CrimsonKero's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sally and the Cup]

== Good, but still within Horny Jail territory ==
Score: 6 | Certified Critic Review

TW: This is a piece of criticism which points out the goods and bads of this submission.
Don't let the negative reactions fool you into thinking I'm some braindead gatekeeping hater. I've suffered through worse!

Here, a Betty Boop-esque woman drinks out of a cup, but it's Cuphead, so she's predictably shocked and throws him away, but not before taking another sip after the fact. The drink was fine before you threw it away. Also riddle me this.

As usual, the animation is clean, fluid, if not a little risqué. Animators would NEVER get away with making something like this in the good ol' 1930s. It might be too close to pandering. Newgrounds prefers if you make stuff a little more original and a little less fetishizing (at least not in the A rated section). Ever wondered why this isn't on the front page? This is probably why.

Also, this is only 24 seconds long, which is still pretty low for NG standards, but it's the longest cartoon you submitted here this year, so you're getting there.
Friendly reminder that it is not expected for one guy to be able to put out the same amount of effort in an animation as an entire TV studio with dozens of workers. It's physically impossible. On the web, it's OK to sacrifice a little bit of quality in order to quicken the process if it means a longer animation (ie. 30 seconds is bare minimum, 1-2 minutes or more is generally preferred, and bonus points for 3 minutes or higher.)

Graphics: 10 | Sound: 8 | Writing: 6 | Length: 5 | Style: 10 | Pandering: 8

[The Sergio Show Episode #258]

== This is garbage ==
Overall Score: 4

OK, it appears this "successful and Long-Running Animated Cartoon Series", after 14 years, you only managed to get 320 subscribers on YouTube and 80 here, and I think I figured out why.
It is a crap series. No seriously! In this episode Sergio (or specifically an evil version of him) is literally surrounded with a pile of garbage for 3 minutes and builds a portal. This could've been cut down to just 30 seconds, or at the very least each scene could be half the length and it wouldn't be compromised in any way

That 'Wastiest LAND!' sign appears for 7 seconds? Try 2-3 seconds
0:53, the garbage structure is built and falls apart is 18 seconds. Can be conveyed in only 5 seconds.
1:11. Evil Sergio takes 4 seconds scratching his head before biting into the biscuit and chews for more than 4 seconds.

As for the visuals, also shit. The garbage pieces use very crude outlines and overuse an ugly gradient, Sergio's skin outlines are thinner than his clothes, and it's still a motion tween, just like you did in 2008, and utilising basic shapes. It doesn't feel like it's been hand-drawn, it feels very artificial and it just doesn't look good. Even LegendaryFrog, for as infamous as he was, was able to make better tweening animations in 2002.

His elbows also bend backwards in 0:43.

TIPS:
Try learning some actual drawing and animation techniques. It shouldn't be hard to find courses or resources on this subject. It's OK to take a little break in order to learn something new.

Oh and also try to fix up your pacing and not pad out episodes for time.

The series itself also feels very choppy. Try using a higher framerate. 24 frames per second is a good benchmark, although 30 is better suited for most video displays. As for the rigging, try some faster movements and ease in and out when needed (that is slow down during the start or end of a movement. For Flash, they're called motion tweens, but it might be called something different if you're using a different software)

~frog~
Graphics: 4 | Sound: 6 | Pacing: 2 | Style: 3 | Entertainment: 5

[When you skip NPC dialogue]

== Same! ==
Overall Score: 6

It appears that EBSynth was used to make this animation, much like animator Joel Haver on YouTube. It's pretty much an experimental AI-driven form of rotoscoping where you draw one (or eight) keyframes and let the software generate new outlines and fills for the rest of the frames. You get smooth and realistic motions every frame, but it does get really messy the more you move. Thankfully not much movement is used here, so there's not much corruption here.

It also appears that this video is based on the same type of subject matter Joel covers or has covered, ie. video game NPCs. But then again, Joel himself acknowledges that this will happen:
" It's okay to steal my style outright, imitation is flattery and the greatest jumping off point for finding your own style."

Also, while writing this review I discovered that Goat-on-a-stick has a YouTube channel with 170k subscribers. And no it hasn't dwindled, videos still get 200k-1M views each, which is close to Joel's own videos with this method.
https://www.youtube.com/c/GoatonaSticksAnimations
Keep that in consideration before watching or voting, as his heart is in YouTube and not in Newgrounds. He also hadn't linked his Newgrounds page anywhere where I could easily find it, so nobody has noticed that he's on here.

~frog~

Graphics: 6 | Sound: 7 | Originality: 4 | Style: 8 | Humor: 7

[MOISTUREPALOOZA]

== I think this is a little overrated ==
Overall Score: 5

I got some entertainment in this, a lot of funny jokes and writing, but you'd have to be able to stomach those really messy graphics.
I see the appeal in this style, but I feel this could've been drawn better, like, a lot better. I've seen the stuff you've done on the Art Portal in both 2D and 3D and those are great. You could've showed off your A tier shading skills here, but here, it looks like baby's first FlipaClip drawing.

Also Bruce sounds good enough, but according to @jthrash, you could've easily done that yourself, rather than hiring someone else with more recognition than yourself (which I had no idea until after you released it). To be fair, the people behind South Park have hired big name celebrities to do minor sound contributions such as hiring George Clooney to voice Stan's dog, and I see where you're going here.

Graphics: 4 | Sound: -69 | Length: 7 | Slides: 8 | Style: 10 | Humor: 8

[Lez-Bozos in 3-D!]

== OMG 3D! ==
Overall Score: 7

Nice to see some 3D here, but in my opinion, most of it is pretty stiff, even the little creepy crawlies, ie. not really animated. Also Brianne and Leslie almost sound like their 2005 incarnations

For anyone who doesn't know, the characters here are Brianne and Leslie, a lesbian couple created by Keith Stack, aka @Keith2002, who despite his recent legacy as a comic artist on Twitter, created the characters a long long time ago, with their earliest incarnations appearing in the flash "Wacky Lesbian Hour: Ep 1", which was submitted to Newgrounds in 2005.
https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/266810

SUGGESTED IDEAS:
Maybe some lip-syncing. and/or some captions.

Graphics: 8 | Sound: 8 | Length: 4 | Movement: 5 | Style: 10 | Humor: 8