Taken from user Cinnabees:
Guys, I keep seeing that post going around about putting uncooked spaghetti noodles in your tablet pen to work as replacement nibs, and I know OP means well and stuff, but PLEASE DON’T DO THAT.
Pasta, no matter how smooth it is, is still a product of dry flour, and rubbing it down on a surface creates micro-sized grit that will scratch up your screen faster than any tablet nib, and they wear down even faster, so it won’t even be worth it. Also, it’s so brittle, if it breaks inside the pen, it will be difficult to clean it out.
Tablet nibs are a pain to replace and buy, but buying a 10 pack of them for $7-8 on Amazon is going to be a better choice than having to pay a heftier sum to repair a scratched up tablet surface/screen.
Spread this post if you can, because I’d really hate to see someone accidentally damage their tablets this way.
I’m launching a beta program which is basically an email list with access to goodies like advanced previews for future social media posts, exclusive content and similar stuff.
If you’re interested, click the link below and sign up!
http://eepurl.com/cA7R7r
For more about my comic, here’s a recap:
The story is basically a re-imagined Beauty and the Beast/Red Riding Hood story. Set in a steampunk-esque world in the Philippines during the Spanish Regime.
So like a Spanish lady in a strained marriage with her husband also shares a wolf curse with him and both have long since given up on breaking it with “True Love”. Everyday, Rosa and her husband wear their enchanted red shawl and scarf, respectively, to keep themselves human during the day, until the moon takes over and turns them into wolves at night. They’re in hiding in a little town off the coast of Palawan.
Until their eccentric, animal-loving Filipino neighbor, Bella, starts to grow suspicious of the wolves that keep harassing her animals and then hiding in the neighboring land. Her nosiness with trying to find out more about the wolves leads to a budding friendship between Rosa and Bella. This friendship shows Rosa a different perspective on her life and a path that could lead to breaking her curse.
tl;dr:
Rosa is stuck in a crappy relationship and finds solace with a friendship with her neighbor. Also werewolves. And ladies loving and supporting ladies.
To place your order, simply send an email to [email protected]. Put what you want in the subject line, and tell me about your character and send me references I can work with.
My paypal email is a different email so contact me first before trying to send the downpayment.
Once it’s done, you can send over the remaining payment then use it for whatever you want as long as you don’t profit from it or take credit for it.
Aaand that should be about it. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to message me or email me and I’ll get back to you asap :)
Basically a style test for my comic, to see how I fare with the art direction I’m trying to use, have a short minicomic of Luca completely forgetting what she was supposed to do in the first place, loosely based on the experiences of someone I know.
Ideally, this could be part of a miniseries I could work on while developing the main comic in which the Noxamus characters get into all kinds of shenanigans revolving around being werewolves, vampires, witches and elves with combinations of their various illnesses and sexualities.
For more about Noxamus, please check out this post
Got prompted by someone for this meme and I can’t remember who it was oops oTL
Anyway yeah.
“So tonight,” Clio put her hand on Luca’s waist, pulling her closer until their bodies would start making contact as they swayed to the music. “I have my hair up and you have yours down. A bit of a funny thing, isn’t it?”
Feeling Clio’s body so close, inhaling her sweet scent, Luca had to catch her breath and struggle to compose herself. “If it’s so funny,” Luca noted Clio’s red ears and flushed cheeks, “Why are you blushing instead of laughing?”
Clio bit her lip and looked away, shifting self consciously and bunching up the folds of skirt she’d been holding. “I’m nervous, alright?”
“I’m nervous, too.” It was like her stomach was twisting itself into knots and Luca was so used to this feeling preceding an attack (and then a full-blown werewolf transformation dear god) that it was actually frightening. Hopefully Clio wouldn’t notice how clammy the hand on her shoulder was.
And God why did she have to be so tall? The witch (technically she literally is one, much to the disapproval of the majority of the werewolves and vampires in this gym), she was in converse. Luca on the other hand was in heels and still a lot shorter. It was a wonder Clio didn’t strain her neck looking down at Luca so much.
“Your mind’s gone wandering off again, hasn’t it?” Clio was smirking. “Where’d it go this time, dearie?”
Luca felt her ears and cheeks heating up and it was difficult to resist the urge to touch them and be way too obvious about how self conscious she was feeling. To occupy her free hand, Luca took Clio’s and intertwined their fingers. “It was just noting how tall you are and if you ever get any neck pains from looking down at me.”
“Looking down at you?” Clio pursed her lips and squinted, as if thinking about it. “Naw, not really?”
“Oh?”
Those pursed lips widened into a smile. “This though, maybe.”
“Wh-” Luca was caught off guard mid-question as Clio bent down to give a kiss.
For more about the Noxamus project, you could check out this tag.
It’s basically a school for vampires and werewolves.
In Manila.
They live in a compound wherein above ground, we’ve got several gothic buildings that serve as a school for young werewolves and vampires to get the hang of their abilities. Underground is a network of dormitories, units, common rooms and open areas where werewolves and vampires of varying ages can live and socialize.
Now who are the two nerds in the photoset up top? That would be Luca and Clio.
Luca is a smol gay. Like… she is an awkward little thing. She likes to talk but gets scared of talking too much. She likes asking people questions and telling them stories but worries about coming off too pushy or sounding really boring. She likes to write but hates her penmanship. So she types, then hates her words.
After a pretty messy breakup with an abusive ex, Luca’s just barely managed to recover. She’s made it about a month, staying clean, no drinking, no attacks, no (TRIGGER WARNING) self harm. Her brother is very encouraging over the course of the struggle.
She and her twin brother Leon, have ADHD to deal with as well.
(lol outdated art)
But yeah. They’ve both got ADHD to deal with, it’s just that Luca’s developed a side dish of anxiety and Leon’s had to pick out depression. Also Leon is also a tiny gay.
Luca and Leon are of Filipino-Chinese descent. Their full-Filipino father is a doctor and their full-Chinese mother owns and runs a coffee shop.
How does Clio come into the picture?
Clio is a witch/wisp kind of creature. (Her creature design I still have to work on, but her human design is idk Natalie Dormer’s nose and jaw with Meghan Ory’s cheekbones and eyes. And Merida’s hair.)
She’s a little shy, and not doing too well at school, partly due to her dyslexia, partly due to her sister. Her pastimes are videogames and skateboarding.
Now due to some family dramu, she gets sent to live in the Philippines with an older sister (who is totes poly and is into some kinks but guh no character design for her yet)
Clio goes to basically the Witch/Wisp and Elf/Nymph version of Noxamus. It’s a school and sanctuary for creatures of the day. Cue local dudebros trying to ask her out. One of them is a pushy and entitled noodle.
He won’t butt out until this dude comes into the picture and helps Clio turn it into a group friend date.
(not final design yet lol omg)
Max is a trans dude elf who is still half in and half out of his closet, but he knows who he is and who he wants to be. And he wants to be a good kinda dude, so he sticks himself between Clio and PJ to keep things from getting too awks for poor tol Clio.
And it’s at Happy Heartcakes that they decide to meet, which is where Leon and Luca work.
Cue gay sparks.
Clio is such a stalky nerd she comes back to the coffee shop again and again just to catch a glimpse of the smol gay and hopefully order a cookie or a frappe from her because omg
Meanwhile Luca is an awkward dweeb. She eventually writes down like her skype and her email and her facebook and her number because gotta be sure and have backup plans right????
But yeah WHAT ABOUT THE WEREWOLVES???? AND THE MAGIC SHIT???
Well Luca gets bitten after work. And it gets bad. She can’t concentrate on anything. Her new senses distract her and keep her from focusing. Her sudden strength and energy keep her on the edge and practically bouncing on her toes.
It’s the strange and unusual but weirdly enough helpful advice from Clio that helps Luca stay chill for a bit. But not long enough to avoid shit hitting the fan.
Luca finds out the hard way that her attacks trigger her transformation. Which pretty much results in a vicious cycle that HOPEFULLY studying at Noxamus will help her cope with.
Any interesting students she’ll meet at Noxamus? Well besides on enormous asshole and a whole bunch of angsty fellow teenagers, there’s this gal.
She’s ace. Like in sexuality, yeah. But also in like… grades. She’s a vampire student ant Noxamus and she aces pretty much all of her theory classes and does pretty damn well at her physical classes. But don’t let that innocent little look fool you.
She can be pretty damn vicious, too.
She’s part of a rogue gang I can’t quite elaborate on much just yet or I’ll spoil too much. So for now have this cute picture of her thumbwrestling a werewolf dork who develops a crush on her.
So those are the main characters, now what’s the story? Well I’ve kept you stuck here long enough and I congratulate you for staying with me so far.
Here’s a spoiler-free synopsis from my notes.
A girl’s emotional recovery from hitting rock bottom gets complicated by the bite of a wolf, the kiss of a witch and the call of a dark underworld of a school. Luca’s panic attacks constantly trigger her shift at the most inappropriate times, and her budding relationship with a witch from the neighboring school make her come off as awkward, unpopular and scandalous to her peers. Attempts at building a positive reputation only result in becoming the target of ire and harassment of a high-ranking athlete and his friends. Despite her will to stay positive, the support of her girlfriend Clio and even the concern of the professor who invited Luca to be a student in the first place, she finds herself getting back into old habits and developing worse ones. Healing will start with her, but she’ll first have to find it in herself to take on the daunting task of going up the path to recovery instead of down the slope to deterioration.
yay
So yeah.
The comic is still a work in progress and probably won’t be launching for another several months. I have a broad outline of the overall story, and have so far finished writing detailed outlines for the first four chapters. I’m working with my bae @stephi-jk/ @buttersphere to refine the story as it develops while also working with mah bro David on visual development since I’m still trying to work out an art direction for the comic that I can feel happy with. I also have a sketchup model of the Noxamus school designed by my architect buddy Elie who’s currently preparing for the board exam awyea.
I’m also consulting a buddy for Max’s storyline to make sure I don’t stumble into unfortunate implications or unintended offense. But if there are any guys out there who are interested in discussing the WIP story and giving feedback, feel free to send a message or an ask.
As for Clio, if you’re Irish or know someone who is, let me know because I don’t quite have anyone yet who I can consult for her since she hails from there.
Also, anyone with anxiety or ADHD or dyslexia, feel free to come forward as well if you’re interested in letting me consult you for some storylines.
And now to end this and give credit where credit is due.
Thank you, dear reader, for staying with me this far and I hope I got you interested enough to follow the progress of this comic since I’ll be using this blog to document that and I’ll be posting concept art and updates whenever I can.
I’ll also occassionally be updating the Noxamus facebook page but probs not as much as this blog.
And also, art featured throughout this post are either done by me @thestefidelly or are commissioned works by the following.
Carmela Bataoil. (dA) (tumblr) (art1) (2) (3)
David Daang (dA) (fb) (art1)
Pugletto (tumblr) (dA) (art1)
Jenny Polden (tumblr) (dA) (twitter) (art1)
And also thank you for the budding community @creativewlw, which inspired me to make this post and get more serious about getting this comic off the ground.
And thank you my lovely steste for putting up with me and helping me out with this stuff when I need it.
Here’s basically a style test and more or less a character lineup for a very brief five-page comic I’m currently working on, featuring these four.
It’ll basically involve Luca and Clio being adorable and Luca derping because ADHD and werewolf-ness.
The dogs actually don’t have names yet as I post this, so suggestions would be much appreciated! Both are female doggies.
Hi! Is it me or are you both Stephanie..? haha sorry~ I saw your animations, and wow, it's beautiful! I hope to see more. I saw that you guys will be joining Animahenasyon 2015, I wish you good luck~! I will attend that event and hoping to see your animation! -im not a stalker. haha- But I'm Mana, hello~! Good Luck~! *3*
Hi Mana!
Lolyeah we’re both Stefphs. One of us is a Stefanie the other is a Stephanie. It’s very confusing at work :))
We were supposed to join with short animations this year but our production schedule ran away without us and now we’re not completely sure if we’ll be there but if ever we’ll probs just submit demoreels.
And here’s the first of the Animation Packages I’m going to start offering.
One Walk Cycle Package will consist of
one turnaround of your character
the animation itself
an exported transparent gif (not applicable to rough animation package; ground shadow might not always show properly in the fully rendered package)
an exported gif with a flat background of your color choice (white or pale colors are better for the uncolored packages but it’s still your call)
a looped video that will run for a few seconds
The turnaround will be in the style and level of cleanup of the animation you’re paying for. For the sake of being able to produce a solid, smooth animation, I may have to refine or simplify your character as needed, but it should still resemble who you’ve come to love.
As for the prices, they’re as follows
PACKAGE 1- FULLY RENDERED- $90
As shown in the first two rows, you get a walk cycle package with body shadows and ground shadows on a fully colored character.
PACKAGE 2- COLORED/DIP- $80
As shown in the third row, you get a walk cycle package of a character with flat colors.
PACKAGE 3- CLEANED UP/CUIB- $70
In the fourth row, you’ve got a character with clean lines.
PACKAGE 4- ROUGHS/RUFFS- $40
The most affordable of the packages, this one is where you get a tied down but still rough animation, while the turnaround, though rough, will still include values.
BUT WAIT
THERE’S MORE.
I’m going on a Europe trip for three weeks or so, but I want to have work to come back to so now we’ll have such a thing as EARLY BIRD RATES.
Orders placed from now (July 20,2015) until August 6, 2015 will be 20% off.
(That means $72 for Package One, $64 for Package Two, $56 for Package Three and $32 for Package One)
so hop to to it and check out the deets below
And now for the nitty gritty details
I want a 50% downpayment before starting.
To place your order, simply send an email to [email protected]. Put the package you want in the subject line, and tell me about your character and send me references I can work with.
My paypal email is a different email so contact me first before trying to send the downpayment.
The way this will work is that I will send you the turnaround before I begin animating. You get one chance to ask for a revision for free if there’s something you want me to fix with the turnaround/design. Anymore revisions are an additional $5.
Once the turnaround is approved, I’ll send you the rough animation. You get one chance for a free revision and anymore is an extra $10. For Package 4 (Roughs), it’s after the animation is approved, you pay the remaining 50%.
Once the roughs are approved, I send in the cleaned up animation. One free revision, $10 for more. If we’re talking Package 3 (Cleaned Up) this is where you pay me the remaining 50%.
After cleanup’s been approved, it’s the colored animation next. NO REVISIONS HERE. It’s basically a colored version of the cleaned up one, there’s nothing to change. And if this is Package 2 (Colored), it’ll be time to pay the remaining 50%
And finally, the Fully Rendered animation comes in. This one has one free revision, $5 for more revisions and this is only to revise the shadows, not the animation. Then once that’s approved, I get the remaining 50%
Once we’re done, you can put the animation wherever you want, use it as an icon if you want, whatever, as long as you don’t take credit for it and make it clear that it was animated from me and came from me.
I will love you more if you link back to me or refer me if anyone sees your walking character and wants one too.
And that’s about it. Feel free to message me here or email me if you’ve got any questions.
I’ll eventually be offering head turn/expression change, dialogue and miscellaneous/custom animation packages as well, but I’ll worry about that after my trip.
And here’re the studies we went through to work out the design for Daniel’s house for our work in progress animated short, Playdate. Which will basically be about a little girl being dropped off by her mother for a playdate at Joseph’s house.
We first started with silhouette studies, to really get a sense of the shapes we wanted and at first we started out with shapes that were very houselike, then shapes that kind of resembled the shapes that the mom is made of, then it progressively turned more and more into a monster house and it really fit in with the Tim Burton-Courage the Cowardly Dog-Aahhh! Real Monsters demon baby kind of style we’re going for.
A rough initial teaser for a side project we're developing and hopefully submitting to this year's Animahenasyon 2015, which is basically about a little girl who's getting dropped off by her mother for a playdate at Claudia's house.
The style we're going for is basically Tim Burton, Courage the Cowardly Dog and Ahhhh! Real Monsters producing a demon baby together and in a sepia, rough, sketchy kind of feel.
Here’s an idea for all you pinoy HTTYD fans: how about we have Hiccup and Toothless (with the rest of Hiccup’s other viking clicks and their dragons, I guess) travel to pre-colonial Philippines (most likely the Visayas) for some reason and fight off the Bakunawa?
not what you're asking for but we're working on an animation project that might as well be Lilo and Toothless. It's basically about a little filipina girl and baby fem!bakunawa
Another animation test for the side project we’re developing, tentatively titled "PlayDate".
The mom design was loosely based on the likes of Eustace and Ma Bagge from Courage the Cowardly Dog and we tried to construct her to look related to her child but like yknow much creepier.
She was preeetty fun to animate.
Also, if we push through with this project this year, we’ll probably write up a proper description for it and maybe release a short teaser. We’ll also fix up our blog some more and have pages for each of our projects so it’ll be easier to follow them and read about them.
(little steste has a baku hat so her mom shall have a haliya bandana lol)
(the first animation test for this project can be found here)
A test animation for a project we’ve considered doing and releasing at this year’s Animahenasyon, but we’re not quite sure yet if we’re pushing through with it given some news we still have to digest regarding the Asian Animation Summit and the Bakunawa project.
This project is in a style we’re trying to develop that we’d like to describe as “If Tim Burton and the showrunners of Courage the Cowardly Dog and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters had an orgy and produced a demon baby”
On top of that we were hoping to try for a very hand-drawn, almost sketchy feel to it reminiscent of Ryan Woodward’s Thought of You.
We are Witches: Mathilda Pilot- A Review (Part Three)
(Part One) (Part Two)
(c) Jean Paul Crisologo and Stream Engine
Their Pilot can be viewed here.
And now here we are at the final part of our review.
There are so many different styles and ways of going about it when it comes to art and animation. We’ve got traditional, paperless, cutout and limited animation, just to name a few. We’ve got the extremely detailed anime on one end of the spectrum, the very solid and structured styles of Disney and all the way to the very stylized designs of the likes of Adventure Time or My Little Pony, and that’s just barely scratching the surface of the many styles.
But at the end of the day, what matters is the story being told.
Story is king. (or queen) (or khaleesi)
It’s meant to captivate the audience with the struggles of the characters and the wonder of the universe they inhabit.
In the Mathilda Pilot, there were a few things that were okay, a few things that could be improved, and a number of things that could have been removed to better tell the story.
Let’s start with characters.
The main protagonist is Mathilda, with the supporting character of Zane. Then there are the incidental characters Groinly and the Goblins.
Then the cameos.
When we’re introduced to Mathilda, we basically get a monologue that features her complaining about working so hard and dealing with obligations.
This is the audience’s first impression of her, specially for those who haven’t seen the prologue. We feel that the audience wasn’t shown enough for her to be a relatable character with justified complaints.
If they had shown how hard she was really working in the opening shots or at any point before this monologue, it would have been easier to sympathize with her.
As it stands, she just sounds really whiny, bordering on elitist.
The way she talked so poorly about her chores, without any repercussions, lead to some unfortunate implications. It was almost as if the episode was telling us that housekeeping, service jobs and chores are only meant to be done by lesser beings.
That was basically what most of Mathilda’s monologues implied and unrealistically, there was nobody in the show reacting that badly to it.
The fact that NOBODY corrected Mathilda on this line of thinking could send a very wrong message, especially if the target audience for this show is really still children.
In addition to that, the attitude Mathilda showed towards everyday life and her master didn’t come off as appealing. We could see that the writers might have been trying to go for a rebellious, charismatic character, but instead Mathilda came off more like a whiny, immature child.
Which brings us to another point. It’s not exactly clear what age Mathilda is. Her behavior, such as her impatience, disrespectfulness and whining, make her sound like a bratty child aged 12 or under. Maybe a teenager at the oldest. Groinly’s line about child labor also may support the idea that Mathilda is a child.
And with her age, it came off like she was a bad child, rewarded for her bad behavior. She got what she wanted by doing little more than whining and complaining and talking back to her mentor.
On that note, why did she go into the cave if she really didn’t want to? Why is she Groinly’s apprentice if she hates it so much?
We never see WHY she’s his apprentice and why she’s doing those chores. There’s no explanation what it’s all for and it leaves us disconnected with the character.
It’s so difficult to sympathize with her since there’s just so much telling and not enough showing. We’re TOLD that Mathilda does chores for Groinly but we barely see any of that. We’re TOLD that Mathilda and Zane are friends.
But are they really friends?
More often than not, Mathilda seems irritated with him, and he seems to regularly belittle her.
On that note, why did Zane feel the need to introduce himself at his first appearance at the episode? Does Mathilda regularly forget his name? If it was just an excuse to tell the audience the character’s name, Mathilda just saying it and saying hi would have been simpler and less awkward. It would have come off as a lot less cheesy, too.
Also, it feels like Zane doesn’t really have much importance to the story. He doesn’t contribute to the plot or move any of the action forward, and barely anyone reacts to him anyway, almost as if nobody can see him. It was only really the goblins that interacted with him by beating him up but that wasn’t even onscreen.
And why did Zane join in Mathilda’s cave quest? We don’t know why he’s helping, or if he was required to help or if he’s also Groinly’s apprentice or was he just being a helpful friend accompanying Mathilda? That’s really not clear.
He wasn’t even part of the fight scene.
And in the ending scenes, he was really kind of just there. He didn’t get anything from Groinly for the trouble that went into getting beaten up alongside Mathilda. Zane also wasn’t in the shots of Mathilda doing the other chores. We really aren’t given a solid enough reason to have him there other than as side commentary.
Groinly on the other hand, had some purpose, but also came off very random.
To start with, he seems to be a blacksmith, which makes no sense since Mathilda is a witch. What does she have to gain from apprenticing with a blacksmith? Was she really looking forward to getting a ride made by him? The ending scene implied that she wasn’t expecting that, so what was she expecting to get from working for him?
Also, Groinly was never properly established. His first appearance is at the festival, which was almost halfway through the episode and it’s jarring to see Mathilda complaining to him and revealing he’s her boss, when all this time, the prologue and opening shot implied that the old man whose floor she was cleaning was her boss.
This could have been better foreshadowed and in fact, the story could have revolved around her doing the chores for Groinly instead of her spending those minutes wandering around the festival and making random commentary.
As a whole, the biggest problem really with the way this story was told is that there was too much telling and not enough showing.
Multiple elements weren’t properly built up or established and had jarring introductions. Besides Groinly’s first appearance, there was also Dora’s Banishing Spell we mentioned in Part Two, and then also mentioned above was Mathilda’s chores, which we’re only ever told about and never actually see. Much of the episode was Mathilda monologuing and the audience is expected to just take her word for everything.
This pilot episode was more of a backstory episode for Mathilda than anything else. It tried to establish her status quo before she went to the tournament and tried to show us how she got there, but it hardly gave any importance to things we feel should have had more importance.
For a backstory/character establishing episode for Mathilda, we hardly saw the real struggles Mathilda faced with her apprenticeship, we never saw how much she was looking forward to going to the tournament until the speech about it in the festival, which was more about the heroes anyway. We didn’t even know she WANTED to go to the tournament since all her monologues were either about her chores or the festival. The episode really could have focused more on Mathilda’s apprenticeship and journey to get to the tournament but instead the focal point of the episode was the festival (and to a certain extent, the cave with the goblins).
The late introduction of the tournament place (so much so that it’s just a post-credits shot) even downplays the importance of it when it’s supposed to trigger the start of the series proper.
And the storytelling was really vague about the Excelsior thing. We’re not sure how the village festival relates to the Excelsior Battle Tournament, which one Mathilda was really looking forward to, why she was ranting about missing it (or was she ranting about missing the festival) if she could still catch up, IF she got to catch up since her whole rant made it sound like it was over and she couldn’t catch up anymore.
There were just too many disconnected elements and unanswered questions.
And if the Excelsior Battle Tournament is such a big deal, why were the heroes she described all cameo characters instead of actual hero characters in that actual world? The mention of actual heroes would have made the story more intriguing and engaging because instead of being curious about who those names were, the audience is either rolling their eyes or smirking about cameo characters they recognized.
Overall, there were way too many cameos in this episode, to the point where it almost felt like a spoof cartoon or at most a satire of some sort than an actual original story.
For a story that was being marketed as a show that would be on parr with My Little Pony, it was disappointing to see cameo and reference galore instead. It all pulled away the sense of originality from the show.
And at this point, we’re not sure anymore what the target audience for this show is since we thought all this time it was supposed to be for kids. Instead, we’ve gotten a couple of inappropriate jokes better suited for teens and up, and an abundance of references and cameos that felt like this was more of a show for the showrunners’ circle of friends and people of similar fandoms and interests.
We see the potential that might have been had for a good story about an ambitious girl who wants to be the best that she can be and make a name for herself in a magical world. Anyone could relate to that feeling of wanting to breakout of their status quo and do something amazing and be recognized.
We see the story this could be about a group of six friends trying to stand out from the crowd.
There is so much potential here, and we just want to see this show be the best that it can be and rise above mediocrity.
The world was interesting enough, the varied races could have been fascinating to see if they just matched styles more. There are some witty lines that could be found in the clutter of filler dialogue. The design of Mathilda is pretty appealing, and it’s nice to see her moving and coming to life.
This was a project we understand has been working hard and clawing its way upwards and the last thing we want to do is pull it down.
We want this project to succeed and we hope to see it succeed. We’re more than willing to offer advice and critique during actual production (instead of after the episode is already out) if any of the showrunners were to be interested in that.
Our industry right now is so small and we can only succeed if we’re helping to nudge each other up or pull each other up. We hope we didn’t rub people the wrong way too badly with this review, and if we did, here’s a little piece of fanart because we’re still fans of this project, in our own way.
Keep up the good work, keep churning out original content, keep supporting original content. Thank you for your time.
We are Witches: Mathilda Pilot- A Review (Part Two)
(Part One Here) (Part Three Here)
(c) Jean Paul Crisologo and Stream Engine
Their Pilot can be viewed here.
Before we get on to the continuation of part one, we’ll get a few things out of the way.
One of us actually had a talk with one of the showrunners before we started writing this whole thing out. We did offer to give him thorough critique and he responded by telling us that he needed it and we shouldn’t hold back.
In a normal industry (assuming US, Europe, Canada, etc. have the “normal” animation industry), studios would be competing for their own voice and/or for who can produce the best quality. The competition would have studios constantly raising the bar against each other.
That's not currently possible in our Philippine Animation Industry. (we’re kind of competing for who can give out the cheapest, fasted, most passing work to foreign clients)
In terms of original content, Next Quest, We are Witches, Arnold Arre and recently, GMA Network’s upcoming Alamat series are at the forefront of regularly producing original animated content. (And Arnold Arre is more of an independent comic artist/illustrator-turned-animator producing his own animated short films and so far it’s been every year since 2013).
Alamat isn’t out yet, but if the teasers hint at anything, it’s that we might just be in for a sweet ride because there are some beautiful animations in those clips. Arnold Arre’s short films have a distinct style to them and there is a really high level of quality to his shots, backgrounds and overall art direction.
Next Quest is tricky to judge since it’s got more of a meme and spoof tone to it.
We are Witches is an ambitious show that had been marketed to be an original cartoon that will be fighting its way to be able to go toe to toe with the likes of My Little Pony.
So we’re judging it by the high level of quality that a professional My Little Pony (or any fully-realized animated series) episode should have. We’re being as hard on this show as we are because we want better quality and we believe in this project. We really want it to work and we really want it to work to the very best of the abilities of its animators and writers.
We believe in them and we hope they believe in themselves just as much.
And we’re just trying, in our own small way, to nudge them further out of their comfort zone to see that they should be working to do better than this. We’re trying to show them where they made mistakes so that they can do so, so much better.
And if they’re still with us, here are the other things we noticed that could be further pushed to improvement.
Zane either has no face or is facing backwards in the first pose. It’s not very clear. Animations for him are otherwise pretty good though. Like we still have the same comments to make on line weight and overshoot, but otherwise, we quite like how he moves and zips about all over the place. It’s nicely dynamic.
As an opening shot to a new environment, it’s not wide enough to really show that it’s a new place. Plus a much wider shot would really help to give off a more festive feel.
The Antler girl’s looping laugh in the foreground is a bit awkward. It could be refined more.
While the background is mostly okay, we’d just like to point out that the bear guy’s shadow overlaps the bush next to him in a way that makes the bush look flat. Masking on that could be refined.
The pan of the foreground elements could be refined or taken out since it jarrs with everything else when it suddenly stops but the background elements are still panning.
There are quite a few line inconsistencies. For example, the girlscout with braids has very thick lines, which shouldn’t be the case since she’s almost on the same plane as Mathilda (and is actually even just a bit further from the viewer). So she should actually have thinner lines. On that note, popsicle lady could also benefit from thinner lines.
The red potions are really nice and detailed... but they’re a little too detailed compared to most of the background? Unless they’re meant to be a very significant part of the show later on?
Also, the ham/meat thing Mathilda’s holding in this scene comes off a bit random, when it already has a fairly decent introduction in Mathilda’s closer shot later on when she munches on it. Because with this arrangement, it kind of appears in her hand a little randomly, and it’s odd that she’d just be walking around just holding it without eating it.
Also, her feet are sliding when she walks, but this could get away under the “style” blanket of very limited animation, so we won’t get into it too much unless it’s noticeably jarring.
We liked though how the pan followed Zane. It was slow at first, then shot sideways after Zane when he whizzed over to the other side.
Also still same nice whizzing effects, and we like how he’s so excitable and everywhere. It could still benefit from some overshoots and breakdowns, but it’s still nice to see how he moves about.
and we like that frappe thing that frogman drinks
A more dynamic perspective might have made a better transition for this shot. We see that they were trying to go for showing more depth and world, and maybe show a bit of time passing as Mathilda wanders around the festival grounds. It’s really just that a more dynamic shot would have helped.
As it is, the houses, forest and mountains don’t quite seem so far from each other. It’s almost like they’re on very close planes to each other.
And there’s another gradient on the trees that doesn’t quite show up regularly on other backgrounds.
There’s an odd gradient again with the background trees. The trunks crop awkwardly too. But it’s not so noticeable since Mathilda’s position at the center dominates the viewer’s attention anyway.
The meat is mostly okay when she bites it, it’s just that there’s a frame where it jitters. Also they should be more careful with the characters’ joints. Here, Mathilda’s elbow doesn’t connect properly. It happens a few times as she moves the meat around.
Her nose doesn’t need to move with her mouth.
Mathilda’s dialogue is also very difficult to understand when she’s chewing. It could make sense to be distorted since she’s chewing, but it would have been better if it hadn’t been so muffled. If the volume stayed the same, maybe it would have been easier to catch what she was trying to say because neither of us can figure out what it was until now.
On that note, we would advice against comments and dialogue that don’t add to the story or reveal anything about the character. If it’s dialogue that doesn’t need to be heard, then it doesn’t need to be included. This is a story that is being made to fit into an 11-13 minute time frame and professionally produced episodes of these lengths are very careful and particular about what dialogue and jokes stay, and what goes because time is precious and every second of the episode has to have something to add to the characters or to the episode’s storyline.
In discussing the episode with colleagues and friends, some of them commented on the sound design and gave this shot as an example, saying that it would have helped if we could hear her chewing, and also in the cave scenes later on, ambient sounds, echoes and the sounds of the river would have been good. We won’t comment so much on sound design other than this bulletpoint because we don’t feel competent enough in that field to properly discuss it, but we thought the issue was at least worth a mention.
also the princess’s veil thing is flowing with wind that isn't affecting anything else (like the streamers or Mathilda’s hair)
mostly okay, but she’s moving a bit slower than usual, so the sliding of her feet is more noticeable in this scene. It’s otherwise okay though.
Some colors of the background (like the grass) don’t match up to the previous shots. The grass here is a lot greyer than the yellow-greenish color in the other backgrounds. Also there seems to be some brush strokes and shading on it that don’t match the overall style.
Or is this a different location? That could be made clearer.
That tent/background was in a previous shot, would that mean she’s been just going around the festival in circles?
The soldiers’ line thickness is very off in comparison to everyone else.
Anime girl’s level of detail doesn’t fit the overall style/level of detail of the rest of the show.
We would recommend having a character lineup, that way line quality and level of detail can be kept consistent. It would also make it easier to see which characters should be adjusted to fit the overall style of the show.
perspective could be adjusted a bit, looks a little off
cat lady and cat looked cute though :3
The background here doesn’t hookup with the previous shot. Earlier she was walking down what seems like a path, with mountains and sky behind her. Here there’s suddenly a building behind her and she’s in more of square than a path.
The gnome getting high at the back was funny though.
We think more acting in this shot, or at least a take would have registered better and put more emphasis and importance in whatever shocked her.
There’s an odd painterly style to the castle/building that seems inconsistent with the overall background style.
Composition for this shot is decent though, we see how it was meant to give off a grand feel to the Excelsior poster
That’s a really nice poster design. It’s got beautiful color composition, plus the layout and graphic design are nice. The only thing really is the tangent between the tip of the hero’s foot and the man’s finger, but that’s such a minor issue on an otherwise very nice poster.
This doesn’t hookup with the previous shot’s shocked face.
It could also use a bit more acting.
There was an awkward cut here. The previous scene was slowly zooming in on her face, then this one suddenly cut down to her torso and started panning up. This probably would have flowed more smoothly as a continuous shot.
It also could have used more acting, but the arm movements and sparkly eyes were a really good step in the right direction.
The nose doesn’t need to move with her mouth.
Lipsync is a little off, but it’s not too jarring.
There were also some decent poses when the shot tracked out, they just could have used more breakdowns and overshoots overall.
For the “skill” monologue, we feel the Smash Brothers references took away from the originality of the show. We’ll address references and cameos further later in the upcoming third part of our review.
Zane saying “Did you say skill twice” was funny though.
Same comments really on breakdowns and stuff, but there are some nice poses here though. The idea is there, we just think more could be built around the decent foundation they’ve already got with their poses.
We really like the smear tricks they’ve been using, and it could really work, but it has a tendency to get overused sometimes. Breakdowns instead of smears also would have brought an extra level of quality to some of the slower arm movements.
The blur during her shock wasn’t so necessary since she didn’t really move, unless there was a notable difference between her shocked pose and her preceding pose.
The overshoot of her eyes and the bulging and subtle animations of them were good.
This face is gold. Also the overall “Nooooo!” part was funny. The camera shake was a nice touch.
We don’t understand what his arm is supposed to be doing. Animation here could be better and clearer.
This guy’s character design is just very messy and unappealing. It also has some unclosed lines and unnecessary jagged corners. It could have been refined more and feels very rushed.
The drinking dude in the background has an arm that gets BADLY disconnected for several frames, then snaps into place
It’s not clear why Mathilda is facing sideways here.
Groinly could have been in this shot so that it’s clearer where he is. Because as it is, they even seem to be standing on the same spot since they’re using the same background.
He really needs a better library. His eyes are inconsistent and unappealing with how twitchy they are.
His right hand also looks really weird.
Mathilda is suddenly in front of a different background and it’s not clear why.
His hair cuts his shoulder awkwardly
Her shoulder disconnects here.
It would have been a funny joke, and we see what they were trying to do here, but it seems to be paced too long.
Overall, the whole Mathilda and Groinly sequence could have benefited from proper layout. There were no shots establishing where they were in relation to each other and the overall festival. For previous shots, before the start of the Groinly sequence, Mathilda has her back facing the house, the drinking guys, the gnome, etc.
Then there’s a shot where she’s facing them.
Then the rest of the sequence has her facing away from them. Groinly is placed on the same background, and seems to be placed exactly where Mathilda is.
Overall, this just really needed layout and establishing shots. It also would have really shown how big Groinly is compared to Mathilda since throughout the episode, we never really see them at a good wideshot together where we can see their size difference. The framing for Groinly does hint at his size, but without a reference point, we can never really be sure.
And that’s about all we’ve got to say for the festival sequence. Now let’s move on to the cave sequence.
We’re seeing pretty good layout and background here. The only comment really is to adjust the values a bit more. Mathilda and Zane could have a darker palette since they’re inside the cave now. The foreground stalagmite could be a darker value to add more depth and visually separate it from the cave wall.
Other than that, this is a really nice shot. Nice composition, nice background, very nice.
Careful with those shoulder joints.
The mom joke was funny to us, but it makes us question this show’s actual target audience since we thought this was for kids.
This is a nice wide shot. It hooks up very well with the previous cave shots and it gives us a feel for the size of the cave, where Mathilda and Zane are and how deep into it they’re going.
Foreground values could have been adjusted a bit to show depth better, but it’s otherwise a really good job. They did very well here.
This is another beautiful shot.
It gives off this sense of isolation in that place, nicely shows how high up the bridge is and really gets us feeling like she’s exploring this big alien place.
We loved the subtle pan too, that really added some more depth to the scene.
The subtle animation of Mathilda’s turn and walk was done very well, too.
The river animation was a nice touch.
The map/notes didn’t have a proper introduction and came off really random. It would have made more sense for Zane to bring it out earlier, like maybe when they were still at the cave entrance.
It was also really hard understand what Zane was saying here, which is bad because he seemed to have been giving important information on their quest? We’re really not sure.
Zane’s positioning here doesn’t hook up to the previous scene.
The paper is gone?
And when he turned around, he seemed a little off model.
Nice background. The glowing crystals were a nice touch.
Zane’s position also doesn’t hook up with the previous shot since they were getting further and further away from each other in the previous scene, now he’s right next to her again.
There also seems to be a missing frame or two towards the end of the walk and it made her legs pop, but it’s not too jarring.
Mathilda’s expression doesn’t hookup with the previous shot.
The background doesn’t quite hookup either. The stalagmites behind her in the previous shot are gone in this shot.
The trolls don’t have ground shadows.
The composition could have been refined more. The Goblin King’s throne in the middle is not clear and shouldn’t be at the center of the frame like that, pointing away from Mathilda and towards the cave entrance. (Unless that was supposed to foreshadow that she should leave? We’re not sure)
Also if that’s the Goblin King’s throne, we should be seeing hints of his shoulders and head at least.
The undies and trinkets all over the place was a nice touch though.
His arms could have been relaxed a bit more to show he’s sleeping, because here it looks like he’s standing in a ready-to-fight pose.
The subtle breathing was okay though. It’s really just the pose that could have been done better.
There were a few frames of line inconsistency on Mathilda’s hair
The animation of her arm was a nice effort, but it could have been refined more.
We also liked the tension-building shots as Mathilda reached for the star.
The animation here was really good compared to everything else we’ve seen in this episode. We even wish we saw more of this for the whole episode.
Her feet could have been grounded better, but it’s not too bad
The sudden game style came in out of the blue though since it wasn’t at all established earlier on.
This was so random.
The tripping animation could have been done better.
Secondary animation of her hat floating down after her was decent effort though.
Her shoulder cuts her hair awkwardly.
Mathilda was never established as even remotely clumsy so her tripping seemed very random and it felt like just an excuse to get the trolls awake and trigger the fight scene.
We only ever see the raised platform of the throne here. All the previous shots suggested it was on the same ground as the other sleeping trolls.
If she HAD to have tripped, there could have been some foreshadowing, maybe of her stumbling or being careful about stepping onto the platform, or even something as simple as a closeup shot of her feet taking that elevated step.
This wasn’t TOO random since we got the Zelda reference established the other shot ago, but we still feel that this was unnecessary and it took away from the tension of the impending fight scene
She was eager to try out a new spell that we never knew she had been all this time looking forward to trying. This could have been better established.
Suddenly, the brush strokes are very different, Mathilda is very off-model and in a very different style.
There are a lot of lines that aren’t properly closed or cleaned up.
Also the rocks that burst out when she jumps didn’t really match most of the background elements previously established.
Also if the pre-fight shots were like the start of a game, why was majority of the fight cinematic?
They’re also suddenly not using the same models/symbols.
The effects are nice though.
The light from her hands clash with the shadows under her hat.
Good anticipation pose, just could have used more in-betweens getting to it.
Her hands aren’t hooking up to the previous shot where they were already glowing.
The lack of cleanup is really jarring.
The effects animation here were good though.
The Goblin King’s hand gains volume at the end of the swipe. Also his feet are sliding.
We appreciate though the breakdowns and follow through animation here.
This was a pretty nice shot, all things considered. The dynamic pan upwards was done very well and we applaud background and animation on it. Great job too on the effects animation, it really added to the scene.
The glowing orbs cast light on her torso but not on her shadowed eyes. She’s even more noticeably off model here.
This also lacked breakdown poses.
Issues with animation, background and storytelling aside, we really have to applaud how they never really go wrong with their effects animation.
These were really nice effects, but the goblin crowd don’t quite hookup with the previous shots since the Goblin King was alone in all the previous shots?
We like how the goblin king’s pose hooks up, but we can’t help noticing how the presence/absence of the crowd behind him doesn’t.
This scene had some really nice effects and decent composition. And the dramatic zoom out was nice.
It’s really just the messy lines and off-model Mathilda that we found very jarring.
Composition here could have been done better.
The crowd seems so small here compared to the previous shots.
The goblins look so jarringly off-model.
Effects are still nice at least.
We like how this shot added to the tension.
Suddenly, everyone is on-model again.
Was there a reason for the change in style for the whole fight scene? Is this a reference to something or was it just a different animator assigned to those scenes?
If the issue was that the animation for the fight scene was 2d paperless while the overall episode was cutout, we don’t believe that would be valid grounds for allowing the scenes to pass off-model. We’ve experienced working for a show that was both cutout and paperless. Half the studio was working on the cutout scenes and episodes, while the other half was working on it paperless. We were among the animators working on the paperless episodes and the directors were particular about maintaining the animation style and models of all the characters.
Composition here could have been done better.
The Dora reference was unnecessary and came off very awkward.
We appreciate the anti-climactic end to the fight they were going for, but the Dora reference just ruined it for us.
Also, “Snatcher no snatching” makes no sense since she was the one who snatched the Star Ruby.
This was a nice enough background shot.
The glow was a bit awkward, but the chimney smoke was a nice touch.
Nice touch showing damage on them from the fight.
This doesn’t hook up with the previous shot at all.
The chair is gone, the damage to her clothes and skin are gone, she’s standing instead of sitting, there’s a post in the foreground that isn’t there in the previous shot, etc.
We’re not sure why she’s making a fuss about missing the festival when she already got to hang around and eat there already earlier.
The poses and animation in this shot were really awkward.
Layout could be adjusted to match the fall better, but this was otherwise okay.
Her getting hit by the stick was pretty funny and satisfying, actually.
Maybe we’d just recommend cutting the shot sooner so her fall can be better felt.
It’s not that clear where her hat and stick are, maybe layout could have been adjusted to reflect that more clearly, but this was otherwise okay.
Nice work with laying this out as Mathilda’s point of view.
It also serves well to make Groinly look bigger.
Suddenly her hat is back? And she seems to be sitting up now.
We like the design of this thing.
This had a decently animated laugh.
This was a good try at a perspective shot, but it’s off since the characters look like they’re not following the same perspective.
Size comparison between them also isn’t very clear here.
The background here was nice, and this is overall a pretty good shot. The subtle pan of the elements added a nice feeling of depth to the scene.
This is a beautiful shot and those cloud designs really appealed to us.
Weee’re not quite sure what her hands are supposed to be doing though? It’s not very clear.
And our review of the animation, art and overall technical aspects of the episode comes to a close.
We see that a lot of effort was put into this episode, we admire the ambitions the showrunners have for trying to produce a show that may one day compete with My Little Pony (or maybe even the Powerpuff Girls), and we’re aware of how so many people look up to this project and are inspired by this steadily growing success story.
And for all our critical eyes on this project, we do want it to succeed. We know how small this industry is right now, and we know that pulling each other down pulls the whole industry down.
Our intention here is not to pick a fight or tear this project apart. It’s to challenge them to raise their standards and produce professional quality work and meet the excitement and expectation they’ve been building up.
In the final part of our long review, we’ll talk about the story, the characters, the originality and the unfortunate implications in this episode, then conclude with a bit of an afterword.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and please do continue to help our industry by watching original content and continuing to support original content.
