Moho Forum

Hello ladies and gentleman. I am new to the forum and looking for some honest critism on my first anime studio work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvUbcJpMf0

I gave you some. viewtopic.php?t=18661. You ignored it.

... while the link in this post is not working.

It has come to my attention that the link to view my work is broken. I have reposted the link and youtube user page if you are still interested in checking it out.

http://youtu.be/QvUbcJpMf0k

www.youtube.com/kevingreenproduction

This is very good for a first anime studio project.

You have done a really good job with the colors. I also really like your art style. I feel like I could pause the video at any time and be well pleased with what you have made.

With that said, the animation appears very pivotty. Is that a word? lol. Your art is really good. I work work on your movements. Try adding more bones for the neck and chest. That way when the head moves, the neck moves with it and it won't look like the head is on a pivot.

Also, bones in the stomach and chest can help the arm movements look a little more real. If the arms are moving, give very slight movements in the chest area.

Your mouth art is good, but I would include more movement in the mouth area. Instead of going from lips to no lips with teeth, perhaps you could add a frame with the lips going in before the teeth are revealed.

You do pretty good with the cloth movements.

For the sharp head turns, one thing I notice people do is add blur. I do not do that myself - but I think it would help with your style.

You should practice your drawing skills [on paper with pencils away from the computer], that will help a lot in animating. For example, your characters have black blobs which look like leeches or that they have been wrestling in an oil spill or something. As a guess, you were probably trying to apply some heavy shadows, like in a comic. The problem is that they are so arbitrary and do not follow any rules, so they do not convey shape and form [which is their purpose], and could very well be perceived as tattoos on the characters or something. It would be beneficial to not have them at all, unless you can use them properly. This is especially true if you are going to animate in the 'cut-out' style - when the character raises his arm, the deep shadow under his arm would disappear once the light hits it. Not having shadows until you understand their application will also save you a lot of time in constructing your characters.

Another thing is the over-use of the shading fill. I found this to be very simplistic and best results came from shapes such as circles and ellipse. When you put it on the shapes of your 'cut-out' style character, it emphasises even more so that they are separate pieces. It just doesn't look good, unless you were doing characters based on marionettes, which could be interesting.

Your compositions are too crowded. Shots just look like conjoined twins. What will help is if you plan it out on a storyboard first. This will help you with the 'flow' of your shots also - which is very confused in your animation.

crsp,

That is a lot of good advice. You definitely sound like you know what you are talking about. Do you think you could give similar feed back on my work? What would be your best tip on how to do better.

Thanks

Sure, I'll check out your thread. My best tip is practice drawing. The reason I say 'away from the computer' is that there is no interface invented yet which gives you control like paper and pencil. Anime Studio has only one drawing tool, and it's not very good. It smoothes out the lines too much which means details get rounded off and therefore you lose control. Try drawing a circle within a circle, etc. You will find the smaller you get, the less it looks like what you were trying to draw. Try a rectangle - you sometimes get an oval. The problem is compounded when you have to deal with a mouse. Even the graphics tablets have a disconnect, as you are looking away from your drawing hand whilst drawing. Cintiqs are the best option but there is still that glass between you and the drawing, and the surface is smooth - if drawing on smooth surfaces was as easy as paper, then animation studios would not have wasted money with pencil tests as they could animate on the cel. Drawing also helps you get an idea of 'form'. So when you are constructing your characters, you can get something more akin to 3 dimensional rather than looking like a paper cutout.

Thanks! I used to draw a lot better when I was five then I do now. I loose my patience now when I draw because I am not very good.

I guess I am going to have to start focusing more on doing that.