when i was growing up. i figure that if it registers with the audience, then i'm golden. i'm inspired by the extreme speeds that tex avery's stuff has.

your criticisms are good, but you should assume that i understand the animation vocabulary quite well (you don't need to explain what "holding the key position" is to animators in critique). i also understand that i've always got to keep drawing--especially life drawing. these are things that i've hammered into myself for years.

sorry i'm criticizing your criticism, which is silly. i'm quite glad you gave me some insightful critique though and i'm not dissing you/being defensive in any way (well maybe i'm being a little bit defensive, but only because i'm a somewhat cocky bastard. i will take your crit to heart though, and i'll do slower animation. that and lip sync are things that i don't particularly enjoy doing and should work on improving)

If you are interested in the tex avery stuff, just watch more of those and see if you can take your intuition as an animator in order to read their rhythm and learn even more from it. Those cartoons always have their own sense of timing and musical beat that anybody can learn from if they are willing to take such things seriously. You don't need theory in order to get it, you just need practice. Timing doesn't only have to apply just to the basic mechanics of the motion, the whole feeling of the cartoon or the "big picture" can be determined as simply by how the various events are timed, and therefore how they communicate their relative importance to the audience. See for yourself if those tex avery cartoons are always fast from the start, or if they build up in intensity or instead ripple back and forth throughout the entire experience. Studying great cartoons is always good practice when it comes to skills that can make your own animations register with the audience on even deeper levels.

That's what I loved about that time for animation, there was no upper limit on that sort of thing, no reason to stop learning or trying to get better at what you know you are already great at.

i always attend life drawing classes. i'm taking a figure drawing class and i go to a four-hour drawing co-op every sunday. i've read richard william's animator's survival kit in high school. i'm doing a walk every week and also have been focusing on animating splashes and explosions more recently.

i understand that i need to do more "slow" animation, but it bores the hell out of me. i also know about all that rhythm stuff, and i also took a few music theory classes when i was growing up. i figure that if it registers with the audience, then i'm golden. i'm inspired by the extreme speeds that tex avery's stuff has.

your criticisms are good, but you should assume that i understand the animation vocabulary quite well (you don't need to explain what "holding the key position" is to animators in critique). i also understand that i've always got to keep drawing--especially life drawing. these are things that i've hammered into myself for years.

sorry i'm criticizing your criticism, which is silly. i'm quite glad you gave me some insightful critique though and i'm not dissing you/being defensive in any way (well maybe i'm being a little bit defensive, but only because i'm a somewhat cocky bastard. i will take your crit to heart though, and i'll do slower animation. that and lip sync are things that i don't particularly enjoy doing and should work on improving)

I always write very clearly and simply, especially online. I tend not to make assumptions when explaining technical aspects, because I like to be understood completely. I never assume anything about a stranger's skill level or vocabulary, especially online, and I'm not about to make any apologies for that. If I'm just repeating terms and techniques that you're already aware of, just take it to heart that they're true. My criticism tends to be pretty general, but that's really all I have time for. I tend not to offer in-depth feedback on people's work without being paid. Sounds a little mercenary, but I'm very busy these days.

There's really nothing else to say other than what I've already said. Practice is really all there is to it. You'll improve with every year that passes, especially in a university environment. You might find that you later develop an interest in slower, subtler motion. When I started combining subtle and broad actions it really took my work to another level.

EvilDemonCreature makes some very good points in his post.

you get paid for offering critique? lucky you. i've never heard of anyone doing that before.

i'm just a little annoyed that i'm being told to take life drawing classes/practice more when that's all i'm doing with my life right now--that's not the type of critique that anyone wants to hear, especially if it's something they're already doing (and specializing in at school). it's hard for me to respond to this kind of advice because i don't want to look like some kind of self-righteous asshole demanding that you like my art.

i am studying great cartoons. i do look through them frame by frame. that's what i'm doing now. maybe my demo reel doesn't exactly show it, but like i said, it doesn't show every piece of animation i'm working/worked on. it's mostly high school/first year stuff.


that being said, i don't want to say that anyone's critique is bad. i appreciate any input. i guess i wasn't too clear on what kind of input i would like/where i'm coming from.


i'm studying animation at an art school. a lot of it i'm studying by myself between classes. i've been watching a lot of animated short films this semester more than last and i'm practicing a butt-load of figure drawing every week. i'm very interested in special effects animation: things like fire, water, explosions, etc. i understand the mechanics of character animation and i've read richard williams' the animator's survival kit several times (and i'm currently practicing from examples in that book). other animation books i've been reading include: the illusion of life, force (life drawing for animators), and elemental magic (special effects animation book--not quite as in-depth as i'd like it to be).


i know what i need to do to get better at this stuff. i know i need to be studying the great classic cartoons. i guess i would appreciate it more if you gave me some examples of cartoons or animators or studios i should look at that aren't typically recommended (like MGM, WB, Disney...and for the contemporary ones, Frederator/Nickelodeon/various anime studios).


it might be a lot to ask for, i don't know. i'm just somewhat frustrated when someone tells me to do something i'm already doing

Oh, no, I don't get paid to critique work. What I mean is, the only way I will offer very in-depth, frame-by-frame analysis of animation is in the capacity of a tutor - something I am currently looking into.

Anyway, I've said all I can say. Keep practicing. But it's not a race, and you have nothing to prove to anyone, so just go for it. It sounds like you're doing all the right things, so keep doing them because there's nothing for it but practice and time.

yeah, sorry about sounding kind of mean. i understand the in-depth frame-by-frame analysis is something that takes a lot of time to do, and i wouldn't expect that from anyone except for paid professors/tutors. i'm thinking about enrolling in animation mentor after i'm done with my bachelor's degree because i know that 4 years of art school is not nearly enough to learn everything i can about animation

can you recommend any other websites/books where i can learn about traditional special effects animation? elemental magic is okay, but there's so much about it that it just doesn't cover. it barely touches on explosions and only has a few diagrams--mostly it has lots of writing about the "mindset" you need.

I've been animating for just over three years now, so obviously I have a long way to go myself. I don't fret about it though, because as long as I apply myself and think deeply about my technique I'll always improve. There's never going to be an end to this, and that suits me just fine.

As far as resources, I'm afraid I can't offer much because I don't typically seek out animation websites. What I tend to do is search for videos on YouTube or somehow acquire live action references as Quicktime files (so that I can scroll through them frame-by-frame). Live action footage is a very invaluable reference for animation, so perhaps you could source some hi-definition, slow motion footage of water splashes and the like. There must be plenty available online.

I've heard good things about animation mentor and they produce very good reels every year.

As far as resources, I'm afraid I can't offer much because I don't typically seek out animation websites. What I tend to do is search for videos on YouTube or somehow acquire live action references as Quicktime files (so that I can scroll through them frame-by-frame). Live action footage is a very invaluable reference for animation, so perhaps you could source some hi-definition, slow motion footage of water splashes and the like. There must be plenty available online.

I don't want to promote developing one's own skills and resources through pirating and the such, but there's this show on TV called Time Warp.

I can see how 'somehow acquire' might infer pirating, but that's really not my intention in saying so.

I'm referring to things like this - http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2010/10/free-stock-pack-appreciation-day/