Once again, we presented our animation in front of the class and were given feedback; the comments they gave us will be listed (paraphrased) below, as well as some of the suggestions on how to improve our animation.
Positive:
It was a lot better than our first draft.
The addition of the blue sky made it look more like the animation occurred during the night.
The addition of the blue sky also fit in really well with black and white silhouettes.
The ghost is more obvious now and it looks less like a bird.
The transition from one scene to the next looked very good.
The silhouettes of the characters were very well made and the cuts and details on the characters were nice and delicate.
The movements of the characters, specially the arms and the head showed a lot of emotion even though some of their facial features weren’t that noticeable.
The tracing paper used on the ghost gave it a good effect.
The part where the ghost dropped his sword and became solid (by removing the tracing paper) was well executed.
Negative:
The clouds and the moon were still moving too fast.
The ‘mini’ ghost’s silhouette did not look like the main ghost and therefore looked like a different character i.e. the lower half of the mini ghost had sharper cuts compared to the main ghost.
The second scene (inside the train carriage) was “emptier” than the first scene as it did not have a background, mainly the blue sky.
The second scene’s location wasn’t obvious as it only showed the second carriage only and that the rest of the train was missing.
The animation was incomplete (no ending yet).
Suggestions:
Add some smoke to the train.
The second scene could look a bit more colourful by adding a background (similar to the colour the first scene).
The (main) ghost shouldn’t always be transparent and have the layer of tracing paper on top of it - instead, it should only have that layer if the ghost actually passes through the train (similar to the effect we used with the smaller ghost in the first scene and the main ghost’s sword going from transparent to solid in the second scene).
