Crit Notes

Today was our crit day so I took some notes of each persons projects, what I liked and what I think could be improved or followed up on.

Joel - Nice layering on the pictures, make more moving layers rather than just stationary images, consider using a piece of music to accompany the animatic, maybe some sound effects over the fire ect. Try avoid completely static shots if possible. Maybe look into some form of narration throughout the story to make it clear of whats happening in the animatic (make it easier to understand for the audience). Vary the ways that each shot is opened and closed (not just constant fade ins and outs). In general try to make it a bit more fluid. Nice little animatic so far.

Siobhan - Beautifully animated, wonderful lip synching on both the fox and the humans. Lovely walk cycles for both the bipedal and quadrupeds. Trees seemed to be overlapping one another and 'flickering'?  Try fix this if possible. Adding music or sound effects for walking through the forest, tweeting of birds and try to keep all voice acting roughly the same volume as some bits came across more quiet than other parts. Don't push yourself so hard! The work you do in animating is always beautiful and in my opinion its always better to have a shorter animation look awesome than try to push yourself into making a longer animation that isn't as good as it could be, what I'm saying is don't worry if you don't get it all fully rendered and looking complete, if anything decide which scenes you want to fully render and then do that and leave the other parts blocked out, that way you can afford to be able to take it a bit more easy and at a steady pace. When you get round to adding the rest of the environment in maybe consider adding a few extra assets such as little fallen logs, flowers, bushes, mushrooms and other woodland things. So far beautifully made, I very much look forward to seeing the finished result.

Ryan - Awesome music, very fitting to the animation. It still seems like there is quite a lot to be done though. Going on the first little bit of animation it looks like the finished result will be very fluid. Although the rest of it was an animatic its nice to see how its coming along and its clear to see what is going on in the story despite it not being properly animated yet. Not sure if its just going to be the music that is already in the animatic or not but maybe it could be an idea to look into using cartoon sound effects for running / mummies groaning ect (The old Scooby Doo sound effects for example) I'm not sure what your transmedia work will be in this project but maybe think about designing a retro movie poster for your animation? Study the old Indiana Jones film posters / Star Wars ect.
So far it looks lovely, I really like the style of the animation (nice simplicity) and the story has a nice twist and is well thought through. Just try to get more of it animated fully if possible!

Andy - Nice colour try experiments with your character. Lovely sketches of different emotions, comes across as quite a professional comic book concept look. Perspective is very good, its lovely to see you working from different facial angles. Lovely landscape of the construction site, good rule of thirds and lovely warm colour scheme. Very nicely rendered in the picture looking up at the Ram mans face, makes him seem empowered and strong. You've improved on perspective and the whole final rendering process in general. Perhaps try experimenting with different styles of art, Ram man seems to be somewhat of a super hero so maybe try experimenting with heavy cell shading art, traditional retro comic book art ect to get different feels of the character. Maybe grab a lunchbox picture off of Google stock images and make your own 'super hero merchandise' like the old Spiderman lunch boxes/ t-shirts and other memorabilia. Try to step out of the box and challenge yourself with other mediums of work.
Lovely artwork in general and I'm looking forward to seeing more turn outs of the Ram character.

Scoff - Beautiful concept art, you've really developed your style over the past few months. It's getting hard to tell what is your artwork and what is Kekai Kotaki's work. Lovely little character designs, its nice to see that you are using references and improving on drawing faces. On the other hand, DON'T push yourself too much! I think you maybe asked for too many characters from people which at times handicapped your talents as an artist and forced you to rush at times. Also don't be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone! You have your style down to a T, but don't neglect the other art forms that you have previously touched upon before, challenge yourself. Also when animating in AE try to think about layers and what is going to move where rather than just focusing on the artwork itself, remember to try and plan ahead to the final result so that you can prepare yourself for it through your art as well as furthering your own artistic skill.

Myself - Really nice styled character designs, keep up with your most recent works as you have really come into your style and are getting so good at making your artwork look 3D and really pop out of the page. Dont be afraid to be brave with brushstrokes and keep experimenting with things you have not tried before as everything is relevant and informative to fully rounding your own style. Be more proud of your work! Try and make colouring a part of what you love to do as much as the line art, maybe try taking colour reference from other similar images to get a more realistic colour. Very detailed character / race biography for the Saurians. Try documenting plantlife as well as wildlife to really bring out the type of world the animals live in, the wild dangerous plants could compliment the aggression and survivalist instincts that the animals have. Eric Ryan - Animal creation explaination