My latest animation - it's only like 70 seconds

[kikigirl]

On some monitors it tends to wash out so sorry about that.  I just did it to add to a website for fun amusement along the way.  I hope you like it! 

BTW...it's supposed to be kind of quiet unlike the others.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bME2_GQTjc


PS  The Little Visitor 7 video got pulled from youtube since I sampled a little too much of the BEP's  woops!  That's why some of the links don't work for the first one.  The last two work though!

[kayakismet]

Really cool!  I like it! All your others are good too, you're progressing alot!  The dream one is nice also...

[teddybearbones]

Yay animation. Are you considering doing it for your job one day? (I mean seriously.. how cool is it to get paid to make cartoons? )

If I might be so presumptious to offer a few notes ( that's what you call a critique in animation: notes.. 'cause you end up covered in sticky notes)

I find the cut ins to be rather jarring, as with the cut outs, perhaps we could track in and follow the character more?

I see that you've varied the speed of your raft a bit, although it would be more effective to have the raft slow down around the curves rather than gradually getting faster overall.

Hands drumming will move slower on the upswing and faster on the downswing, pivoting from the elbow. Your arms jump between cycles.

Blinks read better if you leave the eyes closed for four frames. Two frames or less goes by too fast.

I'd also like to see a slightly longer hold on the end. 6 frames should do it.

I really like your water and fire animation. They movement style complements your current drawing style very well.

I have no idea what program you used, if it was stop motion or whether or not you actually have the ability to make any of those changes, but they're things to think about to help you make your next animation more rockawesome.

A lot of people go into character animation, it looks like you have a nack for effects animation. I'd say pursue it.

[kikigirl]

teddybearbones...I <3 you!!!  What amazing feedback!  I will work on it soon.  It might take a while so don't hold your breath but I seriously will make those changes.  On my other videos, I used just camera shots, one after the other.  This one, I used photoshop and saved each one.  I can totally slow down stuff and make things faster.  I was trying to get the website up so I was rushing it PLUS I didn't have awesome feedback from someone.  The only one I might not be able to fix are the hands.  It would take some major syncing and I don't think I have the patience and/or time right now BUT the rest of them I can do!  She lost her detail at the end as well which bugs me.  Again, thanks for the super-duper constructive remarks and help.  I may get a bug and blow off all the other things I need to do and make the changes.

Kayakismet...thanks for the positive comments too. 

I do love this forum...so many genuine people.   Since I am not getting paid for it, it's really nice to get feedback. 

[teddybearbones]

I'm glad to be of service. With photoshop it might be easier to do progressive frames as new layers so you can "flip" back and forth between them and get an idea of the action.

[kikigirl]

Thats what I did but saving to .jpg downgraded the image anyway.  It might have been changing the image size and I didn't pay attention to the pixels now that I think aboutit.  I do love the layers since I finally figured out what they are for!  I've used them for AutoCAD, which makes sense,  but it never seemed to make sense in Photoshop before I used it for this.  Now I sooooo get it!  Again, thanks for the tips. I really appreciate it!

[TechnicolorAquahearts]

I am totally intrigued by this process, I have been looking for a way that I could make a music video for my band that uses some kind of animation of my artwork, do mind if I ask you for some tips on how to get started?

[teddybearbones]

Animation is a very complicated process which is difficult to explain without visual aids and body language.

I'd say look into flash. You'll definitely be able to find online tutorials for how to use it, and it's less tedious than the workflow kikigirl is using. If you're more interested in the way kikigirl is doing animation you'll need to familiarize yourself with photoshop, and an editing program. You can also find online animation tutorials, and I'd expect half or almost all of Richard Williams' "The Animators Survival Guide Animated" is now on youtube.

[kikigirl]

I was super inspired by the United commercial where the father goes off to work and the child dreams that he is slaying dragons.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it and watched it many times over.  I just started playing.  I'm sure it's still on youtube or at the United site.  They had a video of how all the artists made it.  I pretty much did the same thing but with a LOT less frames.      I just took pictures of my artwork and then used Microsoft movie maker that came with my computer.  The sound is super hard to edit and I've crashed my computer more than a few times.  I have used flash too but I think it's too polished looking.  I like the hand-made look.  Although I have to admit, I wish it wasn't as hand-made as it looks right now.  Ahhh well...at least I'm doing it!

[teddybearbones]

Somewhat off topic: you'd probly like Rabbit by Run Wrake.