Let's talk about GEOweasel again!

[bunji]

BUNJI'S A GUY!?

Indeed I am. Where/when did you get the picture that I wasn't?

My guess would be your feminine avatar.

Actually, that's a pretty good point. But I like my wiggling heart, so I'm going to keep it to confuse members forever.

[Nar]

Yeah, I also thought you were a girl up until that sound clip because of the avatar. I didn't want to go and say anything though because I didn't want to offend you or look like a moron. But now that it's been brought up, I don't feel so bad!

[Asok]

Why not try a kazoo for the higher-pitched parts? Or for the whole thing. Hey, that's an idea...I'll be back later with the kazoo'd theme...in a couple of hours. I need to get a kazoo!

[Fat_guy1]

Whatever happened to GEO Weasel?

[Nar]

Whatever happened to GEO Weasel?

There'll be a new episode tonight. I've been working on different things for season 2 and I started #9 on Saturday. It's not as simplistic as the first season, so they're not weekly anymore. It's a bit more like MGR, but still less animation. I'm getting used to it, so it's not very "clean" at times, but it'll get better. But like I said, tonight. Probably around 6:30.

[The Orignal Banana]

I love these cartoons. You have a good sense of humor, and interesting characters to boot. I also like your drawing style, as it matches the humor very well. Keep at it.

EDIT: For some reason I'm not able to watch any of the cartoons. When I click on a link nothing happens at all.

[Nar]

EDIT: For some reason I'm not able to watch any of the cartoons. When I click on a link nothing happens at all.

That's odd, never heard of anyone with that problem...
Well, if you can't get to the actual page with the episode on it, you can use these urls:

Episodes 1 to 4
mindmush.net/geow/geowX.html
Episodes 5+
mindmush.net/geow/gwX.html
(replace X with the episode number)

However, if you can get to the page and can't view the files, something may be wrong with your Flash player, or it may be outdated. You can get a new one at macromedia.com.
Hope this was any help to you.

[Fat_guy1]

Are you going to practice making everybody not small again?


Also, have you begun to finish Brains Are Smart?

[Xenon]

Are you going to practice making everybody not small again?

Hmm, the characters do tend to look to small in comparison to the flash dimensions, it was definatly something I thought while watching episode 9.

Congrats on the daily 3rd, Nar.

[Sir Lemming]

I like the new episode. Some really funny parts. The new drawing style needs some work, of course. Overall I can tell it'll be better eventually, but for the moment, the paintbrushing looks kind of sloppy. Lots of jagged edges.

[Nar]

Are you going to practice making everybody not small again?

Hmm, the characters do tend to look to small in comparison to the flash dimensions, it was definatly something I thought while watching episode 9.

Congrats on the daily 3rd, Nar.

Yeah, I'm aware of this. It takes me some getting used to but there should be less...blank space in the coming epsidoes. I was thinking the same thing when I was watching another cartoon this morning and I actually said to myself, "How come I have more blank space and background than characters? Especially since my backgrounds suck." So I'll work on that. However, Fat Guy, if you meant smaller as in shorter compared to previous designs, I think they look better shorter.
And the daily 3rd actually became a daily 2nd because the one that was in 1st ended up being something submitted in the past and was blammed. Yeah, I got 2nd by default, but it's still 2nd!

The new drawing style needs some work, of course. Overall I can tell it'll be better eventually, but for the moment, the paintbrushing looks kind of sloppy. Lots of jagged edges.

I'm aware of this too. I started out using the smallest brush size and while it looked okay normally, when the camera zooms in, it's, like you said, jagged and sloppy. So I went back and forth between the first and second brush sizes and decided to use the second one, which is smoother, and also just redraw the characters on zoom-ins.

[Sir Lemming]

That brush can definitely be troublesome. I'm still figuring that out myself. If you were to zoom in on some of the stuff in that Weirdos short (which was almost all paintbrush, to give the shapeshifters a gooey look), it'd look pretty awful. Especially when I used the tablet and the pressure-sensitive feature.

[Fat_guy1]

Nar, allow me to ask you a very serious question: Do you have a tablet? If not, get one. It will be the third best 200 dollars you've ever spent.

[Nar]

Nar, allow me to ask you a very serious question: Do you have a tablet? If not, get one. It will be the third best 200 dollars you've ever spent.

Yes, I have one, but sometimes if I don't draw fast, the lines get a little sloppy. And I only spent 100 dollars!

[Fat_guy1]

Only 100 dollars? Must be only a 4x5! Ha-ha!

[The Decapitated Mole]

Nah, I just ordered mine for 140 and it's a 9x12. You just gotta know the right places to buy [hint: PC Connections]. Meh.

Anywho, good episode, if a little sloppy. You should totally try using the pencil, it's great. I used it for old man jenkins, and I got my highest score ever on newgrounds! [a solid 2.11, but I'm not complaining]. Funnier than a bunch of the past episodes, the show's definitely improving. Can't wait for the next episode, although I'm kinda sad that it's not gonna be weekly anymore. Keep it up!

o_0
jimm

[Nar]

Anywho, good episode, if a little sloppy. You should totally try using the pencil, it's great. I used it for old man jenkins, and I got my highest score ever on newgrounds! [a solid 2.11, but I'm not complaining]. Funnier than a bunch of the past episodes, the show's definitely improving. Can't wait for the next episode, although I'm kinda sad that it's not gonna be weekly anymore. Keep it up!

I don't really like using the pencil tool. True, it does make it look neater, but even if you have it on smooth or ink setting, it adjusts the lines to the way it wants it. The brush is a lot more freestyle. The next episode will probably look much better, even if it's not perfect.
As for them not being weekly, they're going to be close to weekly, there's just not a regular update day. In fact, since I want to finish up episode 8, that may be out before Thursday, giving everyone two episodes within one week's time.

[Sir Lemming]

The tablet actually often results in the squiggly-looking paintbrush strokes. The mouse is just harder to use and results in the too-straight stuff.

And I got my 6x8 (or so) tablet for about $50 used. And I don't see the need for anything bigger, but that's just me, although it may be other people too, by coincidence. But if you go bigger it can be harder to, like, fill the screen.

[Brandon Clark]

sometimes if I don't draw fast, the lines get a little sloppy.

That's why you click the smooth button. Only drawback is you gotta be careful with it or else it makes things too thin so that it erases some parts of the lines, but you can always go back and edit it to perfection. It also takes 10 times longer. But looks 10 times better.

Also I noticed at alot of points characters were needlessly redrawn. If you're trying to do 100% fbf then why were there only like 2 different camera angles in the whole show? You might as well make some stock symbols of the characters at a typical 3/4 view. You also may wan't to try animating some actual lip sync. And.. You need voice actors.

Graphics aside I did think this was sort of boring. It felt very streched out, and I didn't care for what the characters said or did. Except at one point where three of them are in a camera room making fun of themselves when suddenly the dumb guy bursts out with a slam on anime. Why can't all lines be funny and spontaneous like that? (Not all the time of course but more freqently, you know what I mean)

Now on a totally differnet subject, Wade Fulp, or whoever picks the front page submissions has been drunk for like the past few months. How the hell would he choose to showcase "Work it With Wario" over something that kinda NEEDS exposure? (And got daily 2nd).

[McBean]

The more efficient way to smooth your lines is to click the edit multiple frames button (which is near the onion skin), onion skin all those suckers, select all of them, and then smooth.
Be careful though, selecting too many frames at once could cause a slowdown or crash.

[Nar]

That's why you click the smooth button. Only drawback is you gotta be careful with it or else it makes things too thin so that it erases some parts of the lines, but you can always go back and edit it to perfection. It also takes 10 times longer. But looks 10 times better.

Also I noticed at alot of points characters were needlessly redrawn. If you're trying to do 100% fbf then why were there only like 2 different camera angles in the whole show? You might as well make some stock symbols of the characters at a typical 3/4 view. You also may wan't to try animating some actual lip sync. And.. You need voice actors.

Graphics aside I did think this was sort of boring. It felt very streched out, and I didn't care for what the characters said or did. Except at one point where three of them are in a camera room making fun of themselves when suddenly the dumb guy bursts out with a slam on anime. Why can't all lines be funny and spontaneous like that? (Not all the time of course but more freqently, you know what I mean)

For the...unsmooth lines, I'll go and try that. I've done it a couple times in the past, and like you said, clicking that smooth button one too many times can sort of screw up the line or erase it completely. I have no excuse for that anyway because it's not like I've never done this before or didn't know the smooth button existed.

As far as redrawing and camera angles go, this wasn't the kind of episode I could really showcase or practice any of that stuff with. This was meant to be one of the old ones with the old designs, but I decided to go ahead and start the frame-by-frame. Next episode, however, does give me a lot more of a chance to do more angles, backgrounds, animation segments, etc., because the episode is really more action-based. I mean, there's humor, of course, but it's an action episode. So that'll give me a great opprotunity to toy with what you're talking about.

The thing is though, I'm not trying to be some professional animator and cartoonist. I'm really just trying to entertain, whether it be with humor, action, animation, or...tampon-eating...whatever genre that may fall into. Don't get me wrong, I care about quality, I'm just not going to go all out and make some super-awesome tons of shading and gradients with constant animation cartoon. And after all, I am "some punk kid who has better things he should be worrying about," but I do hope to get into the animation business and this is just something to practice, I guess you could say. Something to hone my skills and to showcase. Don't think I'm just blowing off your advice, though; I enjoy getting comments like that because rarely do people tell me how to make my work better. My forum is about 99% "OMG ur awxsome lolol!! make mor!" and that just gives the general idea that I'm doing everything right. And I know I'm not. But yes, thank you for the advice, I'll try to apply it to future episodes.

[Scythemantis]

I don't like the pencil tool either, and also started out using the tiniest brush tool. I went back and re-did all my main characters with thicker lines before working on my piloty thing, and am very glad I did. I just draw with an optical mouse and the third-from-smallest brush tool while zoomed way in. I have to scroll all over the place to draw a whole character, but it comes out super smooth.

Episode 9 was quite funny. Something about the way "NOW DIE!" and "remember that time you...did?" were voiced really cracked me up. Your characters are really likeable.

Have you tried holding your mic more to the side of your head instead of in front, though? If the mic volume is set right it'll work just as good and won't pick up those little puffs of breath when you make a "p" sound. That's all I got in the way of nitpicking, on account of I suck. I bet you've even gotten the same nitpick before, you two-timing TEASE.

I don't really know what I'm saying anymore.

[Nar]

Have you tried holding your mic more to the side of your head instead of in front, though? If the mic volume is set right it'll work just as good and won't pick up those little puffs of breath when you make a "p" sound. That's all I got in the way of nitpicking, on account of I suck. I bet you've even gotten the same nitpick before, you two-timing TEASE.

That actually is what I do. Most of the time. Sometimes I stop paying attention and end up speaking directly into it. But most of the time it's on its side. However, now I'm on someone else's computer, and he has an infinitely better sound card than I do, so listening to the episodes, I can hear more of those puffs of breath than I can hear on my own computer. However, some of them I do hear. I usually end up doing several takes and if I still have that little puff in the seventh or eighth take, I get annoyed and just move on.

[Sir Lemming]

A simple lint screen, man... that's all it takes. I don't THINK they cost a lot. I didn't actually buy mine, but a little disposable rag you find in the laundry room can't cost much... right?

I kinda keep wondering if there's something I don't know about this method, some reason that even Matt Wilson apparently doesn't use it... ...but my results have been great, so I dunno what to think.

EDIT: Here's a little experiment I did. There's obviously a lot of margin for error since I could have delivered the lines differently in each case, but...
without lint screen
with lint screen
Both are filtered/mastered through the same methods; the only real difference is the lint screen.


Actually, I'm probably using incorrect terminology when I say "lint screen". What I'm referring to is... Dryer machines have these things in them that catch lint, and when it gets too much lint on it, you use this little cloth type of thing to clean the lint off. But it is a hard cloth.
"Lint screen" is probably what you call the thing inside the dryer... I don't know what the cloth itself would be called, exactly.

[Brandon Clark]

Or you can just get a headset + cooledit pro. I seriously doubt anyone needs to do high quality caliber recording. (Seeing as how many people don't really have a stereo setup but I could be wrong meh) And even if you do there are voice actors you can leech from.