artistunknown's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Billy's Birthday Party]

I can't believe brak is dead

icyentertainment responds:

he will live forever in our hearts...

[Space Junkies : Clock Day]

Space Junkies is the best series on Newgrounds.

icyentertainment responds:

Thank you fine gentleman

[Deep Water]

I really love this new grainy style you've been using, it's especially fitting for something like this. The comedy and atmosphere is great as always.

I was confused by the shrimp at first, but then I read the description and it all made sense lmao

Funnily enough, I too have had a dream involving Jim Sterling, though that was a bit different...

Gerkinman responds:

Hey thanks, I like trying to make my work feel a bit more tactile, im not a fan of super digital feeling work.

Your dream sounds saucy... :P

[Goliath]

Glad to finally see that this is out! I remember converting it to video for you and wondering why you never uploaded it :p

Yeah, it's not as good as something you could do now, but it's still better than a lot of stuff you see posted online.

As for actual critiques, the animations pretty great for the most part, it's all smooth and dynamic, though some bits look pretty wonky, and there's even missing lipsync, though iirc that was due to time constraints.

The story is interesting, but feels really condensed and doesn't flow too well. There's quite a few pacing issues. That last shot is still as cool as the first time I saw it though.

Overall though, the concept is really cool and would definitely work well as something much longer with more time put into it. Once again, it's great to finally see this released, and I hope to see some more new stuff from you soon!

HowardWimshurst responds:

Wow it is you! That's amazing that you saw this. yes it has been quite a long time since I actually made this. I agree with you that it is a bit wonky and the pacing is... not satisfactory for me. These shortcomings almost stopped me from releasing it. but then i made a video about abandoning projects and I thought that I should follow my own advice. I'm sure that it was worth the few hours of extra effort to get it cleaned up and put out onto the internet, especially after all of that work i put into it. Thanks for helping me with it back in the day. Hope you are doing well!

[Fan]

This was pretty interesting. I will admit I had to watch it a few times to fully understand it, that's mostly because it went by so fast though.

The plot was simple, but it was entertaining and I can appreciate how you didn't need to rely on dialog to tell a story. It was portrayed well visually. However, I'm not entirely sure what happened in the end. Did the fan just not work, or was it just turning on very slowly and the guy was impatient? That wasn't quite clear.

The art style looks a bit too simple and could use some refinement, mainly character art, backgrounds were pretty decent though. The best thing artistically was probably the bus. There wasn't a lot of actual animation but what was there looked pretty decent. Adding more poses and inbetweens would help. The shot of the view looking up at the fan was pretty cool looking, and probably the most interesting shot in the entire short. The filters in this also really added to the visual appeal. They looked nice and never seemed unfitting to the scene, so good job with that.

As for audio, the sound effects all seemed fitting. The ambiance was nice and really added to it.

Overall, a decent piece. I enjoyed it, but some things could use some work. Good luck with your future works!

[Review Request Club]

Aqlex responds:

You were right about the fan turning very slowly and not really doing anything to help the guy cool off.

Thank you for the thoughts, they're good to hear and think about. And thank you, review request club!

[Addicktion]

This was fun for a quick laugh.

This was hilarious, mostly because it's pretty unexpected. The pacing is pretty good.; everything starts out slow as if it were a normal day and then the speed increases dramatically as the twist comes in and it really helps convey the joke. Although it's fun for a short gag, that's really all it is, a short gag. I can agree with Haggard, that I would have liked if it were a bit longer and went into a bit more detail as to why he's always drawing penises, but then it would get a bit more story driven and I'm not really sure if a dick joke could work that well stretched out, heh.

Art and animation were pretty good. The drawings were a bit simplistic and crude looking but I think that helped with the overall feel. That uh... dick was pretty well drawn, lol. The animation itself was all right but the lipsync was really good, so good job with that.

Audio was also good. The audio quality was pretty decent and the voice acting was good and seemed fitting. Then when the music kicks in when the guy realizes what he's done, that was perfectly handled and fit really well, so overall well done.

I liked this. It was pretty decent on the presentation side but really well executed humor-wise. Some smoother animation would be nice, but it's all right where it is.

[Review Request Club]

Markface responds:

Cheers big ears.

[Expiration Hat]

First of all, that play button is a bit small :p I feel like the text and preloader could be moved up a bit so there isn't so much space at the top of the loading screen, and the preloader could be made a bit bigger, adding to the symmetry. That's just a little nitpick though.

On to actual important stuff, the art style is pretty neat. It could use some refinement but it's looking good. The animation is decent. It has nice key poses, but the inbetweens seem a bit lacking. There seems to be only easing and smears but no actual inbetweens. The lipsync was pretty good as well. I liked the abstract backgrounds and they seemed to fit with the animation well, however the background really should have changed every time the camera's view changed. At some points the background did change, but most of the time a character would be on screen and then it would switch to another character yet the background would remain the same. It's a bit distracting to look at. Overall, there's some flaws, but the art and animation is fun to look at and shows you know a bit more than the basics, now it's just time for refinement.

Audio was a pretty mixed part for me. The voices did sound fine and had a bit of variety to them, but the actual audio quality wasn't the best. There was even a few times when the audio clipped. Not only does it sound bad and may even hurt some people's ears, but bad audio does ruin the immersion of the cartoon. Not that the audio was bad, but it wasn't good enough. Either try to get a better mic, if it was a problem with a mic, or play with the audio export settings in flash 'cause flash has some really bad default audio settings.

As for writing, it was kinda funny in spots, but overall it was a bit too random for my taste. I'm not a fan of random humor but eh, opinions ;3

Overall, a fun little short. Still needs a bit of work in everything, but was decent, kinda funny, and shows you have potential. Oh yeah, something I forgot to mention earlier, it was a bit short. Yes, it's best to keep comedy short so things don't drag on, but giving some time to set up a joke and let the audience react to it is necessary. So try to find a good balance between that. It's not really something that's going to be concrete perfect, because again, opinions, but eh, still seems like most people on Newgrounds prefer cartoons that are at least a minute. I think I may have started rambling a bit in this, but hopefully something helpful came from it! Good luck with your future animations, I'm sure you'll get a decent following someday!

gilfgavin responds:

Thanks i will take all of those thing into account

[Remembered - Jordan Allen]

Man, it's a shame this has gone under the radar with a score of less than 3, 'cause it's really good. Not the best but good.

The story was great, for both the video and the song. Everything flowed nicely and seemed very thought out. This had good direction too and was a well put together music video.

Art and animation were all right. The animation was pretty good and there was a lot of movement. The art could use some work though. The majority of drawings were a bit simplistic and the inconsistent line quality and thickness didn't really look all that good. Practice makes perfect though, and from the looks of it, you have the potential and the want to be something better so with time I'm sure you can improve.

The audio was great. Since this is a music video, clearly the only audio present was the song, and what a song it was. I've already talked about the story of it and the lyrics were great too. Everything about it sounded great and I can definitely see the artist being big some day, so good job to both of you!

Overall this was good. Art could use some work but you've shown you can tell a coherent story accompanied by some decent visuals. The animation was good so I'm sure with a more appealing art style this could be amazing. I look forward to your future works, to see how you improve!

Jaybabywolf responds:

Really awesome review, thank you! I've really been working on my art style the past few months and learning from this animation and what could be better. Hopefully releasing something next week for the NATA which is looking a lot better aesthetically, and I'll definitely be sure to pass on the praise to my cousin too :) cannot thank you enough for the praise though, really means a lot!

[I Like Vegetables]

I'd like to start off by saying it's nice to see a flash that has a fullscreen button. It's not often you see that and it's really a nice feature :3.

As far as art and animation goes, this was pretty top-notch. The frame by frame animation was really nice, though the characters were drawn rather simplistically. There were some detailed backgrounds, but a lot of simple ones too. Really nice choice of colors, it made this interesting to look at. The part where the camera moved in a pseudo-3D way when they were by the brick wall looked a bit awkward. This tends to happen when you try to tween 3D camera movements. It's usually best to animate 3D shots frame by frame, even if it is a huge pain. It will end up looking more natural in the long run. This could use some minor tweaks in the art department, but overall it's really good.

The pacing and direction in this felt good, aside from one or two shots staying on screen for a little longer than felt necessary, mainly the conveyor belt shots, but that's honestly a minor nitpick. There was a wide variety of angles and aside from a few instances, the shot progression felt natural and, again, made this really interesting to look at.

The song was interesting; a bit weird but it got a chuckle out of me, and your animation really fit with the music, so this is a pretty effective music video.

There really isn't much I can say about this. It worked well as a music video, was mildly entertaining and the animation was great. There's always room for improvement though. I hope this review was helpful to you, and good luck with your future submissions!

[Review Request Club]

Yusuf responds:

Yeah, I drew the characters like this because it is generally easier for me to animate, and I probably wouldn't have been able to pull off half the stuff I did.
Frame-by-frame on the brick wall shot? I guess I could experiment with that
As for the conveyor belt shot being long - well I'm just kind of lazy and didn't feel like animating something new :P
Thanks!

[The Girl in The Sky]

Well this was fun, definitely got more out of this than I was expecting, and congrats on making a lengthy animation, 5 and a half minutes is quite a feat!

The writing was pretty good. It was a fun story, though it didn't seem to flow well, that's probably a result from switching from the real world to a dream world. The transitions from reality to dream were nicely executed, but what happened within each seemed a bit too drastic of a change. I can understand a lot of time passing in the real world while the dream world stays the same, but it seemed like things happened way too fast in the dream. The story also seemed a bit unresolved, even with that bit at the end. I just feel like there could have been more to it. Who knows though, perhaps now there's room for a sequel? ;3

A lot of the animation was really awkward to look at, especially the guy's walk cycle. Even so, the animation was pretty good overall. Character art was simplistic but it had a charm to it, though the drawings could have been better. There seemed to be inconsistencies in line quality. The backgrounds were really nice to look at. The character expressions were also great. I enjoyed the cameos from other Newgrounds characters in detention. Animation was all right overall, but it could really use refinement.

Audio was handled nicely. The music was really fitting and it was handled very well. There were nice transitions between the musical pieces. Sound quality for the most part was nice, though some sound effects didn't sound too good. I felt that this being mostly silent with no dialog was perfect. Show don't tell is an important rule of storytelling and I think it was executed perfectly here.

Overall this was a nicely done piece. it has everything it needs to be a 5 star submission, but you just need to put a bit more work in the art department and everything will be golden. I really did enjoy this and I look forward to seeing your future submissions and how you progress!

IntoEkinzone responds:

Thank you so much for going out of your way to critique it! you didn't have to do it, but I'm really glad you did. You're right about the pacing and some of the awkward animation. Hopefully I'll improve next time around. Seriously thank you so much, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.