Manderby's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Daughter's Revenge (Tales of Alethrion)]

Incredible animation as usual. An feast for all senses.

I was especially impressed at 15:16. That turn was just splendid. Horrifying yes, but splendid.

Deserves all praises.

[PLONK]

You are not there yet. Although giving credit for making an 8 minute long film around an already oversaturated topic - which is not easy - I still have to be rather critical about this film. Hope you can take this as a hint for further improvement. It's ok, but you seem stuck in a dead end.
Your approach to comedy is being funny by design, meaning, all movements are accompanied by a (stock) sound, all characters are extreme and purely stereotypical, the topic itself is pushing something commonly uneventful to hilarious excitement, which feels like begging for acceptance. Why chosing comedy as the mood at all?
The story is not presented too well and had lots of unnecessary things in it. I as a viewer had to take quite some effort to understand what is going on, what is important, what not. Only until the exclamation mark I understood what the story was all about. The frame story was unnecessary (as it is the same story twice) and not embedded smoothly. Either just keep the caveman story (which is the story where things happen) or give both stories a unique purpose.
Also, you seem to mix up the meaning of reason and purpose. Reason is why something happends and purpose is what the result of that happening is in the end. What was the reason for the termites, the reason for the boss having a tiger face, the reason for the squid? What was the purpose of the elderly man talking in the doorstep, the porpose of spilling coffee? Nothing came out of these actions, no reaction whatsoever.
The elderly man and also for example the (stock) psychodelic sequence do not add any more insight. Instead of a psychodelic sequence, a simple nightmare with the chasing sequence of the stalactite would have sufficed and be much more effective. Instead of the elderly man, why not make the ink-plant a side-character. It's the most funny sequence when the plant coughs, so why wasting this opportunity?
Drawings are sketchy, which by itself would fit perfectly, but they are so sketchy, it borders on lazyness. There is almost no movement, close to no cycles, all just exaggerated still images with (again) stock animation smears for fighting, drawing, running. Camera is most of the time too close, give the viewer some space, some context. Add some panning. A simple quick zoom out to the stalactites falling down onto people whould be funny by itself.
Having the main character basically comprising of nothing than a beard, two eyes, two hands and two feet doesn't help in getting the mood across. This may sound harsh, but you should say goodbye to this character, it is not developable.
All in all, you are not there yet. Your style seems to be limited, almost deadlocked, maybe you fell into the trap to tap yourself onto your shoulder too early some years ago and are now stuck with the same style since (which happens to lots of artists). You seem to use only a narrow band of your full creativity. Open up for more techniques, more experiments. Review your story telling, it all comes down to the viewer being guided into what you want to express.

Chalecus responds:

I can see where your opinion comes from.

And to that I say:

lol

[Casting Call]

If there ever was a comeback...

[Color Stealer 3: Judgement | Stickman Collab]

The initial soundtrack by the way is from the Bossfight "Nosk" from "Hollow Knight", composed by Christopher Larkin.

[Play Attention]

Your animation skills are way above average but you do right to accept some critique. In my opinion, what your animation lacks is intention. Give the viewer more hints about what he has to think of the characters, of the situation. Guide him to expect something and let him be surprised when something unexpected happends. But always do everything with intention. For example the dog walking on two legs was unexpected, but what do you do with it then?

Other than that: Using real audio sound from a dog is a very good choice, it shows (hears). Your rigging is top. The dog-eye-iris are a bit too big, you can barely see them moving. Exaggerate all movements a bit. Make it more clownesque. Also, to give the viewer a hint of what your intention is, maybe add some simple camera panning or shifting (but no handcam effect, that's cheap). This gives the scene more depth (as it is 3D). Also a bit cheap: The "censored" walking cycle of the dog on two legs, might seem clever as it is less work but is disappointing for the viewer, as he wants to see the legs moving. The colors and shapes in the background are very saturated and clean which is more cartoonish than the foreground, which is unusual. Clouds are moving too slow, no leafs falling, no bees flying, the environment is a bit lifeless.

But you are on a very good road. Hence the stars. Keep up the good work!

CelestaleSeeds responds:

Thanks for the detailed critique!! I'm surprised you picked up that much detail, most of what you mention was indeed what I was concerning when making this animation, not to making excuses because I made this all by myself, I wanted to test what is the baseline of detail I needed. you were spot-on on all the issues. You have good eyes!

[Lerygow]

We needed dat.

[CUDDLE PARTY with Cocko and Gallagher]

Consistent Voice acting and perfect animation!
I just didn't get the joke at the end.
Guess, I have to be in Australia to get it.

[Beep & Tweet - Sheridan Animated Short Film]

Superb.

[FALLEN GUYS - (Fall Guys Animation - What Actually Happens When You Die)]

The animation is decent, not really that much of a story though.

Main concern: Might I suggest to cut the whole second half where you advertise yourself. Don't just copy the same thing from YouTube and paste it here, it's off-putting. It means: "I did not gain enough traction on YouTube, hence I just slap the same thing here and see what sticks." Put a little effort into publishing your work on different platforms. If you put a small endscreen with a follow-me-on-different-platforms message, that's perfectly fine. But what you showed here just screamed of desperation. It's a small effort which will help you focus more on content and will lead to more comments and in the end followers here on Newgrounds.

beclet responds:

Thank you for the feedback, I haven't posted on Newgrounds before and it didn't actually cross my mind to change that part. I will next time!

[SUS (an Among Us short)]

This is your first animation? Wow, I see a great cinematic animation future ahead!