TheReviewTrickster's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Voyager 1 encounters something in deep space]

I know I'm very late to the party with this but I voted on it while it was under judgment. I feel like this could have been in the Art Portal as a GIF since not much happens in the way of events and there's no sound, but it does look pleasing. So keep it up but maybe post stuff like this there. This is my personal opinion, of course, so you can choose what you do and I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to sabotage you pr anything.

[Surreal.]

This looks quite nice and very interesting, with the cogs and the little figure in the corner. However, I just don't think this is the right portal to post it in. The Art Portal does accept GIFs and, even though this is a longer loop, I do think it would fit there better and would be fine, considering that the only thing that really changes through the 20 seconds is small, non-specific movements. Not a thing where it'd be too long to post as a GIF, because different points of it can be viewed with the same experience, more or less, if you know what I mean.

Soapy-Bubbles responds:

Oh, thank you for the information :o

I did not want to export as a GIF because it would ruin the quality, but mp4 files do not work for image submissions so I just put it here; I'll make sure to export as a GIF next time though.

[Oxob Origins]

Oh wow, a classic RHG animator like yourself! This was nice.
I'll start with the story cause that's how the movie itself starts. It's a bit forced, I have to admit, and a bit too Wolverine. I just don't see him being any sort of outcast because of his robot hands. His grief for his friend wasn't really shown very much either, so I can't see why he was such an outsider. Maybe if you'd communicated more clearly that he's sad for his friend or something. Also, who was that green guy in the street? Why was he saying hi to Oxob on the street. Didn't quite seem normal. So as far as story goes, I'd say it's the weak point of this movie. My advice for next time you do something story-based is to not try and bend the story to tropes or even things that you just wanna have in there. If you base everything around getting to one point it can make you lose sight of other things. You have to let things take shape on their own or you'll end up putting in stuff that doesn't fit just for the sake of it being in there or taking out stuff that should be there. Even if that wasn't the case with this movie, I think it's relatively good advice, though I'm by no means an expert and I have to improve a ton myself.

The animation was really quite good. Very fluid motions, really nice sense of weight. The close-ups of the hand and the character close-ups look a bit rougher, not quite as polished, a little awkward, but they're still fluid and have weight. There are just these awesome moments of motion, like the way he closes his hand around the backpack handle and puts the backpack on, or the way he starts walking towards the thugs. Also a great shot transition when Oxob's friend catches him flying out of the chopper. Really cool camera movements during the nanobot release and the subsequent breakout, like the zoom out to show the guns and the movement when he kicks that one guy down, which has the shot connecting perfectly to the ext shot. You don't always see a respect for direction in animations like this and I really appreciate that. I think that you really have a great sense for momentum and shot connection, but it's hampered somewhat by the slight pauses between actions in different shots. I really do think you could have a pretty unique, fluid, fast pace there that could add a lot to your animations, but you need to shorten some dead space at the ends and beginnings of shots. I don't know, you could try it once and see if you like it better or not. Might look really cool. Nice-looking electricity effects, by the way. The ending didn't look as nice (that green guy walk cycle looked pretty silly) and I think it's okay that it was slow, but it really could have used at least a bit more fluidity.

The fighting is pretty great. I like how Oxob relies on his hands, aka his ability to stop and stop the opponent and throw them off-balance but is threatened by the girl because her speed and staff allow her to easily reverse into a different attack after getting blocked and prevent him from getting to her while she is recovering after getting hit. In the end, though, it's her offensive predisposition that gets her as Oxob finally manages to disarm her. Also, the way he snapped her staff after jamming it in the ground was really fucking badass. The way she actually hit the ground once, trying to keep him away, I suppose, was a nice touch. You're good at strategy and fighting styles for sure. Battle felt well-balanced, didn't turn around as flawlessly as sometimes as Oxob unleashed an extra power or anything, which I really like.

Overall an animation that has a lot of room for improvement, but also an animation with a lot of potential, at least in my opinion. A little more of that action you're so good at and a bit more originality to the story, I'd say it was worth 4 stars. I hope you'll consider at least some of the things I've said because I wanna see you get even better, because I know you can and I hope you'll do some more experimentation. Congrats on venturing out of your comfort zone! I'll have to watch some more of your animations.

[I am 20 now (Animated song)]

Nice animation and I like the imagery with depression. Pretty honest. Music is nice, too, good sound quality and fairly catchy. Has variety, too. I feel like the voice acting at the end was possibly a bit too quiet, as well as the singing at the start.
Overall a fun and well-done but personal video, where the audio and visuals back each other up nicely with some improvable points. Happy birthday!

DIWAKAR responds:

Thanks a lot man.

[Psycho Essence #1 The surviving Dwarf]

That was certainly weird. Pretty interesting in its weirdness, too. It had some coherence and wasn't just randomness. I would have preferred the characters to be spazzing out less when they aren't on the hallucinogen. Just gets a bit repetitive. Some of the effects and backgrounds legitimately looked very cool, like the character transformations, for instance, that of Hubert at the start when he shrivels up and the kids disintegrating at the end.

The actual story itself is quite interesting, but I think it could be a bit less nonsensical in the sense that it just seems like everyone's going to random places and random things are happening, and I don't think it was explained well what the zombie thing was all about, though I think it was an issue of wording in the subtitles. I read it as people losing the ability to hallucinate and losing the ability to become zombies. Still, reading the description, there's way too much weird stuff that you seem to have worked out in your head but that just isn't shown here. Why did they go to the temple? The horse was the father's spirit form??? People weren't turning into zombies because of the hallucinogen but in spite of it?

I'm all for surrealism and surreal stories, but I just think you went overboard with the randomness and weirdness because it can be very hard to tell what's supposed to be happening when stuff is this weird. There were parts of it done right, some really quite atmospheric and impressive-looking things and pretty fun surreal character designs.

Schuschinus responds:

Thanks! 3D animation was new for me, thats why I went full experimental.

Grammar needs something like mathematical parentheses.
1. lose ability to (hallucinate+become zombies)
2. (lose ability to hallucinate)+(become zombies)

The second one is meant. From what I know, LSD lowers the treshold to our subconsciousness and children have naturally a low treshold. So I made this setting, where hallucinations are a sign of a young and healthy mind. People lose this ability, and become zombies because of that. Their physical appearance mirrors their braindead state. They try to heal the zombified people with contagious hallucinogenes, that spread like a counter-plague. But it fails.
The origin of the zombie plague will be further explored in the following episodes.

You can extrapolate, that the father is the horse, because he neighs in the beginning. They go to the temple, because the council is there. But I admit, that I didn´t work out these ideas.

[Zombie Dance]

I love mixed media stuff, so this was really cool. I'm glad I saw this today.
The animation is really, really smooth and the video quality very nice. The increase in filters as the video went on really added to the punctuation of the beat and made for a nice escalation in excitement. Arrangements too, and choreography, definitely cool-looking, real tap-dance number stuff. Visual gags like the falling off of body parts were really nice when they worked with the music.
The concept itself is pretty fun. Dancing zombies. Nothing more, nothing less. I do think it would have been more interesting if some of them (the weird two-limbed ones) were more clearly zombies, I couldn't really tell what was up with them.
The music was really cool, and the sound effect for the feet slapping is so satisfying to listen to. It all came together very well.
Definitely keep it up, I'll be following your account here!