The Birth of an Animator

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

There are two objectives that must be achieved in your first post of this thread:

-Share the tale of how you became an animator.
-Describe your very first animation.

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Introduction to Animation

In the year of 2005, I had been a still artist/illustrator of relatively low skill. At that time, I had been an intense Naruto fan, illustrating fan comics and such. Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, and NarutoForums were pretty much the only things that existed for me back then.
One day, I was scrolling along the forums and saw that a guy named Poojipoo had given a link to this animation: http://poojipoo.deviantart.com/art/Naruto-ANIMATION-WIP-ver-2-21287359
I immediately thought: "awesome", and the sketchy look of the whole thing filled me with the desire to dive into this epic extension of illustration. As much as I loved to create and illustrate fight scenes, I thought that it would be awesome if I were to create my own moving animation! I'd known something about animation from some earlier experience with flipbooks, so I grabbed a composition book from my shelf, drew in the corners, and made the characters move when I flipped the pages. I immediately became addicted to animation. Unfortunately, I soon ran out of paper, so I looked to the internet for another method. I saw that he'd animated with a program called "Flash MX 2004", so I got the program and, without any prior instruction, explored it and immediately created a full fight scene that branched off into a series. With Flash MX occupying 3/5ths of the screen and Yu Yu Hakusho eps filling the remaining 2/5ths, the entire area of the room in which the computer resided was filled with explosive surges of Awesome.

The First Opponent

My first animation ever was animated in the lower-right corner of a composition book. The character models looked similar to G-War's rough draft models. Seeing as how I was inexperienced and excited about actually making things move, the characters moved stiffly, but with fluid linear movements. The animation was comprised of one man standing at the bottom of the page, then moving his hand upwards to block another man who had decided to launch himself toward him in a missile-esque fashion. Many small battle animations akin to these took up the other three corners of the book.

My first Flash Animation was deleted...two computer-wipes and one computer-change ago. It ran at 8 fps (because I was adjusting the framerate to match my animation style). It consisted of the 2D-angle rough-draft-men engaging each other in a one-on-one fight. Physics went to hell in exchange for fun as one of the men, who was capable of teleportation, utterly smacked the first warrior around. The tables turned at the end of the battle and the teleporter was out-witted and defeated. This grew into a series called "David the Hunter", with the first battle being David's graduation exam. Every episode, David faced new opponents, from easily-defeated thugs to interdimensional boss-battles. Back then, animation was what kept me alive, seeing as how I was homeschooled and laid eyes on no one except my mother for about a year.

Newgrounds

Shortly after my first set of animation was set into motion, I desired a fuller set of techniques. David The Hunter had come to a cancellation at episode six, and I ventured out into fullbody. I loved Naruto and Yu Yu Hakusho in the 2005s. I began by animating, at 8 fps, a Naruto vs Sasuke battle. It ended up encompassing a few minutes and ended with a semi-cliffhanger. It was very fun to make, seeing as how I'd finally got the chance to fully release creative juices by making these guys move (as opposed to my fan-comix). Drawing from the inspiration gained from poojipoo's first animation, I completed it and submitted it to Newgrounds, which I found a bit new at the time. The animation was promptly blammed.
I then browsed Newgrounds, seeing tons of then-amazing animations. It was there that I discovered series such as Xiao Xiao, Xin, and all of the Naruto and DBZ fanimations. A storm of inspiration and intimidation slammed into me, and I knew what it took to create a submission that would make it onto Newgrounds. Bam. Fuck.
I then proceeded to create the Sequel of Naruto vs Sasuke animation and a Yu Yu Hakusho animation detailing Yusuke vs Sensui. (I think it's my longest animation to date, with CCT 2 coming in second) These two animations sealed my knighthood into the world of Animation Warriors, and I knew that I'd go somewere with this one day...somewhere great...but only after years of hard training. The Naruto vs Sasuke animations as well as my Yu Yu Hakusho animations were blammed again. I discovered many Newgrounds artists to look up to for their then-awesome action animations that drew me in to addiction. At the time, though...I was too much of a failure to follow suit and create more epicness.

The Epiphany of Easytoon

I'd basically been learning how to do things on my own and not having any other animation friends to interact with, so the training was kind of tough. It was then that I, while browsing NarutoForums in my state of weak and stagnant animator strength, found an Easytoon animation done by an elite: What appeared to be two blue-collar, cubicle workers fought one another after coming to a hostile argument. The fight was obscenely one-sided as the more inhuman-looking worker of the two brutally and fluidly barraged the boss with a flurry of punches, landing 99 of them and finishing it off with a mouth blast that finished him off. The most epic 100-hit combo I'd ever seen in animation went to this Easytoon artist: Yusuke Kozaki, or KYMG. I frantically searched for the black-and-white pixel program that attracted me so much, and found it at a place called StickPage. StickPage was only the first step to the site that I would be frequently inhabiting for years to come: The Easytoon Place. It was here that I met many Easytoon artists, and the site had its own basic system of rank: Beginner, Intermediate, and Veteran. I began as an Intermediate animator.
On this site, I'd met Veteran Easytooners who I fiercely looked up to as the site's best, hoping to become their equals or betters. Such strong members included "sly", "InkThinker", "Jeckos150", and "Bahful". They amazed me with every Easytoonic contribution to the site. They were also quite active and helpful in the community, which has a structure that is vaguely similar to ours. I spent roughly two years as an active Easytoon Place warrior, and during my stay there, I'd grown in strength, sharpened my fluidity skills, obtained a tablet, and discovered the most elite of the Easytoon animators, including my then-favorite animator, the legendary Tatsubon. I'd become considerably stronger than I was than when I first entered the world of animation, and with Sly to look up to as he released awesomeness, I never lost inspiration.

Farewell, Easytoon

I moved into a new apartment IRL. Thanks to this, I lost my internet connection throughout the summer. No television. No video games. Computer that had been freshly restored to factory settings and completely wiped clean of any files that I'd downloaded.
I had a Flash disc and a DVD of Spider-Man 2 and The Incredibles. That was enough.
It was in the period of internet-less life that I'd confined myself within my room and created Rioshu 1 and 2. It would also be the first time that I'd tried the method of rough-animating, then placing a clean layer above that (Rioshu 2). As I regained my internet connection, these two Flash animations were the first to be accepted onto Newgrounds, but with very low scores. I bid Easytoon farewell and went into the process of creating Rioshu 3. Unfortunately, I failed due to another computer wipeout. As I had made so much progress that was lost, I stopped animating for the rest of 2007. I lost much of my artistic spirit and devoted the rest of the year to an Epic game called: GunZ: The Duel.

GunZ

mid-to-end 2007 to early 2008. Epic times. blood-boiling memories. Best gaming experience of my life. Unfortunately, during this time, I think I only ever drew, like, one line on a sheet of paper.

Return to Flash mid-2008

One day, I halted GunZ and drew pictures, unleashing the sudden burst of creativity that I had accumulated while I played and saw 2008 movies that had been unleashed, such as Iron Man and Wanted. It felt nostalgic and grand for my artistic mentality to return. I then decided to do some web searching and re-aquire Flash. I wiped the dust from my sword, re-sharpened it, and resumed! This time, something was different. It appeared that I no longer harbored the lingering feeling of failure and containment, and somehow, my skill had increased to more dynamic proportions! After a 3/5s of a year of inactivity, Hitorio had returned, stronger than before! This is when I unleashed three short test animations onto Newgrounds. Not only did they score higher than the Rioshu series did, but for the first time, I'd actually gotten good comments such as "amazing" and "awesome" from critics on one of my animations! The accomplishment! It was then that I knew that with 2008, my journey to the stars from the land of intermediacy officially begun. I didn't just relinquish GunZ, my favorite game, so easily, though. For the remainder of 2008, I juggled GunZ and animation.

CCT

In mid-early 2009, I'd begun to construct another series entitled CCT, in which all of my custom characters would engage in a large tournament. I animated the first round of this tournament and unleashed it onto Newgrounds, earning me very positive reception. It was after Round 1's release that I'd coincidentially met Akkere on an "animator wanted" thread in order to take up one of his projects. After some discussions, he decided to help me with CCT. Akkere was a writer, and he helped me with much of the writing process. I'd constructed a basic story outline for the entire CCT series, and epicness awaited me in the realm of animation. CCT 2 was released, but due to my mental clouding and fucked-up-ness at that point in time, I added no sound because I was in too foggy a state to find suitable audio. Sounds ghey, but that's how it went.
Despite the better fight scene in the next round, it got a lower score for a lack of sound. I recovered my mentality and spirit sometime afterwards, and I began to construct CCT 3, which was fully colored and featured the best animation of the three to date. It looked like, for me, third time's the turd, since I ran into a single gaping plothole that ruined some of the story's authenticity. Since I could find no way around this single-but-strong problem, I canceled CCT, and I didn't hear from Akkere for a while.

FluidAnims

About a month after CCT died, I ventured over to FluidAnims by way of Terkoiz's advertisement. I found that the site had many animators and a nice, thriving community. I was interested, but what kept me glued to my fucking seat was the RHG system. My god. I was eager to battle and grow stronger. Around the FluidAnims time is the point that I discovered the key to kill boredom forever (an unrelated topic) and where my animator's spirit grew to unstoppable proportions. I became a part of the RHG system, creating a stick character so as to fit in. I fought an opponent in a stick figure RHG and lost because, according to many of the voters, I needed music and my camera was zoomed out too far.

(Around this time, I discovered Sakuga MADs and Genga, one of my most treasured and frequently-experienced animation discoveries that I'd ever had. I'd store them on my iPod, watch them on the bus and at school, go over them at home, and more. I also discovered my favorite animator, the God: Yutaka Nakamura)

I quit the stick RHG and contemplated a fullbody RHG. It was then that I discovered the fullbody animation thread. I joined. I learned. I advised. I grew. I met some people that I know now. Among those that stood out and were active - Duo (uninspired, depressing animator), tomvanharmelen (adult, technical, liked realism), Edyrem (Naruto fan, considered the best). I made the FB thread my homeless shelter and stayed there with other animators quite often. I also began to train very effectively. In late October of 2009, I challenged my old Easytoon Place associate Sly to a fullbody RHG battle in order to meet him as an equal. In 2010 The battle was mutually abandoned, but in that RHG battle that I worked on, I'd grown stronger. That RHG battle was one of the best training experiences I'd had. The RHG was dropped, but I continued training and progression.

Psuda

Edyrem created Psuda, the home for Fullbody animators from the far reaches of the interwebs. The training has continued, I have learned and advised even more, and P:E is in active development.

Guest

Alright, here is my attempt at good grammar and Google Chrome spell-check

I know my mom is an "uninspired artist" and my real dad is good at drawing, so I guess I got it from him even though ive never met him or want to meet him I know that much.

When I was about 5-10 I remember always drawing spider-man and other comic book characters, I would always try and draw my own comic books with a character of my own whos name was "Jelly".
I remember saving up for sharpies to ink my comics, I would draw chapter 1 of my comic at least once a month, I never got his background right I guess, or the drawings really. I thought i could draw fairly well because I was always able to draw pictures even portraits exactly alike on paper I just needed a reference, but when it came to drawing my own characters I stunk because i had no reference. I remember in 5th grade right before i was introduced to pivot stick figure animator, I drew a "Jelly" Comic and inked it and print it out on my grandmas computer, then gave it to all my friends (i always wondered how they inked comics so well and made the cover text so neet in Ultimate spider-man wich was my favorite comic even though I didnt have many comic books i had number 1 and number 6 ultimate spiderman and at the time I never watched an anime EVER my mom said dbz would give me a seizure) but anyways i gave my comic book to all my friends Devon (a chick i usta like but she was way out of my liege) Michale (my redneck friend, he wrote in my year book from then "Yo you my half nigga") Stevie (short kid who played computer games alot) well anyways I gave out the comic and everyone liked it I hated it xD like always ive alwasy been a picky person when it comes to my work maybe thats why I redid my naruto vs sasuke animation about 12 times already

Also I liked makeing Lego animations with a friend of mine named Jaccob who was also in my 5th grade class.
We would make animations all the time sometimes i would sleep over at his house and we made lego animations, we would also play stick figure games on the computer like stick arena i cant think of anymore but I liked watching stick-death cartoons, and over the summer I looked up how to animate stick figures and found pivot, I was pretty bad at first, made a few animations for my first 1 was titled the one kinda like animation vs animator without the desktop and stuff just a white bg, and Dylan (me) vs jacob, I thought youtube was the only place for animation until I found Pivot4Ever, a small aniamtion comunity were i could post all my sticks without worrying about not getting credits. Razo ,tipsd9video ,ninjassasin12 ,jettzin ,ewi .ect (i found p4e by trdeing sticks with ninjasasin12) but I got good fast, people have said I was a natural at animation I never really cared much for realism it seems less important to me than the illustrations them self, but ive always been good at makeing stick figures and considered my self the best for a wile, untill i quit because I couldnt get a rank I liked on DD (yes that is the real reason xD) like Edyrem they said i had good effects but lack in realism but DD rankings change like the weather, what was once vet is not high beginner (not exaggerating)

In between then about 500 subscriber into my pivot animation days
Ozzy animations got hacked and tan4500 got hacked soon after that I had gotten hacked so I assumed the same hacker who hacked, ozzy animations and tan4500, had hacked me
I called the fbi and police and everything but thats when I learned, they dont give two shits about regular hackers, they only care if the hacker is hacking the fucking pentagon.
So I teamed up with them to get out accounts back, at the time I was only able to use best buy computers because my dad has gotten laid off from his job and money was tough (it still is that was just when it first had happend) so i basiclly could learn all aspects of hacking because a hackers worst fear is that you will destroy your own computer/ infect it with something FUD (atleast for noobs)
but i had an unlimited supply of computers at best buy so I was able to learn hacking a bit easier than someone els and eventually we were able to hack hackerboy300 on youtube, who was friends with
xxxVirojanxxx
http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-issues/browse_thread/thread/1150c00f052777/4859fb1f5b181f56?hide_quotes=no
look him up ull find something lol
But I was basically trying to persuade him in giving ozzy his account back (I thought he hacked me so i assumed our passwords would be the same because if you hack alot of accounts you usually make the passwords the same) I eventually was able to persuade him in giving me ozzys account (pass was igotozzy)
ozzy logged onto hackerboy300's account (whos pass was btw "Iloveredtube")
and ozzy basically said HAHA THIS IS OZZY I HAVE MY ACCOUNT BACK and the hacker hanged his password because ozzy is a stupid shit and didn't change his pass before saying that
I later told Virojan, I was De8struction and all that, he didn't believe me when i told him I had hacked hackerboy300's account and he said he didn't hack me, he soon added me on msn
and we were talking (we still do) and I later found out that GayleThompson hacked me Virojan told me he had hacked gayle tompson and his pass was Blahblashhfa whatever I dont remember what it was but the pass had worked for my youtube account and I intimidately changed my email and everything, and later hacked Gyale Thompsons computer actually 3 of his computers and his parents blamed him and he was pretty much banned from touching a computer ever again
I then assumed the hacker name
XxDebugxX
De8struction

De8
DeB

I thought it was pretty cool, I only hack for fun now with a friend i met from school Acidol2, who I had introduced to the computer when I was looking for ways on getting flash 8 for free and sony vegas
Me and him are pretty good at hacking now, he is currently takeing lessons from Virojan now.
And about virojans history
The reason he even helped me get my account back was because he was originally
DragonballGE on youtube who made pivot animation with my stickfigures
He looked upto me but he got hacked and he became a hacker trying to get his account back, he never did because 1 rule of hacking is you cant get a password out of thin air, the hacker that hacked him never when on his account so he had no hope of retrieving it, when i think about it that could have easily happend to me if I didnt love animateing so much.

Later I realized how rusty i was gana be at animating and I would draw animations on paper because i had no computer to use to make animations with, so I tried saveing up for a computer, but everytime I got even 50$ my parents would take it or find it and use it for bills, so i felt I had no choice but to steal a computer (Im useing it right now) I walked into a Office supply store and saw a computer I liked unplugged it all and stuffed it under my shirt, I walked into the bathroom and put it in the garbage, when home got a big ass jacket, whent in the bathroom and walked out, btw I bought a mouse before I left
you may read this and think, Wow thats messed up, or damn thats gangster, but either way I did what I thought i had to do, the way I see it is if you dont hurt anybody or anything doing something then its alright, I dont think stealing is wrong but Id rather not do it after jacking a computer and a tablet, so I ussually make animations and stuff for small businesses like websites and stuff to save up for what I need.

After a wile I started getting board of pivot, mostly from shitty DD rankings, I knew flash fairly well I just sucked at animating fullbody, Ive never liked flash stick figure animations because of resizing style of easing they do with free transform tool, but somebody told me Goukakyou was on Fluidanims and I thought he had quit animating because for me all my animations go on youtube and I practice on a form (so I guess Psuda is my pivot4ever of fullbody ) but he hasn't uploaded animation on youtube in a wile so I assumed he had quit, so i went on fluidanimz and sent him a message (took me forever to find him but i started looking on his youtube channel and it said im edyrem now so I looked up Edyrem on fluidanimz) I sent him a pretty lame message with my first fullbody, but I had no other way of getting started in fullbody (im still getting started) but I jumped right into fullbody so it was a bit tough starting off, but when I saw Psuda was open a fullbody forum I was really happy and wanted to contribute to the community so much I wanted to make it a .com and help design the banner and everything, but it all kinda whent to shit, I still hope to make it a .com someday but it cost alot of money actually even on godaddy if you want php support,then i met Hitorio and my first conversation with him was kinda weird i was watching 1 guy 1 hammer and was freaking out and i hadnt talked to Edyrem much even though he was on my msn for years somehow I didnt know his name was Moh O.o and i forgot were i was... oh ya im here Presnt day :DDD ( cheesy )

Posts : 262 Joined : 2010-02-18

ive always been drawing since the day iv been watching dbz,( I was 4 or 5 i think)
I always got excited when i watched it and wanted to capture the moment so i drew alot , but as time passed by i drew less,
when I was 12 or so i discovered there where more animes like naruto and i immidiatly got back into it ,though it wasnt enough .
I was curious how they made anime, so i started researching how they made it,and came across a very old stickfighting animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKs2HPPMDb0
so i looked everywhere for the program he used ,I did not discover the specific program but downloaded a random animation program.
I thought it was too difficult with keyframes and stuff and didn't understand it at all .and because the program was unkown i couldnt find any tutorials, so i gave up ,
in late 2006 my bro installed flash for a school project ( for actionscripting ), He made an animation and showed me.
and i obviously wanted to make animations too and because flash is widely known tutorials where easy to find .
my first animation was so random and crappy i dont think you can count it as an animation (it was a stickfigure with a hat and a suitecase just standing there taking his hat off ... i dont think i still have it but there wasnt much to see anyway.i kept making stickfigures until half a year later.
my first fullbody was a dude doing a rasengan ive posted this on youtube (my first video),sinds then ive been posting alot of my animations on youtube.

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

Well, De8. Your story is far from inspiring. Lol. (EDIT: Nvm, it changed somewhat for the better)
Can you go into more detail about your first animation: "The One"? Sounds...interestin'.

G-war wrote:: I was curious how they made anime, so i started researching how they made it,and came across a very old stickfighting animation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKs2HPPMDb0

That is Xiao Xiao 1, the beginning of a very classic spree of famous battle animations by Zhu, the animator.
...until, of course, Terkoiz appeared on Newgrounds and immediately became known as the guy who surpassed Zhu. Epic Animation History...*reflects upon past*

Guest

naw its a was stick figure animation were the dude breaks out of a box lol and my story is gangsta shit i mean jacking a computer is so fucking gangsta if i do anything i would go into more detail about that xD ITS THE MOST BALLn' SHIT EVAAAAA

Posts : 2822 Joined : 2010-02-16

Actually I got inspired by de8's story because that little feud he had built his character with some hacking skills. I just found it interesting to know WHY he knows hacking now

But yeah it did sound mostly like a shistorm on youtube than animation history, but I mean, your history is your history. Anyway...

MY WALL OF TEXT IS BIGGER THAN YOUR WALL OF TEXT

For me, (brace for corny) it was almost as if I was meant to animate even before I understood the concept. Of course, having drawn since at least age 5 or 4, I've been pretty confident about my artistic ability by the time I was 13, which was when i fell in love with Inu-Yasha anime on YTV.

Overtime I still didn't understand how I can see inuyashs move in the screen- it just didn't cross my mind that it's all repetitive drawings. But I still wondered, "why isn't inu-yasha moving realistically?" and I honestly started thinking, "obviously the studio is crappy. I know I could make him move realistically, I just don't know how."

Also, I was in love with stickpage and... you guessed it... Terkoiz's and Zhu's work!
Had I known someone had to animate every frame of those stick animations I can tell you that I would not have believed I could be good at animating.
However, I still did not understand what animation was.
Then I ran into 'Stick Animator V2' and my life changed.
This thing. http://www.ugoplayer.com/games/stickanimator.html
It was mysterious and mesmerizing.

But this thing was so basic. I wanted more. Since this was V2, there was a V1, I looked it up to see what it was about. Incidentally, it was the one and only Pivot Stickfigure Animator.
Well, I youtubed pivot, found out these tubenoobs are just the tip of the iceberg when it came to pivot skill.
I got amazed at someone's complex stick design in one video and found out it was downloaded from darkdemon.org.

That was when I immediately feasted my eyes on there most prized animations and believed I could do better.
Well, that mindset almost got me to 'veteran' rank, but my sticks were too stiff for their taste, even though they considered my effects to be 'elite' level.
It was somewhere in my 'pivot' prime (about grade 8 or 9) where I made friends with characters such as Jake, Mcallba, and HorriblePain. We actually started as this group where I mentored them. Didn't last long except for with HorriblePain.

Mcallba, eh we drifted apart due to lack of interest. Jake, to this day, has remained on my msn list because he's such a homeboy. HorriblePain... I haven't heard from him in a few years like Mcallba. It was one of the rather dysfunctional friendships I've had. He was schizophrenic and extremely emotionally sensitive. He definitely was attached to me, and I also cared about him so I usually was there to help him cheer up since he was pretty unhappy. One thing he emphasized to me all the time was that I helped him in more ways than I can imagine. I feel pretty good about that, but all I did was be his friend. I guess he really was in a lot of turmoil. I hope he's alright now. But I'm glad we drifted apart because he was always so desperate and helpless about everything. And that is something that's up to him, and I don't feel in any way obliged to fix that. I guess I'm saying, well, he leaned on me too much for his own good.

Pivot was also where I met my greatest match and one of the most modest guys ever, Zaedokun, which started with some long msn nights of searching for flash cs3 for free lol. I'll tell you, it's hard to find programs when you're not resourceful.
We instantly clicked as artists and grew side by side under each other's influence. It caused us to pretty much grow at the same pace and have pretty much the same style in every way shape or form, aside from slightly different emphasis on certain things. He seemed to emphasize more on actual easing and fluidity, and although fluidity now seems to be my fullbody signature, I actually put more emphasis on being realistic. In pivot, that made him superior. In fullbody, that made me superior. I still think he's a fantastic animator, even though he pretty much quit. At least he's got a nice long e-penis in TRUploader of about 39 animations. I just counted. And I found out I had made about 10 more than he did (booyah!). But if you count pivot animations he'd clobber me.

We also eased into fullbody in a similar way. I think he got a tablet before me though. I don't really remember. All I know is I went on hiatus from animating because I started DESPISING pivot and drawing with a mouse. But by the time I got my tablet, he and I kind of started slow on fullbody (come to think of it, the two first uploads on my TR were made in that period), but we sure got good at fullbody later on. The trouble is, Zae hates keyframing and feels restricted by it so he hasn't developed that skill. You can tell in his animations that he uses FBF alone. That incredibly fluid easing that's almost too eased. But after all that time he's definitely superior to me in straight FBF animating. But I definitely wouldn't trade my key-framing practice for that FBF practice. Keying is power.

Oh, and I remember one day meeting Rakno. That guy sucked when he met me. It was from youtube or something. I think he wanted me to mentor him? Well, Terkoiz is the one who mentored him in the end, and it really paid off. And it wasn't just terkoiz touching rakno with his godly touch. He gave him good ideas for practice, and rakno did it all. Hour upon hour he got stronger and got better than me at timing and spacing. And from the conversations I had with Rakno, I learned about shiftlimits. I also learned that if you hear a guy talk about how good someone else is you'll start to forget how good you are. At that point, I considered myself a shitty animator compared to terkoiz, Jcamelo, etc. the really good stick animators because I thought if they were better in the dimension of timing and spacing, then they were superior to me and my drawing skills.

Obviously I'm a little more sure of myself now. If someone offered to trade me great stickfigure animating in exchange for drawing skills, I'd give them a nice, plump, fuck no.

Lol and of course there was that insane shitstorm in shiftlimits between greg, lf2, jeff, and me about the 'authenticity' of my animations, which stopped being about whether i traced (fyi, I never trace) and just turned into me getting banned for being so overbearing.

Anyway, I joined fluidanims, Tomocles made a fullbody thread, but I felt that we were simply not doing fullbody justice. It was as if fullbody was the little wooden wedge under the door of a stickfigure palace.

So I took some initiative, and well, present day...
Psuda.
You actually read all that?

Posts : 1 Joined : 2010-08-04

Lets see...about, a long long time ago I stumbled upon some crappy flash game to animate a stick guy. It was pretty fun, but it sucked balls. Then I discovered pivot, and it was cool. I played around on that, not knowing what I was doing. I was a smart young man, and I discovered many little tricks to make cool effects and stuff. Then one day I was lurking around youtube and found some pivot animations most which...sucked ass. Then I found the magical software called easytoon, and boy I FUCKING LOVED IT. It was way easier and I thought it looked a bit better than pivot.

So now I had a new easytoon fetish, I was searching for animations and saw well...tons of garbage, then I saw a few by a mysterious animator. They were amazing full body anims, so fluid and smooth. After fapping to those for a bit I moved on. The next day I tried looking for the videos again, but I couldn't remember what I searched. I was sad. A long while later I found them again, and I decided to send him a message asking for an email. Soon later this mystery animator and I became good friends and we still are for about 4 years now. He goes by the name of Moh/Goukakyou/Edyrem. Moh and I had many magical adventure together, mainly him trying to show me how to not suck at animating because I REALLY did suck bad. Sometime later Moh and I found some new friends, a very strange squad of characters. They were alright, cept a lot of them, were well...dumb as fuck.

So after I gained some skill I started animating pivot like a champ. My effects were amazing for my level. I used figs socreatively to make effects. The figs I used weren't even related to the effect I was going for. Like using blood to animate lighting, or a robot as a fireball. Just a bunch of weird shit like that. I then became confident and started uploading my animations to youtube. Then the subscribers came out the ass I got around 200 in a short amount of time. I reached the "Inter" level according to Dark Demon, which by the way is a gay ass forum. I noticed on youtube, that everyone sucks ass and think they're amazing, so I spent a lot of time trolling pivot videos on youtube. I found a boy named Ozzy and he made a little stick series that all the little noobs beat off to. Well I dissed on him and he didn't really like it. He started talking to me, and I turned him from a foe to a friend. Eventually I took him under my wing and showed him how to not suck at animating. This is where things start turning ugly. I showed Ozzy how to use flash, I used to use flash to edit my animations before uploading them to youtube. Well this inspired a billion noobs to copy all of my creative techniques and then I quit pivot. I don't mind pivot I just hate the community, they're a bunch of fags. So I then started trolling Dark Demon, which also consists of a bunch of fags.

Pivot sucks balls, and so does the community. ESPECIALLY YOU GUYS ON YOUTUBE!

Then I started doing flash. The End

My first animation sucked balls and was deleted 10 seconds after it was created.

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

Know what, Edyrem? The story influenced me to actually journey into the past and see more of Goukakyou's shining moments for myself. Damn, you were hostile. On the plus side, Goukakyou's animations were fun to see...mostly because of what the animations actually consisted of. I also lol'd at your first animation ever (Sasuke looks at Naruto, who is making a very Fail attempt to hide behind a rock). You also made (but abandoned) such interesting anims like Gouk vs Zae in both pivot and Flash. When I think Goukakyou, I think fun animations. Edyrem seems to have toned down the awesomeness and focused on technique... I wonder if you're ever going to create another animation that generated as much talk/controversy/fangasms as weiyou.
Similar things can be said for me though...for now. My most fun anims were made in early-to-mid 2009.

P:E shall change that, I hope.

Posts : 388 Joined : 2010-08-01

One day i was looking for stick figure videos
and found PivotMasterDX which got me interested becuase it e was really hilarious and random
so i searched up pivot and downloaded it
being a total Noob at the time i thought i was hot stuff
untill i saw animation from De8struction
And he became my first Pivot idol lolz
than i saw pivotpro's dbz animation and joined a forum called Wtfteam
I tryed out for de8struction's Zetsu series got a part and we became friends

got better at pivot and than De8struction quit pivot

and then i saw his flash animations and THAT got me interested since i liked drawing and anime and i decided to one day make my own
so i asked him what kind of tablet he uses
got flash and tried it out
saved some money and then got my tablet, De8struction told me if i wanted to get better go here
and now here i am honored to learn from such great animators

Guest

when i read edyrems story it made me feel 3 ways
1 i feel i should use proper grammer andd shsitststs
2 his story is very detailesd and i feel like maybe i should add more detail once i get my thoughts together xD
3 it shows that he wasnt always 100% confident with animation and he isnt assumed to say he was jealous or felt inadequate to someone

Guest

mines longer :evil:

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

Bump for massive update on Hitorio's post.

Guest

OMSHI gets out reading glasses

Posts : 262 Joined : 2010-02-18

these long history stories are very interesting ! ,they make mine look like a little bitch lol.
there isnt much to add to my animating history anyways
" continues reading hitorio's post "

Guest

Lol im saveing hitorios post for a rainny day its a good read but when i get board or need some inspiration ill read them agian :3

Posts : 262 Joined : 2010-02-18

@ hitorio im planning on posting my finished project on newgrounds ass well ,aiming for front page ...Dx(if i ever finish it),though i can't find as many inspiring action flashes on newgrounds lately.
(new topic maybe,what are your future plans with animation ?)

Guest

future plans is good but asfar as inspiration its fun to get inspired but you allso need to learn the art of inspireing yourself Forexample
I can look at a ferret vs cat video on youtube and get inspired to animate my naruto vs sasuke its not something u can be tought u kinda have to get ur mind set :3

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

My nearest goal for Flash animation is to Reach the #1 spot on Newgrounds. That is a very important goal for me because it will be the first piece of success that I've ever had that was important to me in my life. It shall be the fruit of all of the failures. It's about personal success.
There was a point in which I wanted to simply animate to prove myself to other people, but I stopped caring about most of those other people for bitter reasons. I've also developed more patience over time.

Newgrounds # 1 spot. It's not as crazy as it sounds. I've done my research and the fact that it's attainable doesn't just count on any gutsy feeling or intuition, though that's 20% of it. The rest is factual and probability-related research. Project: Epic's primary purpose is to reach #1 on Newgrounds.

Guest

Hehe it seems theres a snag in this story... we have the same goals ...hmmm this should play out nicely

Posts : 262 Joined : 2010-02-18

@ hitorio you almost make it sound easy xD

Posts : 2822 Joined : 2010-02-16

G-war wrote:: these long history stories are very interesting ! ,they make mine look like a little bitch lol.
there isnt much to add to my animating history anyways
" continues reading hitorio's post "

That's what I thought before I started writing my history. Just edit that post with your story man. It's not ACTUALLY about competing for the best story. It's about knowing where everyone comes from and how we all ended up together.

@De8 yeah dude if I'm gonna write an article/novel I'm gonna do it right lmao. And it's true, my low points in animation were the part with rakno and the part where I quit pivot and flashing cause of no tablet.

@Hitorio Goukakyou was the fun part of spinning the wheels and getting my hands on the lovely art of animation. Edyrem is the more ambitious part of honing my skills and leveling up my ability. In my goukakyou days I didn't know how to key pose, you know. Still, Edyrem should be animating more than Goukakyou.

I'm sure project: Epic will reach top 50

. But if it reaches 2nd or 3rd place don't get pissed man, it's still the top lol.

Time to read De8's and Hitorio's new autobiographies...

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

G-war wrote:: @ hitorio you almost make it sound easy

Don't mistake this for cockiness or insulting to the newgrounds community...
but have you seen what makes top 50?
I must say though..there were some truly Win animations that made it to the top 50.

Shock 2

Dendyn Dynasties (Reached # 1)

The Fallen Angel Trilogy (Reached # 1)

Xin Episode 18 (Mainly made it because of INSANE hype; reached # 1)

I am not constructing P:E in competitive spirit, though. I just plan to submit it and watch fireworks spark.

Amen bruh.

Posts : 2822 Joined : 2010-02-16

@De8 & Hitorio
lol just read your edited autobiographies. Both of them were more interesting than before.

@hito
Your story very much made me want to animate. I feel INSPIYA'D!
And your GunZ experience is like a mirror of my Diablo 2 experience, except of course we all know Diablo 2 is superior to Gunz by far.
By the way, Malfunction didn't co-found psuda with me, he just joined it in good spirit.

@de8
LOOL WOW, you really stole your comp and tablet?
I didn't think you're like that, bro.
At least admit stealing is bad, like goddamn!
On the other hand, I lol'd at the part about having me on ur msn for years and not realizing it.

Posts : 55 Joined : 2010-08-15

i just thought animating would be fun.

</crap post>

Staff Posts : 1299 Joined : 2010-02-17

spiffy wrote:: i just thought animating would be fun.

</crap post>

It's not like there's all there is to it. Looking for more depth and detail here. What inspired this feeling? What was your first animation like?

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