For the project page on NG please visit: Smiling Friends Fan Animation (newgrounds.com)
Smiling Friends Created by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack
I don't own nuthtin'
Animator and GameDev :) I don't post often, i know, but i LOVE NG!!
Age 38, Male
Basel, Switzerland
Joined on 10/4/14
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JoelMayer's News
Posted by JoelMayer - May 17th, 2024
And started properly learning ToonSquid by (cheaply) animating some Aliens...
ToonSquid is quite similar to good ol' Flash. I think Tablets will produce the animators of tomorrow but even an old fart like me can have a lot of fun with it. Now i want to make a whole short film on this!
Posted by JoelMayer - April 23rd, 2024
Ellouuu
For my fantasy thing i'd like to make one day i would really like to try to go with cut-out/rigs, simply because it'd be more feasible. However, personally i think, rigs look the best when you DESIGN for cut-out and not if you try to brute force a more dimensional design onto a rig. So yesterday night i was doodling on my iPad and tried to come up with as simple shapes as possible. Just something that would look kinda cool on a flat plane and also stand on its own and not be a clumsy mainstream knock-off. I cannot compete with high budget shows or even indie projects so i'm trying to find something that would be appealing yet cheap if that makes sense.
Cut Outs suck at:
- Dimensionality (Foreshortening, etc.)
- Dynamics
- Details
- Fabrics
Cut outs can be cool with:
- Texture
- Humour (deliberately archaic animation in funny situations)
- Subtlety
- Consistency
So anyways, as a comparision i can show you a half finished rig of the girl above that i made:
defeats the purpose of going with rigs in the first place, if you know what i mean? Let's be honest it's also just pretty generic kinda John K./Bruce Timm-ish...
I wrote a little "Manifesto" about the style of the pilot and one sentence reads: "Cannot afford badass or beautiful, so go for "charming"" 😄
Anyways, i went full on minimalist and unpacked all my mid-century modern influences and came up with this version:
I think it'd look cool even having sort of a pencil/crayon texture in the final rig even though i'm planning on using vectors.
Been looking at a lot of older Cut-Out stuff like "Twice Upon a Time" etc. Yea and sorry that it's just some crude sketches but i kinda got excited and wanted to hear some other thoughts.
But the animation should still be fun and interesting to look at. Less "Illusion of Life" and more like as if an animator was moving pieces of paper under a camera and having a blast. Gravity almost non-existant, etc.
Anywho, so much for my rambling for this week. Hope you're good and see you around!
Posted by JoelMayer - March 14th, 2024
First episode of my book flip through series is out!
It's nothing too special really, i just wanted to show some of the books i have in my collection. It DOES feature an animated intro though :)
First episode features a "How To" book about Cut-Out animation by none other than Terry Gilliam. Hope you like it!
Posted by JoelMayer - March 11th, 2024
Hey there!
Few weeks ago i hosted a Moho Webinar about "Animating rigs with a traditional mindset" which is now available on YouTube to watch:
Right now i'm working on a little animated intro for a series i'm planning to do where i just talk about art/animation books from my collection. It's a Gilliamesque style cut-out thing featuring a bookworm.
First background and quick and dirty bitmap rig:
Really enjoying doing those photo collage backgrounds i think i'll keep doing that for future projects haha.
I'll post when it all goes live!
In the meantime follow me for future Updates or check out my socials :) Thanks!
Joel
Posted by JoelMayer - February 26th, 2024
That awkward feeling when you didn't really catch somebody's name on the phone and then the time comes to say good-bye...
What was that name again? - Animated loop by JoelMayer on Newgrounds
