ShangXian's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pico Vs Nene Part 2]

Every time I see the mother with the child I burst out laughing because: 1) the mother reminds me of a Karen, 2) they remind me of an American tourist I saw, when I visited Pompei, who was using a leash to keep her son at bay and under control. I was sto WTF??? the first time I saw it and apparently it's a thing there, lol.

I love how in the first seven seconds of the animation the mother looks unbothered by the chase, she didn't even notice that someone is running from another person trying to kill him XD. This speaks volume on her attention level in case her son gets lost. I like the slightly blurred background behind Nene at 00:10, it gives a depth feeling. I still remember the first part of Pico Vs Nene and I can see the improvement in both fluidity of animation, use of shading and more dynamic movements. The level of enjoyment is always the same: quite high and enjoyable.

It's interesting that here Pico doesn't use his Mac-10 UZI, unlike the official FNF cutscene, but prefers to defend himself but it's understandable since Nene had taken them away with that knife attack in the first video. In the first video I liked the use of your sona as a bystander in the final shot as way to represent a continuation of the first part. And now we can see it in its fully-fledged version.

Even though the combat animation seems a bit stiff at times (00:41) overall it does a great job of conveying the physicality of combat. It makes you feel every single blow, slash and parry with your eyes. I liked how at 00:51 the animation gives you the impression that Nene is about to win but then the change of angle shows that luckily Pico dodged the blow, saving himself. Lol, the silhouette of Pico at 00:59 was funny.

I like how the video combines seriousness with silliness typical of these characters XD

Nice reference to the original cutscene where Pico runs away from Nene and bumped into something or someone like in this case. I admit I thought it was Darnell when I saw him colliding with the black boy. Nene's face at 01:15 is absolutely priceless and creepy in her cartoony look, nice use of lights and shadows. The change in attitude when she saw the bottle of soda is beautiful, it shows well how FNF Nene is highly dangerous, funny but it's also better to stay away from her if you rub her the wrong way.

The music choice is spot on and I loved the most the music battle and the song when Nene enjoyed the sprite with Pico. The black guy is more than right to be pissed off, I would have reacted the same way but then I couldn't help but to laugh at seeing Nene's reaction again. Rest in peace, guy. I felt bad for him.

I loved this continuation of the first part and how it ended, minus the poor guy's death XD, I hope next time Pico doesn't drink last sprite and shares it with Nene. Great job, cool animation, nice musical pieces and congrats for the Daily Feature! Keep it up!

ZenUnique responds:

I Really appreciate you for writing all of this. Makes me really Happy to see how much you enjoyed it! Thank you SO MUCH!

Also the main reason pico didn't use his"Mac-10 UZI" is because in the first part he had dropped them in the house.

[Fish - Animation Test]

This is a really lovely animation and I want to inaugurate my 100th review by sharing my two cents on this. I like how fluid animation is, the overall ambience and simple but funny plot. When I first read the title I thought about a simple fish animation with no plot but then I was glad to be wrong. I enjoyed it despite its short duration. I like how the small, little, yellow fish manages to outsmart the bigger fish. A thing I loved the most, along with the story, was the background. It gives me strong watercolours vibes and ooohhh, I notice the animation was made with Krita! Amazing, I have Krita but I never animated with it. Maybe a day I might, how knows but back to the movie.

The way the fish moves and swims around gave me, in a way, those Chinese animated movies from the 70-80s feel which are truly work of art, theater set in motion and I sense something similar in this work too. I am rewatching the animation over and over. I don't know if Krita allows the addition of sounds though. The only reason why I gave 4 stars instead of 4.5/5 was simply the lack of sound BUT I think that in an experimental piece like this, even this lack is an addition because it allows the mind of the viewer to create his/her/their own mental sound that fills the musical "void". I personally didn't create any mental sound, I wanted to enjoy the creation the way it is. The fish design is adorable and fits him perfectly even from a chromatic aspect since yellow has interesting meanings.

In the West, yellow is not a well-loved color. In a year 2000 survey, only 6% of respondents in Europe and America named it as their favorite color, compared with 45% for blue, 15% for green, 12% for red, and 10% for black. For 7% of respondents, it was their least favorite color. Yellow is considered a color of ambivalence and contradiction. It is associated with optimism and amusement, but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy. However, in China and other parts of Asia, yellow is a color of virtue and nobility.

In the context of this animation yellow has a clear positive semantics which contrasts with the purple colour of the menacing, predatory fish. I love how the little fish turns around at 00:02, it melts my heart the level of cuteness of the movements. Plus I've noticed the shape manipulation of the fish's movements, great choice to enhance the dynamism and natural movements. It gives a more realistic vibe despite the minimalist style of both design and swimming way. I also noticed how the shape bending and twisting, during the movement sequences (i.e. always at 00:02 when the fish encounters the predator or a 00:05 when the predator opens the mouth and the fish looks in horror), give an added value in the emotional characterization of the protagonists of the story. I laughed and loved at 00:07 when the 'lil fish looks at the bigger one with a smile/smug on his face; it's adorable and funny at the same time.

Usually smaller fish live in big schools where they swim in the same direction in a coordinated manner and take advantage of the egoistical geometry group (you hope that you neighbour gets eaten first instead of you and the more you are, the higher chances are that you don't get caught), but in this short animation we see the resourcefulness of the little guy, who takes advantage of his smaller size (faster) and intelligence (he outsmart him and mocks him), winning over his danger. At the end the fish even manages to kick him off, saving his own life.

Really cool job, I hope more people will appreciate this^^ keep it up!

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EDIT 13/03/2025:

I raised the score to 4.5 after reading that the lack of sound was intentional since the project didn't need it.

I'm glad I made your day, keep it up. I would like to see other animations of yours!

DamianBaezArt responds:

Woah thank you so much for your review! You made my day!

This was a project for college, a simple animation. It didn't need sound. I don't think Krita can add sound, but I would add it on adobe Premiere if I have to. It was my first attempt at animation. I shared it to upload something in my profile, but I didn't expect someone to notice it!

I'm glad you liked it and thanks for taking your time to give me a review!

[Moss ball [GIF]]

Animation is very simple since it is a moss bouncing up and down on a white screen. I assume this is more like a test animation than an animation per se. I wonder which program did you use, just curious nothing more. The reason why I gave 2.5 is mainly due to the fact the moss is coloured and stands out nicely the white background. Maybe a shading would have made it even more appealing to the eye. If it wasn't coloured my vote would have been 2.00 and judging by the date you published it you reached a blammability level since at that time movies and games got blammed with a score inferior to 1.75. Now the the blam threshold has been raised from < 1.75 to < 2.00, meaning that now animations like this are more likely to be blammed.

If you want some tips about how to avoid future blams this old but good article points out some key points: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/65873#bbspost957090_post_text

Sadly besides the bouncing effect and the sound of moss which add a bit of detail, there is no much to say since there is no plot or story that allows me to give more contribution to this review. But fear not I know you are exploring this fascinating yet intimidating world that is animation, so I give you this playlist about animation tutorials made by NG users, it's very useful for people like you who want to explore animation: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/tutorials/animation-tutorials

As tips I may give you here some:

-remember to upload the highest quality version you can within the website upload limits specified on the upload form, and if you need to compress your work, NG suggests HandBrake: https://handbrake.fr/

You can select the 1080p Fast preset, then set quality to 18 (the lower the better but 18 is considered pretty lossless) and VerySlow for encoding speed, if you have the time.

Here the screenshot made by Tom Fulp that illustrates what I said: https://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/6b249fb16b5d5019e7b77b9c566b93c6

-if you are setting a bitrate for your work, NG suggests 40-50 Mbps for 3840 x 2160, 10-20 Mbps for 1920 x 1080 and 5-10 Mbps for 1280 x 720. Adjust and review your results.

-as for audio it's best recommended lossless audio like FLAC or ALAC, but if you encode your audio, always NG suggests the AAC codec which is default in HandBrake, and a 192 kbps bit rate for the best quality.

If you need 2D animation software there are some free options available such as:

-Krita
-OpenToonz
-Wick Editor
-Synfig

These are the ones I know sadly. Of course there are forum threads about animation so in case you want to learn more feel free to explore them as well. There is the potential to make interesting animations so don't feel discouraged by my review or initial difficulties in the learning curve of animation. Keep it up.

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UPDATE review:

ooooh, that's interesting, I didn't know you used Flip a clip as software, nice job since most Flip a Clip animations look a bit rigid and wonky, this one is very fluid and natural compared to those I've seen across the site. Nice job.

Scudlez responds:

If you want to know what app I'm using for animation, it's FlipaClip. By the way, thanks for the review, I know my animation isn't that good ( cause I've been practicing animation since October-November 2024) but I will take the advice from you and keep it in mind. Thank you !