PIED3's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Helio Inc]

It's a real shame this only has one review because i thought it was brilliant! The first thing that struck me was the interesting character design. I felt it had a very greek feel to it but i don't really know anything about greece i don't why. The personification of the sun and moon in to an office setting was highly original and your use of sound effects was lovely too. The music and the art style produced an excellent and engaging mood that immediately had me hooked and draw in to the world. I really can't think of much to criticize, the heads always being side on was perhaps a little awkward but i loved how you animated the turning around as a rotation. Very cool!
The story was definitely a little hard to follow and i never understood the point of conflict between the clouds and the sun nor why he got so angry. Perhaps some subtitles would be nice, but then again that might ruin some of the ambiguity and generality of the plot. Lot's of nice transitions (i especially liked the pan up from the basement to the water cooler). All in all definitely one of the most enjoyable flashes i've seen a good while. Keep it up!

DieterTheuns responds:

Thanks for the review :)

All credit for sound goes to codeblackhayate though. She really bailed me out and did so with amazing material. I do realize the story feels a little rushed at times, which deeply hurts it. Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it ^^

[The Wiggly Tower]

Oooh i love the art style! Always nice to see some traditional art on the portal and i thought the sloppy colouring and crude sketchy pen strokes were very cool. The animation itself was okay but at times it it was a little awkward. When the protagonist (a bear?) was using the hammer at the start his pose looked uncomfortable and the way he landed on one leg poised like a ballerina just didn't look natural.
The sound design was pretty nice and the tunes were interesting enough, they fit the spooky fairground atmospehre nicely!
I suppose my favorite things where the art and the concept. The ending was interesting and i liked the idea of carrying round an inanimate lump on fairground rides. Made me smile when he fell off the merry-go-round. Good stuff!

[Flash, Never gives up]

I don't particular like the concept, walk cycles through day and night loops are overdone and not particulary interesting. The music was over the top and made me cringe a bit, and you didn't credit it either. Always credit music used!
The animation is quite nice and the walk cycle looks nice and relaxed though he's walking with his palms facing backwards like a neanderthal and i don't think anybody really does that. You should have his palms facing his body to make it look a little more natural. I don't like your art style, the block colours are very dull and the sharp outlines and blocky shapes look too sterile. That's just a personal preference though and it certainly looks clean/proffesional even though i dislike it. I think the musical symbols hovering around his head should have been more transparent as they sort of stuck out and blocked some of the scenery.
I was going to say you should have had some lighting effects and overlays but you used to introduce them a little later on in that dark blueish scene. Some shadows could have made it seem a little more 3d as it all felt a little flat, as though it were 2d planes layered behind each other.
It's definitely not a bad flash and i think if you put the skills you've gained in making this into an animation with a plot and a better concept you could produce something really nice. Good luck!

TeddyKickas responds:

Thx for your comment.

To be honnes this is actualy my first flash that I public.
And for that I realy appriciate your comment it wil come in handy for the future.

[Pleasure Island 4]

Brilliant!
You have such a unique style of humour and animation it's always a pleasure to see what you'll come up with next. The opening to this animation was just perfect, your original composition "Man vs. Walrus-Man" set a magical and mysterious tone and i loved that long pan (is it still called a pan if it's vertical?) down to the two bugs fucking. Very amusing. I liked the shots with the camera moving in 3d and fernandos epic entrance. I really can't think of much to criticize, great voice acting, great music, great art, nice colours and an amusing script. Nice work!

Sexual-Lobster responds:

i think it is still called a pan, maybe a vertical pan.

[Bots on Pot]

Somebody already beat you to it:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view /520997
3 long years ago. And to be honest whilst that version was funny for how sloppy and scrappy and intentionally shit it was this animation really doesn't add anything to the audio and in fact the character designs and cleanness of it really don't work very well with it.
I'm sure it was good practice with the v-cam and all but i don't think it's something that needs submitting to the portal.

Mirak responds:

well my mom say it's great

[Just Wink]

Ah, see now i feel bad for my other review. You obviously do know what you're doing and i really like the animation on this one. In fact everything about this one is very clean and crisp looking, the colours are nice and the character designs are cute. Again, it's a little short but atleast it loops so the entertainment value is extended somewhat. The music makes me smile, good stuff!

Gerkinman responds:

Thanks mate, im glad you took the time to watch, and enjoyed it :)

[Mind]

Way too short for the portal. The fbf really isn't very good either, everything "morphs" in that horrible way people animated everything when they've just started. Nothing has any solid shape or weight that carries through in it's movement, the animation is smooth in the sense that the outlines move smoothly from one place to another but that really isn't what animation is about. It's the general shape that must move smoothly, the black outlines are not meant to have any solid weight of their own.
Obviously i'm being a little harsh as this is fairly experimental and morphing is actually a part of it but even the things which are supposed to have solid shapes are morphing (the monster who opens his mouth). Of course in animation characters do squash and stretch a bit, but really you should learn the rules before you break them. Beyond that the art was decent and the backgrounds were interesting and professional looking. Can't say i liked the content much, far too random for my liking. You clearly have skill i just think it's important to avoid that morphing animation style that treats everything as 2d shapes.

Gerkinman responds:

I appreciate your honest feed back. The morphing was a deliberate element that was chosen to help accentuate the themes of the animation (which was made in 2009 by the way), but I do agree that morphing fbf can look very much like inexperience and its something that despite being a professional animator for the last 7 years I still struggle with. If you want to see some more recent work check out my Gerkinman Returns trailer or my short loop "Wink".

Thanks for the feedback, its always nice to read comments from people who know what they are talking about.

[Corporate Zombies]

Yup a preloader would be nice and you can download a premade NG one very easily from here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/downloads/p reloaders/
Just stick it in the first frame and you're good to go!
But despite this minor technical setback i think you've made something really great here! The comedy was surprisingly unique (though i definitely felt a "Shaun of the dead" influence, right?) and the excellent pacing and enjoyable voice acting strengthened the humorous concept and enjoyable script.
The lip synching was good and the timing of the animation along with the expressive poses made up for it's relative stillness and occasional resizing. I liked your art style and use of colours, very soft and mellow. Just add a preloader and a replay button and you've got yourself a 9. As it is, an 8 from me and i wish you all the best with future works!

[Crazy Horses]

The concept was pretty great and i liked the voice acting too. You should have a preloader and a play buttona t the start and the tweened title in the default font scrolling by at a low frame rat leaves a bad first impression. Seeing as the whole animation is just tweens there is no need to have a low frame rate. It would have been nice to have some fbf or some lip synching because the animation was pretty sloppy and static.
The art too was pretty messy. I really liked the colours and compositions of some of the shots but the character designs were way very plain and everything was far too simplistic. The whole thing looked kinda rushed. The shots of the door handles (?) were quite interesting in terms of cinematography but i could barely tell what they were because you spent so little time drawing them! An "END" screen would have been good and satisfying and having the animation automatically loop is annoying. I think if you spent a little more time on the animating and drawing you could produce something really nice. But this isn't too bad really.

[That's the point! 1]

Very fun! Obviously the art is alittle scruffy (why does the foreground have thin outlines and the background thick outlines?) but it has charm and the facial expressions and their animation gave the characters some infectious personality. It's not in english so i can't really judge the voice acting properly, but in terms of emotinal delivery etc. i thought it was nice! The sound quality is a little low, perhaps investing in a better mic or trying to use it better might be a good idea.
The script was nice but i felt a little lost at first. What exactly is the competition? You never really explained what the setting was and how the characters had ended up in the scenario. The jokes were funny and the animation really made me smile. There are a few issues with frame borders, there's the occasional bit of white space and i don't think you should draw a box around the frame (it doesn't add anything and is a little distracting).
Overall i thought it was good! The english subtitles seemed pretty accurate to me so good job on that and good luck with future episodes!

AtomK responds:

Thank you very much..! Actually, I think this episode is just a little introduction for the story... and yeah, I really need to improve my audio quality... my mic is a disaster... >=( .. Anyway, thank you for the review, I like you liked my flash =)