Character Animation Demo Reel - Critiques Welcome :)

Using some free rigs for Blender (Sintel :stuck_out_tongue: ), as well as a few custom ones from a short film I’m working on, I put together a small character animation demo reel! I’m actually surprisingly proud of it, but I’d like to get some constructive feedback / harsh critiques (reel structure, what to keep and what to discard, etc.).

Thanks for looking! Any comments at all are helpful :slight_smile:

very good work…really enjoyed it. I didn’t really find much to crit. I didn’t care for the black and white characters…they weren’t as good as the rest…

I thought the rest rocked.

Good luck with it…you should do well.

Lol I love the video game one. Great work man :slight_smile:

The opening animation of Sintel has some weak facial animation. I don’t see why you put it at the beginning. It’s not the best or even 2nd best piece of this reel. I don’t see any emotion from the character and it’s odd that her cheeks don’t move with her expressions. The one where the man hands the woman the plate of food has a bit of a timing issue towards the beginning. The man is too even/smooth. Hope this is what you were looking for. The work is nice, but give it some polish and reorder it.

Thanks a lot man, that was exactly what I’m looking for! I actually thought that was my strongest animation (haha), what would you say I should start with? I’m considering getting rid of the 2D animations too, they feel a bit out of place with the 3D stuff. I’m going to go back and research eye movements to try to liven her up a bit (when to blink, etc.). I didn’t even think about the cheeks either, I’ll give those a go.

I thought the Sintel piece was pretty good. There’s understated emotion in it - uncertainty, a little sadness right at the end. The eyes aren’t quite right though. When you look down, you tend to lower your eyelids too. She doesn’t do that here, which makes her look a little doll like.

And another vote for taking the 2D piece out. It’s close enough to the IT Crowd titles to draw unfavourable comparisons.

Saw it today on 11secondclub. I agree with 1-st coment there. In general it look fine, but u loose some small detales, that make diference between goood and exelent animation. Take a look on your 2-nd animation in the reel. Guys left arm… it seems frozen… But in general - nice reel and good point to start yor animation carier)

Thanks everyone! The eyelids tip is great, that actually really helped it. I’ll post an update soon on the Sintel one, it’s looking better already :slight_smile: And I actually had never seen the IT Crowd titles before, that’s a weird coincidence.

As for the guy’s arm in the 2nd animation, you’re right, it is very stiff. I’ll loosen that up :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, Sintel’s eyes are full open all the time except for a second. Her eye lids should tighten some when she is thinking about what she is saying. It’s hard to do a real crit with a youtube video :stuck_out_tongue: quicktime mov are great because you can drag frame by frame and say exatcly where stuff it wonky. It’s not terrible, but the eyes I think are what’s really killing it. She’s all 0_0 the whole time. hehe Also when you end the animation she just sort of sits there instead of going to her next action or though. Always get into your character’s head. What are they thinking? Always know what they are thinking at all times. It’s what drives action.

good stuff