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andrewk — Sam Reel Animation 3
Published: 2006-04-06 23:30:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 4824; Favourites: 104; Downloads: 1357
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Description
UPDATE 4/7/06- Made the jump and fall faster!Here's the new revised version, a week and two days later.
To get a grip on where I'm going with this, I decided I would crit myself before anyone else does. So here's a list of everything I can say about this piece. Keep in mind that while the original file was set to play at 30 fps, the computer automatically set it to play a bit slower than that.
PROS-
- Great sense of flow and good sense of what the character's feeling and his actions. Good personality shown throughout.
- Good overall form.
- Fly's movements are fine. Just jerky enough.
CONS-
- Follow-through of hair and clothing is too quick and jerky. I discovered that secondary actions take just as much time to move as the primary action.
- Sam's head fluxuates in size. In the first shot, when he is leaning back, it could be said that his head is smaller because of perspective, but I think that is pushing it.
- Sam's arms seem to loose and gain fat.
- Sam appears to have a severe case of Man Boobie, especially in the first shot.
- Lines are generally vibrating. This is something I need to practice working on, as I am not a good draftsman, and 2D animators don't usually focus on the line quality anyway.
- Pauses are too abrupt, fly keeps stopping when Sam stops.
- Fall may still be a bit too slow.
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Comments: 65
amazing, i dream to make an animation like that!!!
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Wow, consider me blown away. I hope to learn to animate someday, and would kill to be able to do something of this quality. I love the sharp and attractive style.
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This is VERY intense...Rarely do I ever set eyes on good 2D animation here on dA. I have to tell you, and I don't think I can say it enough, you really inspire me. Way back when I had my hopes set on getting into 2D Disney animation, until they closed up shop in that area. Now, I feel like I don't have a direction anymore. Seeing your animation, how it flows, and how it feels over all just restores that drive in me. I see that there still is hope, and I would love to pursue that again. Thank you for inspiring me to head towards what I love.
Beautiful animation, by the way! Your character designs are supreme. The movement is a bit...jittery, but you already pointed out that fact. It's still great work...!
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Hey there!
Thanks, you really make me feel better about all the bad crits this has been getting. One of the most notorious came from a middle-aged British animation professional on a forum.
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was that adam ? bless yeah hes just as tough on his students ... believe me heehee! but its usually very useful. you just take in what he's said filter out the harsh ness and remember it for future.
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You know Adam?
I feel weird. I haven't posted on that site for over a year!
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yeah i know him he's my lecturer. he's actually a top bloke . he knows what he's talkin about too, just some times he doesn't panda around peoples feelings very well. lol.
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Ooo...that doesn't sound fun. I always believe that there's an extent to critiques until it just gets frustrating. It looked like you had come to that point with your description. That's too bad that this got so many bad critiques...I still think it's throughly amazing! I would love to fill your message box with questions about your technique...but that would probably get really old, really quick. But still, I will keep observing~! Sorry for the ultra long reply...!
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Yiiii! I absolutely LOVE your animations <33 Someday, I hope to be as good as this : D
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Stuff like this makes me cry. Why? Because I know i'll 'prolly never get this good at animating.
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Wow, that's wicked! That's like a Disney animation, except cooler and without annoying kid's music. Well done!
-Snoof
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Okay, honestly, there's really nothing wrong with this scene. All I can tell you is how I would do it differently.. By no means am I saying what you're doing is wrong or whatever, because the animation plays out fine and I can understand the story. So take my critique with a grain of salt because all I'm saying is "this is how I would do it."
SCENE 1: When the fly enters the scene, Sam seems to instantly react to it. One thing that I feel helps tell the story and put more focus on building character is if there are two characters in a scene, they take turns. Fly enters, Sam maintains his sleepy grin for a few frames and THEN reacts. Fly thrusts at Sam, THEN Sam reacts.. I know Sam's reaction lags a little behind the fly's action, but I think that space for reaction should go longer so the audience has time to see the fly's action, then Sam's reaction, the fly's NEXT action, Sam's NEXT reaction, and so on and so forth.
SCENE 2: The first thing that seemed a little awkward is how Sam quickly puts his hands in his pockets then pulls them back out again. I think you should have kept them out after he removes them from his pockets the first time.
Secondly, the leap seems a little stiff. I think what would fix that is a stronger, more exaggerated push-off. Arms and legs FULLY outstreched, and when he leaves the ground he crunches into that nice grasping pose you have.
And finally, there's no reaction to the fly landing on his head! I think it would have added a little more comedy if it ended with Sam reacting to the fly resting on his head. But that's just me.
Overall, if I was doing these scenes, I would have pulled it out a little longer in order to achieve more of a motivation. Sam seems to almost instantly get upset at the fly. Upset enough to leap after it in order to catch it. It's as if the fly told Sam that his mother wears army boots or something. If our base story is "man gets annoyed by buzzing fly" then I would have just had Sam idly swat at the fly, which would lead to something more significant that would induce Sam's desire to catch the fly. Perhaps the fly lands on his forehead and he swats at it, the fly buzzes away and Sam ends up hitting himself. Now it's not a matter of annoyance, it's a matter of revenge for humiliation. I think that would be a more convincing motive for Sam to chase after the fly, y'know?
Another thing too, this is something I have problems with as well, pay close attention to your overlap and followthrough with the clothing and the hair. If you get too fancy with it, it ends up looking like it's made of jello as opposed to cloth/hair. T-shirts, even with long, baggy sleeves, don't lag TOO far behind the arm. The hair looks convincing but the shirt sleeves might need to be toned down a little.
Hope that helps, if not for this animation, then later ones!
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I noticed all these things overall myself, but you put it in words I can understand. This criticism is good for me, in that I have gotten many positive feedback from people in person, but nothing but negatives from people online, which is interesting. My first major slap in the face to reality was when a forum admin somewhere else, who I will not name here, gave me the worst review on this yet, and it took me several days to get my act back together and finish the thing. How I got through MIME FOR A DAY and have it this good is amazing to me.
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I hope mine didn't come across as being *all* negative..
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I wasn't sure if I came off as too focused on- not neccessarily "negative" aspects- just the "things I would do differently".. which is not meant to take away anything from what you've done. I was putting it out as part comment/part crit/part conversation.
A lot of comments I get, and comments that I give, tend to be more of the "nice work" variety.. lately I've been wanting to both give and get more feedback. I figure I ought to give in order to receive, hehehe..
And finally, I make all the same mistakes other animators do. Critiquing other people helps me look at my own work more critically.
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HAHAHA! He went after that fly like a raptor! XD RAWR! -Pounce-
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Really cool! I haven't really gotten to see a whole lot of FBF animation like this in this stage, but I find it really interesting. I gotta find more!
Hmmm... the only thing that I could really pick out that's actually awkward in the way the hem of his shirt acts in the first frame... it just kind of moves itself to make way for his hand... but that's probably just stylization or something. Great job! How long did this take you?
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This looks like something you'd see behind the scenes of a 2D animated film. I'm not a professional animator so I don't catch any mistakes.
Just watching this makes me want to draw.
Bravo!
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OMFG AMAZING I JUST WISH I HAD THE SKILLS TO DO OSMETHING LIKE THEJHB JKLSBABH!!!!!!3%&_$ *breaks down*
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Cause it's too easy that way. Plus, I have more control over the lines with real pencils.
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you can eisily go back and bend hairlines with the arrow tool, or do anything you want with the lines.
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Wow. I wish I could do animation. This is absolutely lovely. ^^
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ooohhh...it is wonderful i like the movements...
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hehe ahh it mkaes me giggle ^^
personly i think it looks great 8D
but it is very fuzzy on my computer i'm not sure if thats just my computer or what though O-o
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wow i think its pritty good there were a few parts were it looked like it jumped a few frames but i think, maby just computer but anyways i liked it nd howyou did it all.
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this is a very good animation, just like in the disney's...hehehe
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I really think it's looking great, you keep on making improvements and each is better than the last. The only thing I'd suggest is, like you said, the pauses. They seem a little permanent, like they maybe last too long?, and the fly stops too... but that sounds like it'd be easy to fix, right?
I really like, though, how Sam's clothing moves along with him when he jumps after the fly. It all looks so good, and it's so smooth... Again, I wish you the best of luck!!
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That's awesome dude(I'm trying to comment more) ! It's really good, but if you're looking for a critique, there's something about the second part that makes it seem almost sped up, like you had it one speed and just made it another speed. Perhaps removing some frames would make it look smoother, but I don't know, I'm not in the animation game...yet.
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To be able to find faults in that, you really know what your talking about. This is however, top quality stuff seeing as it's so rare to find such quality traditional 2D animation like this anymore. The acting is superb and something we just don't see enough of in animation nowadays.
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Jeebus, Andrew. You're my hero. This is so great! I watched it about 18 times through last night. I couldn't get enough of it. And I just absolutely adore Sam. He's such a neat character. What makes me really smile is your description. I love that you can critique yourself, that you know what to look for and know what needs to be done to fix it. This is honestly one of my favorite deviations by you. I can't wait to see how it progresses. 
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Well! Definatly improved~ Like the animation when he's anoyyed with the fly~ The emotion is there~
But still the fall is 2 frames too long before the falls/beginning of the fall~ (That's what i think)~
Overall, its, Great! Unless you want to be prefectionist? Hehe~
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Personally, I think the fall is just perfect. Honestly, the whole animation really catches your attention and focuses it on Sam. Good work!
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Soooooo cool i really like this, reminds me alot of disney animation and such, fav fav FAV!!
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Wow, that's awesome. A significant improvement too. I'm having a hard time coming up with anything to critique for this other than what you've already said. Since you ask though I'll try.
Over all I don't think there's a overall glaring thing you can improve on other than the shaky lines and the speeds of some of the movements. But I can be nitpicky and point out a few minor things that could change. One thing that kinda relates to the arms varying in size, his chest is awefully large for him not to have pipes on him (Especially in the beginning scene), and it seems to go out of his character more when they appear smaller rather than when they're larger. Just one way to maybe look at altering that.
Another thing is some of the movements seem to make unnatural jumps, like when he's putting his hands in his pockets in the first scene. His shirt suddenly goes around his hands instead of his hand moving his shirt to get to his pockets. And also when he lands it says "flop" to me instead of "thud". It's not the speed of the fall, I like where that's at, but it's the impact. He doesn't bounce at all, and most objects rebound a little bit at least from an impact. Of course that all depends on what you're going for.
And also after his foot hits the ground and when he's taking off, it either looks like he slipped or didn't really push off of the ground. His foot instead of moving foreward or up moves backward from where it landed giving me the impression that he slipped or something, but then the amount of air he got tells me otherwise. So just noticing a bit of confusion there.
And I think the swing of his hand whe he swishes at the fly could be faster perhaps.
There's not much else other than what you said that I can see. And again I'm not a professional, but I hope to be an animator myself one day so I'm gonna try to learn as much as I can.
I do like the expressions that you added to this. I especially like the beginning expression where he hunches his shoulders and glares at the fly for a second, and also when he gives the fly the evil eye. Those are really strong expressions.
I also like the horizontal movement, the environment seems more real now and I can imagine what's happening to himbetter. And the landing where he shakes his head and props it up. That's a really great part that is realistically engaging. Swell animation man, I like it a lot.
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i really enjoy watching it!
it was fun!!
Keep it up Andrew
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WOW! That's AWESOME!
I love the expressions, and it's so fluid! Very very nice
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this is just fantastic!
oh and those arent man boobs!
he just has a big burly chest
yeah completely rox and i dont think you have to worry bout most of those things. however i still think (frame rate aside) that the fall is a tad slow.
but still it is pretty damn amazing. its a shame you wont colour it.
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Hehe, this was an amusing animation! 
Sleeves notwithstanding, I think it's excellent
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nice your carecter flows great with his enivorment, Im still have a long way to go with my animations
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omg that's awesome, love the new bits you put in there
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