sweet21 2010-08-08 23:41:13

Awww man, i do not have a whole lot to help you with there :(

Naota 2010-08-13 01:59:05

I don't have anything either but keep up the good work buddy! Im rooting for you. =P

scartheatre 2010-08-15 18:30:10

Your number one question is what baffles/kills/gets me the most... I've made a point of getting down to the bottom of this line smoothing tomfoolery and will let you know what I find when I find it.

One thing I've noticed about the in-betweens of lots of lip syncing is that a lot of artists actually motion tween their already symbol'd mouths to different sizes to a place that'll make smooth the transition from the first mouth to the next. Like, instead of using your "O" symbol mouth to go straight to the character closing their mouth (like if they were just getting done saying "Jell-O"), they tween the "O" symbol mouth from its regular state to a flatter, thinner, oval shape that looks like the straight "closed mouth" symbol before replacing the "O" with the "closed mouth." I feel that this method has it's limits (especially if a character is talking very quickly), but you can learn something from it if you haven't experienced it before.

And one thing I always tell myself when trying to determine how my motion will work out is that squash and stretch is key. I've always thought it was bullshit how many times a teacher will mention that goddamned convention, but it really is the basis for all motion (any sort of wind-up before action is inherently realistic).

The linework problem is out of my league, but I'd recommend looking into some popular animation books (like "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams) and maybe taking a class on 2D animation! Although they'll slap you with basics in a class, you can always take the teacher aside and ask for more specialty help, and it's always good to have someone remind you that squash and stretch is God! I need to go through some animation technique books myself; when I first started with Flash, I was too concentrated on learning the interface and not focused enough with how motion works :P

But hey, it's amazing to hear that someone who does work as well as you do wants to IMPROVE. I would have never guessed that you felt you had problems with lineweight and motion by the way your Roll Call submissions turned out (Cookie Monster's eyes rolling back into spaciness after he puts his hand down gets me every time).

Can't wait to see you become a Newgrounds all star, and I anticipate the next time we fall into a collaborative effort together!

Jom 2010-08-17 18:37:01

You should make tuts for us ur great :D

Jom 2010-08-18 11:48:54

yeah but your already great at animation :D