Skaijo's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Exploding Fungus 2 silent]

Bang! Huzzah! Bang! Yipee!!!

*smiles

Aren't first attempts grand? ^_^

I'll try to give this my most thoughtful review despite the fact that many of the things that I advise now may already be obvious to you.

Although I found the graphical representation of the fungi, bacteria, and assorted gentlemen much too simplistic--they all fell under a consistent style, which I did find original and somewhat entertaining to see. When the gigantic bacteria beemed down from their poorly drawn UFO, I couldn't help but laugh to myself. The laughter would not have been at your artistic capability, but rather if you had a full and sophisticated sound track in the background, the score would have contrasted with your art in a comedic sense--and would have made the animation that much richer.

In turn, I found the art lacking. If there was some way for me to know that they were drawn in such a basic manner intentionally, then I could asses the matter differently. However, the supporting attributes of this flash did not give me that impression.

The "battle scenes" with the fungi were my personal favorite parts of the animation. I especially enjoyed the over-the-top outburst by the adjacent bacteria. However, despite the fact that I liked the explosions, they still were not animated that well. Still, something tells me I'm going to happily remember those few scenes for the rest of my life.

I have a functional problem with the interactivity of the movie. As you may already know now, the buttons were poorly made. I did not appreciate having to write where the text was drawn rather than the approximate area of where the text was written. It's simply more user-friendly to create buttons that have an invisible "box" behind them; so that way viewers will not have to snipe letters in order to activate buttons. Moreover, I had a hard time determining what was actually a button from what was actually just text. This left me (more than once) just staring at the screen waiting for something to happen--when of course nothing ever did.

Additionally, I think it would behoove you to use a font that mimics hand writing over using actual handwriting. If anything at all, it will help people like me, who do not recognize English as their first language, understand what you are trying to say with a greater clarity.

Overall, I found this movie to be frustrating at some points, and very enjoyable at others. The concept of bacteria vs. fungi has great potential, and the entire concept as a whole was ultimately only limited by its delivery.

6.8/10

Bezman responds:

The art was all deliberately drawn to be as simplified as possible. If I were doing this now, I would of course make curves more graceful, fill everything with the bg colour so stuff behind doesn't show through, etc. Artistic capability got me almost but not quite where I wanted to be.

Bgm is something I didn't put in due to not thinking it was important. At the time I often watched stuff with no sound at the uni library and so hoped to start a trend of silend stuff. It wasn't until afterwards (when I'd started bringing in headphones, then had the internet at our flat) that I realised how much a bgm could add to something.

I'm happy that those scenes have such a positive impact. It was kinda sparked by one scene in Usagi Yojimbo. If you've not read that comic, you should if you can. It's my favourite comic ever (the only one I still buy).

I didn't know about hit-boxes at the time.

Yeah, having some text be buttons, some not, is something I only later realised was a mistake.

Sad to hear it's still out there doing its fiendish stuff and causing aggro.

I wanted my text to represent ME and not just be some off-the-shelf font, yaknow? I'd now probably be able to draw better letters. Maybe make up my own font for this.

Glad you liked the idea and only disliked the delivery. I'm seriously thinking of remaking my first 2 movies sometime. Maybe after I've gone through my rite of passage and have upgraded to Flash MX.

Thanks for the great review.

I give this one a 10 also. This is better-written, but the other was just amazing, considering the movie and how encouraging your review was.

This is just totally thorough and awesome.

If you ever want more feedback on your stuff in progress, let me know. I'll have to get round to rating your existing movies sometime...

[-SFS 7-]

Heheh

"Me and my Asian friend." That slays me. xD

Well, as far as sticks go, the animation quality was poor to below average at best. However, the concepts used in battle were fairly original. Despite it's chopiness, there were some great touches to detail that kept me interested to the end. Still, the movie did not feel as if it ended on a complete thought--but, then again, without a backstory, character development, or even a plot, who am I to be picky?

slowz responds:

ty.

[sand animation fight]

Nicely done

This is the first time i've seen a sand animation on NG. Too bad it was another stick fight. Still, transitions from white figure to black figures were done very nicely. And great camera angles too. Nicely done all the way around. This is a great and intuitive twist to something that I thought had been long played out.

Stuntastik30 responds:

Thank you. I'm not trying to bring back stick fights or anything. but doing detailed sand characters would be hard and would take a long LONG time to complete. I would like to apologize in advance but a lot of other people would like to see a longer version of the sand fight so i might bring it back one last time. But since its made out of sand, you'll forgive me.

[Coldplay - Spies]

Nicely done!

Nice emphasis on emotion detail. Absolutely wonderful camera work too. ^_^

How'd you post a .fla over 5MB though? A response would be much appreciated.

Totsugeki responds:

Simply ask at mister Tom Fulp! :)

his email is [e-mail]

you send your flash and a short message and he'll boost your maximum file size :D

[Binmen]

Really good. Some advice...

I've been working on flash since about the exact same time as you and I can see the great deal of effort and detail you put into this. ^_^ This is a great animation.

Still, in terms of constructive suggestions, I'll bring up some issues. The detail was not even distributed throughout the movie. For example, the garbage trucks wheels--even while going down the road--never moved, never turned. Whereas, the windshield wipers were going back and forth despite the absence of rain. Another example would be the amount of detail taken into the binman's walk cycle when compared to the amount of detail taken into the "You're Gay" neighbor's.

Another thing I noticed was that as the movie progressed, the effects became much more advanced and precise. The lighting in the last few scenes was excellent! However, the first couple of scenes paled in comparison. This is usually a sign that you spent a long time on this project and refined your art all the way until completion--however, you didn't take the time to go back and add that same level of detail to the opening scenes.

Still, to end on a good note, this was the best animation I've seen today. The animation was fluid and the camera angles were great. The ending was a bit of a cliched cop-out, but the animation wasn't driven by story--as much as by atmosphere--which IS original. Good job.

Jimp responds:

Yeah i can see what you mean about the quality of animation changing... That usually happens when some times im in a really creative mood, and sometimes im just bored and decide to work on flash :P I guess i should only animate when im in a creative mood! thanks for the review! :)

[T.e.s.s.o.n.a.s. Ep 1]

A series I can finally get into!

Can't wait to see more in the future. I really can't. Flashes like these make my day.

It was tastastical.

FleckoGold responds:

Roger: "Glad to of made your day"

Trever: "You and countless other ladies....everyday...yeah..."

P-ness: "durp"

[Sonics Boner Quest- Promo]

New... but... not different.

If you wanted to resubmit your movie, simply go to your profile from the log in, and click Portal Submissions. You can edit or delete your movies from there without having to resubmit. I hope this helps. ^_^

ChEsDeRmAn responds:

Dont take me to literally ><

This intro is actually leading into a new sbq thing which will kinda be remakes of old episodes... But in the end the next movies will be new.

[Jason vs Aliens - Part 3]

Nice execution!

It was a well done movie. You should be proud. I hope you don't mind if I offer some constructive criticism. First of all, that "mist" layer you kept up on your stage for the entire animation seemed as diminish the overall production of your movie. I've never seen a patch of mist that streched on horizontal parallel to one another. A single linear layer with a grayish, semi-transparent bottom and a fully transparent top would have been a more realistic choice. But in either case, the fact that I was looking at the same patch of fog/mist for the entire movie, no matter where the camera angel was, did lower viewing experience. A new mist object for every newly introduced scene would have kicked ass.

On another note, it wouldn't have hurt to optimize your music to a slightly higher frame rate seeing as you had ample memory to do so. But other than this, it was a very well done movie. It had a very Hollywood feel throughout it's presentation.

Crossover-Films responds:

thanks for the constructive criticism. I was waiting for somebody to mention the fog, it was just an experiment by me and my brother to create a little atmosphere in the cartoon. I have now taken the mist out now and the overall movie looks better, if I can come up with a better way to do mist I will add it to the movie, thanks again

[Stepy Akermanskie]

MILF

You're mom's got one sexy voice! xD Screw poetry, I'd listen to her recite the TV Guide listings.

Zielak responds:

thx Skaijo!!
and thanx from mom!!!

[Holiday Super Frnds Ep2p1]

Great graphics!

There was certainly a good deal of eye candy; however, the most humorous portions of the moive were few and separated with what seemed like minutes of tiresome fillers. Maybe I'm being too hard on you because you're animating on a professional level. But my humble advice right now is that you improve on the writing, because that, for now, is your weakest point.

HumbleEgo responds:

I agree. The problem is that the episode was written with the intent of being shown in one sitting. Thus, this beginning was more exposition and such. Due to production issues, we had to break it up in to parts. We struggled a great deal with making this work as a single piece, but you can only separate it from the original script so much. All things considered, I'm happy with how it worked out and if people like this Part okay, then they'll reaaallly like the next one(s). But, I do apologize for taking this route, it lessens the effect of, but not much could be done. Thanks for for the feedback.