Nangbaby's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[2D Walk Cycle]

That is entirely too stiff in the legs (especially that right leg), even for someone who is angry or steamed. If someone is angry, they're going to quick with their moment, but there's also going to be a slight exaggeration. It doesn't look like he's stomping, or briskly walking, but some weird in-between that just looks awkward because it doesn't have enough bounce.

ShadyDingo responds:

Awesome :D Thanks

[Virus Mission: Skyward]

This isn't good, but it isn't awful either.

I will day that I like the sprite flow. It's harder than it looks to sprites to animate properly. While the piece is short, the music and the sound effects are timed well.

There are many things that could be done better. For instance, there is no play button, so the animation loops needlessly. The background, while custom, is very, very bland. Most importantly, though is the lack of context of this piece. In the piece Zero destroys a common enemy, crosses a few platforms, then destroys Slash Beast.

There is potential here, but there has to be more work done to bring it out.

SoulViruz responds:

Yeah doing megaman like animations are hard. I was trying to do something like sousw from youtube did.

[Autism - Inside a Bubble]

A Great Poem and a Great Message

As someone who is not autistic, I have to admit that this piece touched me. While I have occasionally read a news story on autism or watched a piece of mainstream news, not much of what I've taken in has given me an idea of what it feels like to be autistic. To be fair, of course, a Flash video can't do that either, but this movie at least illustrates that mental state with clarity.

What makes this great is that it actually uses the audio as the frame for the visuals, which makes the simplistic graphics effective. The animation may be minimal, but it is well-timed and matches the tone of the piece. By playing to the strength of the poem, the message is not lost under a shiny exterior, but plain and accessible.

PapaQ responds:

Thank you for the Excellent review. Overwhelmed by the Newgrounds response and the number of ASD members on here!

[Milk & OJ Bestest Friends]

Excellent!

Normally, I'm not a fan of "squigglevision"-style animations, but this one was great. While it was short, it was animated and directed very well, and it made a good point. I love it!

Battosai810 responds:

Thanks! Glad you liked it so much and you could see past the Squiggle-vision :)

[That Mean Olde Villain]

Close to silent perfection

It's hard to do a silent movie effectively, since sound is critical to making an animation come to life. However, this was a valiant and successful attempt that went for laughing at the tropes rather than using a silent movie as an excuse not to add anything other than a musical sountrack.

I like the whole grainy, scratched, flawed fim feel, down to the flicker of large blacked out spots. I also like how you used animation to convey effects that would have been impossible for silent films that enliven the movie. The animation appears simple, but like the rather limited effects available in early film it manages to create something more meaningful than overproduced junk. Yet you use it to amp up the unintentioal "cheese" factor of those early films. As a result, this piece not only pays homage to the silent film era, but it also makes fun of lackluster animation techniques and narratives.

If I have to critique something, it's that by 1946, the silent movie was pretty much dead. But the overwhelming majority of this piece is refreshingly wonderful.

DrClay responds:

Yeah, the whole time I was making this, I kept thinking 1946 isn't a good year to say, but for some reason, I wanted to keep it that way. something about those numbers, being put together like that, made me want to keep them in.

thank you so much for your review.

[The Heart and the Hand p1]

Unique

There are so many Flash movies that while wonderfully put together, are as cookie cutter as they come. This is not one of them. One of the things that immediately struck me is the style of art, and the style of animation. The use of tweens was done intelligently in this piece to convey the "drawn" nature of reality, rather than as a cheap shortcut. I love the sun, the other characters, the setting, the rather subdued level of humor...just wow.

My only very minor complaints are that the direction is a little too dynamic (it shows off the nice visuals, but is distracting) and the sound quality of the voices could be a little bettter, but those are nitpicks.

Bobert-Rob responds:

Heh, you noticed the tweens. Yeah, I decided to go ahead and use a few more in this one than I usually do, but like you said, I used them in a way that helps the animation run smoother, not as a crutch of laziness. And yeah, perhaps I was a little too ambitious with the crazy art world I built around this, but it's all good. I may tone down on that a little if I continue to make this after I finish part 2, but we'll see. Thank you for the thorough review, I appreciate it!

[Me And The Present]

A very funny short

The idea of getting a present for a loved one at the last minute is a good one for a short animation, and I love the disalogue and acting in this piece. The art style fit the short perfectly, and overall, this piece won me over with its writing and charm.

My only quibble is that the sound is compressed so much, but I could understand the characters, so it's not a critical error, but one I did notice.

Joonza responds:

Yea, about the sounds, It's kinda pain in the ass, I think. I have to speak to my microphone JUST CORRECTLY. If I speak too quietly, You can't hear it in the flash. If I speak too loud the sound starts to tremble, and that's not good. Ty for the review. :)

[-Tomamoto's The Kingdom-]

Wonderful!

I'm a sucker for "Fractured" fairy tales such as this, and I love the humor in this piece. It's silly enough and unexpected enough for a laugh, but at the same time it takes the appropriate potshots at the genre without being stale. It's well constructed and the perfect length, and the wonderful voice acting brings makes this piece shine! Thumbs up!

FrozenFire responds:

Fantastic Review :) And Yes, The Voice acting was superb. Tomamoto is a Genious.

[Waterlollies]

Well worth the wait...

I cannot say enough wonderful things about this piece. From the deceptively "simple" preloader to the menu buttons, everything about this piece isn't just "great" or even "professional," but just one of a kind.

First of all, the scoring takes your already great work to a level beyond the reach of even the elite Flash artists. Although "the YuYu" was absolutely fantastic example of your art and a score working together, your vision was bound by the constraints of the music. The composition of music here doesn't simply enhance your vision, but it acts as a narrator.

Yet the scoring, as wonderful as it is, is not the best part of the piece. It's the sound balance that makes Waterlollies real instead of fantasy. The sounds themselves act as a Greek chorus. In the hands of a lesser storyteller, score would overwhelm sound or vice versa. But as a director, you weave together both the silences and the sounds in a fashion that flows neatly with the story but never predictable, even when the tale itself has echoes of familiarity. You let the atmosphere and the characters through their actions and voices, turn the animation into a visceral, living thing. This Flash doesn't even seem like a virtual portal into a thriving, fictional world; no, the sound tells us that we *are* there, and that there is no disbelief to suspend.

The direction in this piece isn't just done well, It's done uniquely. Of course, your own style has always shown through in your animation, but you've done well to avoid the easy, predictable "shots." The pacing is simply amazing. Unlike Littlefoot, which spent too much time on setup with too little payoff, this piece engages the audience at every turn, subltly easing the audience into being a participant of this world. It reflects a confidence that was not as strong as in your earlier works. Every detail, from the ripples of the water, to the glistening of the drops, is important.

Of course, it goes without saying that the animation itself is superb, but what I like is not simply the fluidity, but the absolute consistency of the physics. Despite the exaggeration inherent of an animated format, every motion looks real. As a result, the flow of frames carries the weight of the story on its shoulder without overwhelming it.

And that's what I love most about this story. It's a seemingly simple tale that refers to previous chapters of the Brackenwoord series. Yet while its core is deceptively simple, the characters are never simple tropes. The depth is in the details that prevent this from being a by-the-numbers piece.

The composition of the visuals is simply astounding, to the point where I cannot even fashion how it was done in Flash. Yet the menu is simple and unobtrusive. Instead of attempting to be too interactive, it instead lets the movie stand on its own, but is functional and a perfect addition to a well crafted movie such as this.

What else can I say, but this is simply awesome and should be a requirement for any student or hobbyist who would like to create anything in Flash.

chluaid responds:

wow. Thank you :)

[Life of a Dog]

Absolutely wonderful...

This piece is simply a wonderfully visualized take on such a heartbreaking story. Paced well, told well, animated well, and compressed well, my only complaint is that the sound quality could have been better. Still, the style in this Flash movie really shines.

Virgilcomic responds:

Thanks. Sorry for the poor audio.