IamZavok's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Scarecrows]

jumps in quality

first off, you have a great grasp of flash and you are obviously a very good artist. However, a good artist =/= automatically equal a good animator. While all of your characters felt like they had weight and volume (they felt real), they moved kind of stiffly and it felt very off, like an uncanny valley effect. You were close but you were in the valley and so the animation was slightly painful to watch for me just because of the irritating nature of being so close to awesome. I'm saying that your motion needs words and make your movement less jittery. Other than that you are golden my good man.

as far as the story goes, it was simple yet fell into cliches and didn't explain things very well. You are relying to much on your audiences willing suspension of disbelief, as in, you're leaving to much up to them to just go "ok well I guess that makes sense".

one last thing, it seemed like the movie's quality of animation jumped at times, going from being very disneylike(fluid and motion focused) to very anime like (keyframes and pose focused with minimal in betweens). That actually made my head hurt from the transition, I'm not saying either of those styles are bad, I'm just saying you need to stay consistent. Look at the old Looney Tunes, they sacrificed detail for fluidity and poses, anime sacrifices fluidity (keyframes) for detail and poses (or any other manner of match up depending on series).

other than those few gripes, I enjoyed it. Good job and I hope you keep animating.

Kaloian responds:

I totally agree with the story comment but I didn't want it to be all exposition because it would be too boring and frankly too much work as the animation would be incredibly long. The animation jumps like that because i had to prioritize scenes to get it 'done" and to do that I animated things to a certain degree and finished off the more important/ cooler scents this left me in a "that looks done" stage and so it is what it is now. I personally think the film could be livelier as they tend to stick to certain poses which makes it very "cut out animation" which it isn't. But thanks for the comments and that was actually a lot of help, thanks.

[Miserable Mac Intro]

slightly better than what I would expect

so I came into this video with no real expectations, the artstyle at the beginning reminded me of Kirbopher's work, however, other than the fact that you did the animation really nicely, there wasn't anything particularly impressive or memorable about this intro. I've seen many an intro that captures my attention quite nicely, this one didn't. It was one of those things where I wanted to love it. The animation was better than average and the music was good, but the scenes were just copy paste Japanimation cop outs with very little originality. I swear I've seen every pose and every scene in another anime before. The eyes opening were cliche, the villains look like a bunch of doofuses and the protagonists look like your typical cast of mainstream anime rejects/15 year old guys OC's that you find on Deviant Art. The main character was the only person who looked vaguely interesting and I'm pretty sure I can glean exactly who the other characters are just from my personal experience with anime. Also, that whole "anime inspired" thing is good, but not when there's so much "inspiration" pumped into the video it's practically a bad clone of the thing you've been inspired by. I have no problem with the anime inspired stuff, look at ben 10 and Avatar, those have great looks, it's just this style says "bad copy" and not "inspired by"

However, for all the shortcomings I see in this animation. I like it. I wish the best of luck to you, and I hope to see more of the series soon. But please, get rid of the Japanese one the end of the characters names, it just cheapens an otherwise decent animation and adds to the "copy" feel.

[Super Smash]

a load bar would have been nice

but other than that, the animation was pretty solid man. Keep up the good work. There isn't much I can critique here. It was pretty well done.

[WH40K: SpaceHulk]

very good, quite entertaining

I have never played WH40K before, but this was quite humorous. The animation wasn't bad and the drawing was really really good. One of my complains was the voice acting of the two men without helmets. It was kind of wooden, and some of the jokes fell flat. But other than that this was a surprisingly good little animation.

[Record of Dragon Burial 1]

terrible and cliche

This is one of the worst anime rip offs I've seen. Poorly animated, poorly thought out and poorly executed. It plays like someone took all the worst anime cliches and animated them together.

The animation itself is pretty terrible, it's just plane bad. The drawing is abysmal and it would be quicker to just reanimate and redraw everything because of how many glaring errors it has, the hands, hair and head being the biggest offenders. Perspective would probably be a good thing to take a few classes in if I may offer any advice.

the story itself is just a giant cliche, and rips off elements of Naruto, I'll say nothing more about it.

also, the voice acting, dear god the voice acting. I couldn't tell the female's VA's apart, and all the dialog felt wooden and clunky.

Overall this is pretty unwatchable. I liked the premise of the Xin Series, I didn't like the animation or the execution, but it was at least enjoyable. This is just bad.

I am well aware that criticism is suppose to be "useful to the artist". I know the above isn't, so I'll offer some advice. Take some classes. Learn to draw, Learn to write, learn to find voice actors who aren't terrible. Lord knows there are quite a few here on newgrounds that will do things for little to no money that are much higher quality than the ones you have. Other than that I don't know what to say.

[|~Snow Snow For Lucy~|]

I fail to see why everyone thinks this is so great

My biggest beef with this is the animation. I don't get why everyone is like "ZOMG 10 best animation evar". I know it takes a long time to animate, but judging from your trailer back in 08 you had this at least 1/2 of the way finish. The fact that it took this long would denotes that it should be quality animation, this is mediocre at best. Plus the fact that it's anime contributes to the fanbrats rating it 5 constantly because they fail to acknowledge the existence of a 2-4.

This is crap. I expect better from someone who's been animating for 2 or 3 years. But considering all you do is anime this is to be expected. Anime is not good for practice. Cartoony simplified stuff like bugs bunny is much better than uber detailed simplified stuff like anime. When you first learn to draw, you draw cubes. When you learn to animate, you draw a ball falling. Same principles. Before you animate an anime man fighting, you should first learn to animate bugs bunny walking. Essentially you are trying to run before you can crawl and it's showing in this animation.

also, I don't know if that "no ones making you watch it" is to avoid criticism or get people to not say "Its too looooooong" but either way that's just a crappy excuse frankly story isn't your strong point as has never been your strong point. Most of your stuff is cliche ridden. Get a writer or at least an editor for your stories before spending a year or two to animate them.

SpikeVallentine responds:

"I know it takes a long time to animate, but judging from your trailer back in 08 you had this at least 1/2 of the way finish. The fact that it took this long would denotes that it should be quality animation"
I wasn't animating it ever since the trailer came out and only December 24 2009 it comes out. It was about half year to animate the 45 minutes. Super ridiculous if it took that long.

"This is crap."
I understand and agree. I'm on your side!!!!!! I've grown, have my own opinion and standards. But I do support the message in here. That's about it.

i see wut your saying about run before you crawl. This project didn't finish on dec 24 209, we've grown and I guarantee you our next project(real project) will blow this away. This shouldnt even be compared to our new stuff. The art sucks and character design sucks. Trust me. Just wait till you see our new stuff. So dont think think that i think this cartoon rocks, cause i dont.

"also, I don't know if that "no ones making you watch it" is to avoid criticism or get people to not say "Its too looooooong" but either way that's just a crappy excuse"
I always talk like that. And nope, I dont care to "avoid criticism". But maybe you would? I'm not sure but that's not me. Cause I KNOW this project is too long. So I feel bad if people watched it and dont enjoy it. 22 minutes is forever! This 22 minutes is especially long.

"story isn't your strong point as has never been your strong point. "
I agree. By the way, I'm not in love with my stories. I know my stories can always be better. But I'm not gonna wait 10 years for the perfect story, so you gotta do what you gotta do. Living life and getting more experience will help with stories. That's something I'm lacking.

"Get a writer or at least an editor for your stories before spending a year or two to animate them."
I guess it's not apparent but we've been doing that.

I'm on your side 100% dizude. So dont think that i think this project is hot stuff, cause I dont.
Thank you for your honesty. I LOOOOVEEEEE IT. AND IS THAT ALL YOU GOT!?!! (friendly intonation, i'm 100% peace with you.) (also, i bet I could beat you in a list of "Why Snow Snow For Lucy is Terrible". )
once again i'm at 100% peace with you. Thank you for your time.

[Parallel Memories: Teaser]

Just get rid of this idea.

you need to take some writing classes. Also, read a few books about writing.
also, create characters that are not recolors.
I can already tell that this is a bad idea rapped up with decent sprite animation with a bit of star power (omahdon) and that is about it.
As Ethernia said before, "nothing to new or interesting"

I found myself forgetting the characters even 10 seconds after I had watched the video. Mostly because I can already tell even by looking at the character descriptions that calling these characters card bored will probably be an insult to the packaging materiel.

So far all the heroes are directly following the stereotypes and cliches. There is nothing new here. Only old stuff that I can already say will be submitted to the portal, raved about because it has Mario and sonic in it. Then forgotten in the hoards of other stuff exactly like it.

Here's what you need to do. You need to forget about this series. Forget about all the plans you had for it. Call it off. Spend your summer doing something original. Take a creative writing class. Do something that doesn't involve Mario or Sonic or some other character or series that has been done to death.

I know you are probably thinking, "but I have some original ideas that would probably be good". Yes you do. But not involving Sonic. You probably could come up with something amazing if you tried. But first you have to grow out of this "Sonic and Mario" stage. Make something original!

Kick this crap to the curb. You've grown up, your a better animator then this. I don't know how many animators on this site that have so much talent, waist their time on stuff like this. You are not going to revolutionize anything or set the world on fire with yet another alternate version of a segaXnintento world. If you look at the movie industry... hell if you look at any creative industry, there are billions of clones when something gets popular, and that's what your creating. A clone, weather it be a clone of dragon ball z, or a clone of sonic, it's a clone. It's copypasta, it's UNORIGINAL.

anyone can do sonic! ANYONE! look at the billion of sonic fan made videos and Mario series around you. do you really want to swim in this sea of mediocrity? and even if your video stands above the rest and you actually achieve something, what then? it's still just a crappy spin on Mario and Sonic. While stuff like Waterlollies and Metropolitan circuit are standing above the rest. Things like Xombie and Mastermind and Tankmen! original stuff that we all compare everyone else's stuff to.

if you created something original it could have the chance to become iconic like these characters. If you created an original story, with a pleasing ascetic and likable characters then you would have accomplished something instead of creating a story of the likes a 12 year old boy could have shat out.
I suppose the TL; DR version of this would be:

Please for the love of god man, don't waist your talents on something so unoriginal and trivial, Newgrounds has enough stuff like this. Make something original! and even if it's crap and you think you could have done better with the idea you had for Mario and Sonic, know that the next idea you execute will be better! and that the path to originality, while being a difficult one, is much more rewarding in the end. You don't see Alvin Earthworm or Johnbro gaining the iconic status of Egoraptor, or TheSwain or Adam Phillips do you?

Also please note that, I am not, I am simply saying you can do better and that this is a horrible idea. the Constructive criticism being me telling you to pursue something original. Also, if you are going to come back with the whole "this is just practice" Bologna, i say Bullshit. You are never going to go anywhere just practicing. If people in the army just practiced and never actually fought the enemies, people would lose all the wars that they were ever involved in.

So, if you actually read this review, I hope my long winded criticism has given you something... lol had to laugh at myself there, you're not going to take this seriously

Pienkaito responds:

Of course, I won't take this seriously.
Nobody in Newgrounds is serious about anything. =)
In case you wonder, I did read the whole thing. Was kinda bored. =P

This is original, it's has nothing with Mario and Sonic anymore...*cough* *cough* ´v´
Okay, it will but that's not the main point here. It will appear TOO MANY other characters in the series, so that you won't even know, from which game/anime they are coming from. XD

The main thing is, have you ever watched a decent fan-character based movie with sprites and a somewhat-original storyline?

I did watched one or two here. They were good...at their times (2000 or something)

Nowadays there aren't any of these, so why not?
Also, where is Mario and Sonic here anyway?
If you tell me Mario or Sonic are in this, then you should really go to a doctor.

Anyway, nobody can stop me of doing the series.
I can't even do that, It's already in progress now. =P
And I can see, that I reached a good animating level myself. So I'm going to pack it into this series.

This has got somewhat-ORIGINAL characters with a somewhat-ORIGINAL plot.
LMAO XD

[Apocalypse Please EP 1 B]

Cliche as hell

Animation was decent to mediocre at times, though some of the sequences showed promise. I dislike how all the characters look like some wapanese person's attempt to draw super deformed anime... It struck me like it was trying to get into the Anime section a little to hard...

Characters were cardboard, Tardis was the only good one mostly because he was voiced by Tomar. The girl struck me as the most cliche though. (I hate to say it but she was the worst character, she reminded me of the girl gamer/action girl cliche and she was by far the flattest character)

Story was your standard apocalypse thing... I liked the twist that life went on without much changing other than the danger factor, though everything else wasn't very good.

Voice acting was great, 'cept for the girl voice. Her voice sounded emotionless and flat, also it was way to generic. That could just be the lack of quality female voice actors on Newgrounds though... (not being sexist, other than Rina-chan, name one great female voice actor on Newgrounds... )

the jokes were pretty bad, 'cept for a few of them that were the reason I kept watching. But the family guy style flashbacks seemed out of place in a series like this.

honestly the entire thing just draaaaaaged on. I found myself only watching it so that I wouldn't feel like I cheated when I reviewed it... and to hear what Tardis was going to say next.

but really, this just seemed like it was trying waaaay to hard and reminded me of Naruto for some reason...

I thought this animation was mediocre, the voice acting by Omahdon and TomaMoto was the best thing about this one...

I feel bad leaving a review that doesn't say something positive at the end.

good effort, I look forward to seeing your next flash animation, I can tell your skills have improved since your last animation. Great voice acting too (Omahdon and TomaMoto)... great music as well, forgot to mention that one.

[Can't Catch Tomorrow]

emphasis was on the wrong thing

You've missed the point of the style you chose to emulate. Anime is extremely simplified and therefore easy to animate. However, you didn't focus enough on the environment. Many times when art is simplified it is so that the artist can put emphasis on something else (example: environment, objects, story, music etc.)
However this video was totally lacking in that. If you have ever watched Disney movies or looked at anime closely, you will notice that when the characters are simplified to that extent, the background and objects are given much more detail. To emphasize not the fact that the characters exist or are in a certain style, more to emphasize where the characters are and where they are going. Or the object they have in their possession (if you have ever watched a mech anime, then you see the emphasis put on the mechs, not on the people driving them.)

Anime does this wonderfully, however, many people misplace the reason that the characters are so cute and simplified. I mean no offense by saying this but you are a textbook example of a person who completely misses the point of anime.

I think this movie was a good try though. Remember, listen to people's opinions. True artists must always hear criticism, otherwise they never improve.

IrisAngel responds:

Thank you very much for your review, I will definitely bear what you have said in mind next time I animate in this style.

I was learning while I made this, and hadn't really attempted backgrounds before. I will be practicing a lot more. I would have put in a lot more detail had I not been working to this deadline.

I.A.

[The Last Fight]

meh...

hate to be another critic but one thing I'd like to say to the other reviewers is JUST because you don't like it, doesn't mean it needs a zero and to the other people giving it ten just because you spent so much time on it, Time & effort doesn't necessarily equal quality. This animation is ok but it doesn't deserve all the crap it gets or all the "ZOMG THIS IS EPIC" crap people keep giving it.