My animation of Super Mario

[coldcaguama]

Give me some tips about the animation, want to get better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGGv5xW56iQ[/url]

[Paul Mesken]

Give me some tips about the animation, want to get better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGGv5xW56iQ[/url]

My Mexican (you guys talk Spanish, I guess) is a bit weak so I couldn't follow the dialogue.

You want to get better at animation. Imagine that the characters would be solid black silhouettes and that no dialogue would be present. What would be left of the animation? You do everything in the eyes and the mouth. That's not enough. The postures should work before the facial expressions. Posture takes precedence over facial expression.

Postures : the dude is drinking. The arm is simply rotating so that the bottleneck will reach his mouth. Notice how he couldn't even get a zip out of that bottle the way it is angled (unless he sucks it out). Why is he left handed? His arm will move in front of his body and reads worse as a consequence. Study how people drink out of a bottle, make drawings (with pencils, you get the feel better). Play with those postures, look at what the shoulders, back, head, etc. do. See what the major arcs are and how they change when people take a zip, exaggerate it and make it clear (even in silhouette it should read).

Personally, I feel a proper command over postures is the single most important skill. You can botch up nearly anything but if you can make good expressive postures then everything will be alright. Attitude and character is in the posture. Pop in a couple of good DVDs and draw a 100 postures (1-2 minute sketches) each day from them. Not those crappy movies they make nowadays which rely on mood lighting and extreme close ups but good movies from the past (comedy, good musicals, perhaps some kung fu movies, etc.), stuff when they weren't afraid of flood lights and wide shots. Always look where the feet are in relation to the head, the arc of the back, the line of the shoulders and the hips (and how they relate to each other, normally they kinda counter each other's angles but only in balanced postures, things are different in movement)

Basic (solid) drawing : learn to draw hands. Don't look at crappy animation with lousy hands. Real animators know how to draw hands. It's the same excercise as with postures. Just give special attention to hands. It's hard (perhaps the hardest thing in drawing the human figure) but it is essential. If you do it often enough then you will develop a feel for hands. Hands are on par with facial expressions.

Staging : you use a single camera viewpoint. But think about things like how to show Mario just had 12 Tequila's. The glasses are crammed in a corner. Plan how you can stage things how to show such a thing as clearly as possible (with a cut, a camera move or composition).

All in all I would say to work on postures (and hands). Make lots of drawings. It doesn't harm to look at how some good animation (everything before 1970) solved things, it's also easier to draw and you get a feel for what those animators in those days aimed for. But the best thing is to do it from live action movies. Charlie Chaplin didn't look at comedy movies for inspiration, he watched news reels.

[sbtamu]

Very funny, I like my princesses with a little meat on them

On the character on the left, I think a few eye blinks would add to that character's look. When Mario is speaking have the other character blink and maybe do a head tilt in reaction to what Mario is saying.

[fracturedray]

It's a good start.

After all of the shots of booze Mario had, I would have like to see him sway back and forth like an exaggerated drunk. Maybe even make his eye lids droop up and down slowly.

Also the man on the right, the shade at the right of his nose is not needed and looks odd.

[PARKER]

I would say that is better to use flat shading for your characters than gradient.

[Víctor Paredes]

You should add movements on the body. It's too quiet. Try adding some anticipation on movements too.