2 unfinished things

Hitorio wrote:

You said "actually," but what did that point have to do with my comment on time? Lawl.
...and yes. If artists are any good, they're always finding ways that their shit can be better.

I meant because it was like a confession. The truth is, I am not so satisfied with this cartoon, I confess. I wish it were easy to improve, but the raw unpleasantness of working on this cartoon further, has steered me to other projects.

I made an entry for the 11secondclub.com's May contest. Check it out!

http://www.11secondclub.com/competitions/may12/entry/0krJX6

They said it was terrible! But I think it's so cool! This is a big problem for me!

I have soo much to say, but I would hope that the animation can speak for itself. I was talking to a friend today, so I've already been consoled regarding my failure.

For a competition entry on the 11secondclub it was pretty bad compared to their standard level. It was very hard to understand what was going on.

Anything that hurts your pride will help you proceed from growing too prideful.
As well this means it will help you grow and improve further.

Sometimes I overlook making animatics for even small tests and projects
Next time try making an animatic with your goal of making the animation understandable and play around with your Ideas, Ideals and Options.

the 11 sec club entries are meant as character animation, with lip sync.
this lacks both, which is why it is terrible for that specific purpose.
as an animation, it is good.
if you want to do an 11 sec club entry, focus on the actual character animation part, you know, mouth movements, actual facial expressions that are readable etc.

to give a better example..
I ask you to draw an apple/
You draw the Mona Lisa for me.

It's a beautiful piece, but it's not an apple, and I asked you to draw an apple.
so as an apple, the Mona Lisa sucks.

lol I read all the comments and honestly I realized after watching your clip again a few more times that your style is like a flowing river of fluid motion. And that's nice. So much smooth transition. But that's the problem. Too much jello fluidity, not enough hard edges in your motions.

And yeah, you already must understand most of the people's main issue with your, as they called it, "Abstract" work. They literally classified your character animations as abstract. Your character animations where it's just characters moving around.

Think about that, man.

Too many jello.



No jello.

I'm not sure if I should let my pride get hurt or not! I want to make new and never-before-seen things that are also cool, right? Well everyone always compliments my work and says how great I am, except for on this piece, and this piece is one of my favorite things I've ever made. So should I stop exploring new territory, explicitly because nobody else will support me? If everyone says to me, for my whole life, "keep going, you could be great someday!," and when I say "look! I might be becoming great!," and everyone starts saying "nono, you were better before, pull it back.," should I really listen to them? I can't tell! This is an issue for me!

As for the lip sync, both voices are being spoken by a mouth. There are two mouths for two voices. A lot of people didn't get that, which makes sense. I do wish that I had, like, drawn a big black arrow pointing at the tail's mouth or something, while it was speaking.

I agree that I need to improve my acting. It's hard, man! I want to change some of the details of how the characters here act, but I thought that this had a lot more personality than most of my animations.

Thanks for the notes.

We acknowledge your artistic ability for what it is. Only this time we realized where your art lacks greatly. It's not a sudden dislike of your art. It's a sudden discovery of a flaw that was always there. This is a good discovery.

CN, can you animate something with a consistent body? Like, no floaty morphing for the sake of style, but I want to actually see how much floating is still there even if you try your best. Don't you wanna know what your limit is currently?

The existence of your limits is not something to despair about, CN. The best of us will always have them. There is such a thing as growth, mate. I think it's time you try more legit 'study' animations.

You should be an animation scholar.

Edyrem wrote:

We acknowledge your artistic ability for what it is. Only this time we realized where your art lacks greatly. It's not a sudden dislike of your art. It's a sudden discovery of a flaw that was always there. This is a good discovery.

CN, can you animate something with a consistent body? Like, no floaty morphing for the sake of style, but I want to actually see how much floating is still there even if you try your best. Don't you wanna know what your limit is currently?

The existence of your limits is not something to despair about, CN. The best of us will always have them. There is such a thing as growth, mate. I think it's time you try more legit 'study' animations.

You should be an animation scholar.

My old stuff was more on-model than what I've been making recently. I've never managed to keep a character that someone else designed on-model, but I haven't tried that in a long time and I might be fine at it now.

Looking at the fact that they didn't like it, then seeing your animation, then seeing their comments on it, it's hella obvious that the reason they didn't respond well to it was its lack of faithfulness to the audio track in terms of synchronization - aka - its conceptual strength.
...there are two people speaking in a dialogue. There are tones which convey emotion. There is a change in emotion. You animated what seems to be an abstract centaur whose visuals didn't act as a medium for that sound. It really looks random. The centaur is bouncing around during the calm dialogue. There is inadequate visual indication that two people were talking. When "You're not listening to me!!" rang out, that's when I'd expect your viewers to be like "Did he drop the wrong audio track on the stage or some shit?"
You said that there were two mouths for two voices. I saw a single mouth (the buck-toothed one) that didn't seem to give a fuck what its audio sync was.
...basically, your visuals didn't even seem to try to match the audio, which is the entire point of the 11-second competition thing from entries I've seen in the past. Also, considering the meticulous degree to which past 11-second entries have conformed to their audio, your animation is a relative "The hell is this?"

Edyrem wrote:

lol I read all the comments and honestly I realized after watching your clip again a few more times that your style is like a flowing river of fluid motion. And that's nice. So much smooth transition. But that's the problem. Too much jello fluidity, not enough hard edges in your motions.

Nah. Keep the fluidity and the bubbliness if you wish - just make sure that bubbliness is able to convey the animation's concept well. This is what directors give fucks about. This is, I believe, what Tom was saying as well.

Creativename wrote:

If everyone says to me, for my whole life, "keep going, you could be great someday!," and when I say "look! I might be becoming great!," and everyone starts saying "nono, you were better before, pull it back.," should I really listen to them? I can't tell! This is an issue for me!

...this point of view is too simple - too spectrum-ish. The ways that people like your animations don't exist in some sort of 1-100 spectrum. They're not saying that. It's more like (in this specific context):
"Wow, I like what you did!"
then you keep going and make this 11-second anim
"Hey, you did what we like about you, but you forgot all the basic fundamental shit!"
what they didn't say was:
"Don't forget the basics - some of the most important foundations upon which you express your style. Don't do icing with no cake. If you keep in mind the conceptual accuracy, then go batshit with your style with the artistic freedom that remains, you will be beast."