Demo Reel Feedback
polycounter lvl 3
I recently updated my demo reel and wanted some feedback on it. Is it too long or short? do some of the animation suck? should I take some of them out? these are just some of the things I would like to know. Any other feedback is welcomed. I added the link to my reel below. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Replies
First impressions:
-- The first shot is not bad, though it lacks some urgency both in posing and timing. If you're going for games, I'd make this a bit more aggressive, otherwise it's good as a mechanics piece.
-- The dino piece has some nice touches like the toes splaying to help sell the weight. I think the base rhythm is a bit off though. It looks like a person sneaking, whereas I think a dino's head would be more centered and steady. We can dig into it more if you decide to revisit this piece.
-- The gray guy is looking good. There is some smoothing of arc's pushing the weight, and making poses more dynamic that you can do, but it's not a bad piece.
-- I think if you revisit the orge you could pushing the timing and make the weight feel a lot better wouldn't having to spend too much time. Right now it feels like everything is evenly spaced. Aside from the fact that he could use a bit more side to side translation, I think it's a solid base for a walk that's worth tweaking.
-- The drunken monkey is really cool. Again I think this is worth spending a little more time on to make it really shine! I love seeing the clear difference between the fast and slow motions. Right now some of the fast motions feel like everything is moving on the same keys, so with just a bit of tweaking you could make that feel a bit more natural. Also, doing a pass to keep the feet alive would make a big difference in terms of polish. Feet are so often forgotten that I know people (myself included) who watch a reel through just looking at the feet, to see if attention was paid to all body parts.
-- Flying dragon. Cool. Maybe make it bigger on screen to show of your skills? Unless maybe he looks better looking small and cute. Just and idea.
-- The black background on the run isn't the best. Maybe try that same green from the last shot? I'm not sure if that would be helpful or terrible, but however you decide to fix it, the black shadows on the body are blending with the black background and making it hard to read the poses.
-- The last shot either needs work or should be removed. It doesn't show off a lot of facial anim, and the timing of a few things are off. His hand gesture on "bad" feels a few frames late, and the action with the gun happens out of order. The anticipation for the gun should move to the right, so that when it blasts left it is ripped from the viewers focus, and then the body should be dragged behind the gun. Currently the gun fires, stays still, and the guy moves to screen left.
I would remove the last shot. and then order them something like this: Drunken Monkey, orge, dino, axe guy, dragon, running man, gray guy.
If you're down to revisit some of these, post them individually in syncsketch for better critique, otherwise it's totally fine to decide to just move onto new work.
Hope this helps!