NothanyTPM's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Box]

Really great animation. My only complaint is that some of the hits don't have enough impact to them. For example, the dude who gets elbowed to the back of the head looks like he just dropped dead on his own, but you can fix that by adding a few frames of the dude's head recoiling from the elbow's impact, and then make him drop dead.

Keep-up the great work!

Nommalorel responds:

Thank you so much, yes that is the most prevelent problem in this animation hovewer i basicly almost didnt fix any mistakes i have done because it would cost me more time, i was doing this between my actual job.

[Lamprey Hole [Short animation]]

Pretty cool animation, and surprisingly smooth for 13FPS. I do see some artifacting here and there, but I think that might be a flipaclip problem.

Never heard of flipaclip before. Though, if you want to use a different program to animate I have a few alternatives for Mac and PC:

Krita is nice program that's mainly used to draw, but it can also be used for basic traditional animations. It's a bit weird since it feels like photoshop with an animation timeline, and it's a bit of a heavy program too so it may not run smoothly all the time when animating, but the option is there.

Pencil2D is a janky yet simple and lightweight program that's able to do both traditional and vector animations...with the only problem being that you essentially only have MS-Paint tools to work with (minus the text tool). It's kinda bad, and you need to find workarounds if you make complicated animations, but maybe it's a step above flipaclip? i don't know.

Never tried adding audio in either program. I don't think Krita supports audio, but I know that Pencil2D has that feature, but the devs recommend using a video editor for sound mixing instead since they admit their program is terrible with audio. Something like OpenShot is probably good enough to do the job.

All of these programs are free, so you can try them yourself to see if you like them.

Hope this helps! ...Even if my tools aren't much better honestly.

MintyKazzerz responds:

Thx for the help! Not sure if i can try them tho but maybe i will

[Diamond Monkey]

Interesting little style you've got going on there. The animation is pretty decent, but things feel like they're moving too fast. One way to fix that is by adding more frames that slow it down a bit between each action/scene (AKA: Easing). Another fix is slow it down you entire animation until it's timed perfectly, then adding frames to bring it back up to speed.

Finding the right timing for everything in animation is tough, but keep animating and you'll eventually find your groove.

Cookie-Animation responds:

Thanks for the input. Yeah alot of people say the same it's too fast. It was my first animation and I didn't know anything about timing lol just go here do that wtf is 3s lol but I'm hoping the next one I'll have it down some what.

[Goth Ankha Dancing]

My god, the tweening is real with this one!

For me I always prefer frame-by-frame over tweening, and I get that tweening has its uses, but would it be so hard to make it less robotic? Last time I checked humans don't stop their movements on a dime, they slowly stop and wiggle a little.

The art is nice at least, but you got it commissioned by someone else, so I can't even give much credit to that either.

I'll leave you with this: if you plan to continue doing these "tweeny" animations with commissioned art, you *NEED* to look at how anything moves (including yourself); film yourself if you have to (I know I did that). Just do anything you can to study movements, and experiment with your program to try and replicate those movements. If I can do smooth animations in PowerPoint, you can definitely do it with whatever program you're using.

[having some drawing knowledge helps too, but it's not necessary if the stick fighting community is anything to go by]

RE:
I may come off as salty or cocky, but it's usually when people get so close to making something good, but they're not quite there. Like for this one: I like the art a lot (even if you didn't draw it yourself), but the movements are too robotic.

Also, you're right about me not liking paper doll animations (it just looks lifeless most of the time), but it CAN be done well! For me I see it being used to add subtle movements to a picture that didn't have any, like flowing hair, blinking, breathing, and small body movements.

I don't know, do what you want with your animations. I'm just speaking my mind.

Leadreaper responds:

Thanks for the feedback, It took me about 15 hours to animate this. I didn't receive a commission for this. It was a practice project that I did only 4 days after starting as an animator. I used a tiktok dancer to sync the movement. The lack of additional movement was just due to time constraint. I'm trying to build a portfolio of animations and also get faster/better at my work, I was told not to waste so much time on every little thing as I will get better with time. So due to the amount of time invested and good feedback from friends, I deemed it good enough.

Honestly, My main goal was just to make a better animation then this - https://twitter.com/i/status/1470077350230564864

Which several others agreed that I had achieved when I submitted to them for feedback. I know there is a feud between paper doll and frame by frame but they are just different styles of animation, I don't think either one is better than the other (You seem like a frame by frame supremacist). I prefer paper doll, This character is full rigged and layered so now I can take it and create content quicker. I can bring it into a video game or I can make a series of videos with the same character. I'm just able to work quicker. I'm not gonna lie your comment came off extremely cocky and salty lol. Hope you have a good day.

[Spy vs Spy: Operation Reanimated]

I'm really tempted to join, but I'm still very new with animation and I want to practice at my own pace first.

Spy-vs-Spy-Collab responds:

there's always room for more, you can join any time even if you don't want to participate as an animator. :)

[Newgrounds Direct - June 2022 Showcase]

Great little idea for the website, but I feel like both the Direct and the people showcasing things in the direct can be better. This is a bit hard to criticize because not everyone is good at making presentations, so there's only so much you can do to fix that, but the more you do it the better it will get.

Here's my criticisms:
Not a big fan of the static screen between presentations. It feels a little too dull to look at. I'd recommend commissioning someone to make a small animation (or make one yourself if you can) that you can easily modify to at least get a little movement between presentations.

The voice for the direct needs a little practice. It's missing some enthusiasm, and kinda feels like how a teacher would act after showing a video to the class. Can't quite give any kind of specifics though, as I don't do voice acting.

Not sure what the idea behind the intro was. Nothing screams "Newgrounds" to me when I see it (apart from the big bold text). To me Black, Orange, and Yellow are the colours that represent Newgrounds with gradients and smooth line to represent the "Flash" look that was oh so popular here. Again, you might need to commission someone/yourself to make a little intro animation that's reusable.

The little music that happens before the trailers/presentations feels unneeded. A simple fade to black does the job fine enough, or any quick transition to black works.

And finally the way the presenters were organized needs a little work. The start and end of the presentation should be your highest priority. Put the second most anticipated game first, the most anticipated game last, and sprinkle the good and not as good ones in-between while making sure you don't put to many good and no so good ones in a row. This sort of organization is a bit hard to get right, so it may take a while before you find a flow to it all.

Making these sorts of presentations can be difficult, and hard to keep consistent especially with the budget of $0, so it's pretty brave to even attempt this whole ordeal. A lot of work needs to be done on both ends to make this a quality show, but that's just part of the experience isn't it.

Ant responds:

Mega review wowie
Imma read this when I return to my humble abode

[Believe in yourself]

It's weird, but these cheesy words hit a little differently when you're feeling down.

It's also weird that this showed-up when I was feeling a little down.

RE:
No worries dude, drawing/animating your emotions can be quite therapeutic (I do it all the time), and in the end it doesn't really matter who like or dislikes your stuff (...to an extent).

All that matters is that you enjoy what you're doing.

gatekid3 responds:

yeah, its nothing special, but when i was upset i was really compelled to start this

[Evangelion Collab]

Hahaha, I didn't watch Evangelion!

Thriftman responds:

Swag

[Front Page Feels]

Great little animation! Still haven't had a single thing front paged yet, but I always dream of the day where it will finally happen.

Buster98 responds:

You've got this!

[Zack and Alex: Pilot Episode]

Your animation style is very strange. It's very rough and primitive looking when going frame-by-frame, but the movement is so fluid like it was done professionally. You really know how to stretch those expressions to the point where it really felt like a classic hand animated cartoon!

And unless you were going for this "child crayon drawing" look, I'd suggest playing around with different brushes to see what would fit these characters, and even play around with drawing nature and basic 3D shapes to get those backgrounds looking less flat.

All and all, you've got amazing talent (and I kind of envy you)! Just keep doing what you're doing and you might be unstoppable.

TheJayShow responds:

Yes, it would be good to experiment with different brushes, or just general better line quality. Thanks a ton for your feedback!