Animation Demo Reel Critique

MissBiankadonk

Hello everyone!

It's time to update the old demo reel so I've been working hard on making new animations to reflect my growth as an animator. This is my first polish pass and I would greatly appreciate some feedback.

slipsius

Well, you've got some good stuff in here, but right away, I would toss your reel aside if I were hiring. Every single piece is listed as WIP. It's as if you never finish pieces. An instant red flag for employers.

As for the animation, like I said. There's some good stuff in there. That said, each piece seems to have the same issues of bad curves and slow in/slow outs. The dance, for instance, there are a bunch of parts where he goes to transfer his weight quickly, and it just feels very linear and, well, quick.  So the timing is off as well. I think you`re really close, but the dance could use more polish, for sure. Go in and really clean up those curves. It's not a fast process, but it's necessary. I think you really could make that piece shine. 

Coming out of the roll is too quick with that body twitch thing happening. he leans forward towards the ground, then really quickly back up again.

The sword attack seems to have a lot of invisible walls. Where the character is moving in a direction, then just stops. no overlap or follow through. Needs more ease in and out. 

The box push. The timing is very even. He's always moving slow. You could make this much more interesting if you sped up the movement between each push. The push should be slow to show the weight, but moving your foot up, that foot shouldnt move slow in mid air. there's nothing slowing it down at that point. Add some variety to your timing. 

Your walk and punch/kick combo are probably your best pieces, and you have them last. They should be first.

Keep pushing! You`re definitely on the right track!

MissBiankadonk

slipsius said:

Well, you've got some good stuff in here, but right away, I would toss your reel aside if I were hiring. Every single piece is listed as WIP. It's as if you never finish pieces. An instant red flag for employers.

As for the animation, like I said. There's some good stuff in there. That said, each piece seems to have the same issues of bad curves and slow in/slow outs. The dance, for instance, there are a bunch of parts where he goes to transfer his weight quickly, and it just feels very linear and, well, quick.  So the timing is off as well. I think you`re really close, but the dance could use more polish, for sure. Go in and really clean up those curves. It's not a fast process, but it's necessary. I think you really could make that piece shine. 

Coming out of the roll is too quick with that body twitch thing happening. he leans forward towards the ground, then really quickly back up again.

The sword attack seems to have a lot of invisible walls. Where the character is moving in a direction, then just stops. no overlap or follow through. Needs more ease in and out. 

The box push. The timing is very even. He's always moving slow. You could make this much more interesting if you sped up the movement between each push. The push should be slow to show the weight, but moving your foot up, that foot shouldnt move slow in mid air. there's nothing slowing it down at that point. Add some variety to your timing. 

Your walk and punch/kick combo are probably your best pieces, and you have them last. They should be first.

Keep pushing! You`re definitely on the right track!

I put the work in progress because I'm passing it around to a few people before I render out the final version to submit as a demo. I wanted to make that clear just in case.

Thank you very much for the feedback. I'm very proud of these animations and I see what you mean with everything you have stated. I will be making another pass over these animations and re-ordering them for the final version.

MissBiankadonk

After much feedback and tweaking and all that good jazz, I've improved the animations as much as I could. Is it better?

slipsius

Big improvement! I really like your rendering style as well. Dont forget your contact info at the start and end!

HeyGafilimore

Great improvement from the first but I feel like the kick in the first animation lacks any force to be a damaging blow. You could try bring it around a little faster and letting the body follow through. I'm sure there's a ton of martial arts reference out there. Also, that staggering walk doesn't really drive home that he's stumbling along. He really needs to catch himself from falling. As it stands right now, I never really feel liek he's about to fall over himself. Other than that, it's coming along great