SiMpSoN-bRuVaS 2008-07-13 03:28:31

your awesome dude.. so r ur flashes! looking forward to the next project!

ZekeySpaceyLizard 2008-07-13 03:28:47

Out there, there's a world outside of Yonkers
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby
There's a slick town, Barnaby
Out there, full of shine and full of sparkle
Close your eyes and see it glisten, Barnaby
Listen, Barnaby
Put on your Sunday clothes, there's lots of world out there
Get out the brilliantine and dime cigars
We're gonna find adventure in the evening air
Girls in white in a perfumed night
Where the lights are bright as the stars

Kajenx 2008-07-13 03:39:57

It's called perfectionism, and the only way to succeed in animation is to dismiss it and plug on ahead. :D

gamertwin1 2008-07-13 04:17:05

Hey, keeping doing what your doing.

Magyar 2008-07-13 04:49:16

I'm not gay because I'm a boxer, there is nothing gay about 2 almost naked men hitting each other inside of a ring.

EnforcedByAircraft 2008-07-13 05:08:31

This is very true for me too, especially with video-games. If I haven't played it for a while I feel like I absolutely must restart, but I don't exactly know why. I think we mustn't jump straight for that easy choice to restart. You have to go through and if when you are done you truly feel that it isn't good enough, then you can restart, with the new knowledge of what it is exactly that you don't like about it.

sorbitol 2008-07-13 05:34:48

I think the problem for a lot of people when they first start writing/animating is that they immediately want to come up with the Next Best Thing before learning the baby-steps.

One criticism I have always had with your work is that I never know what series or set of characters I'm watching. Reading your post I now understand why. It's detrimental to a series to change track half way through and re-start before the audience have a chance to get their collective head around things.

Animation-wise you have a great, vivid style and some smart fbf - maybe you just have to wait for the right story to come along.

I can't help but feel that aiming so high as to be "NG's next great action series" before you've got your ideas in place is jumping the proverbial gun somewhat.

But don't feel that your past work lets you down- on the contrary, you've produced some great stuff, especially art-wise, you just need to blend it all together.

In fact, your past work will stand you in good stead by giving you a head start over most people when you do finally find the right story to tell.

SlimeManMan 2008-07-13 10:08:47

Sometimes, the only thing you can do is accept what your doing is shit, and just DO it. Good luck with Nightgun/DevilSlayer.

Osuka 2008-07-13 10:40:45

dude, the 1st person who need to love your animations is "you", if you are re-starting over and over, that is because you aren´t satisfied yet with the project, and maybe you have a better idea in your head to use

You have great talent, i like your characters, and if you think that they can be better, just go ahead dude

good luck :)

Balvuc 2008-07-13 11:54:41

I'm a perfectionist myself, don't worry about that, just keep on doing what you like.

Before you get carried away in an awesome chapter of an idea, study more of the concept of story design. Learn about introduction, the basic ideas of plot, how to keep the fan interested on what's happening next... There's a whole world of efficient publically known techniques to achieve the right effect.

You're not losing anything each time your restart. Au contraire, you're improving your capabilities.

Restart as much as needed, and don't try to maintain some material you think is messing things up. If you think some confusing material is really undispensable, keep track of it, and be ready to fuse it with other ideas so it can be used later on.

Once I thought I could use all my ideas in a titanic story, well I couldn't. If you feel it's going this way, don't hesitate to store some ideas for a later project. It's is incredibly better than mixing some random elements.

So basically, that's it: study and train. That's the only way to improve. And never be afraid to restart.

Good luck, hope you get the chance to restart many more times.

rtil 2008-07-13 12:01:25

the sad truth is most people won't notice and so that gives you the freedom to do pretty much anything you want to do. not that you wouldn't have that freedom if it was the opposite. it's your work and the only person you should be trying to please is yourself.

also, i wrote this hot beat what do you think of it

uh, uh, ye, ye boi
461 represent
brooklen shibuya
donk donk donk

I am here, and my name is chaos
Rap is to me like music is to Amadeus
Wolfgang, the famous composer
When I stepped in I told him to move over
I am the new kid on the block
And the mission - to make your body rock
And to all the fools that think they're tough
You'll never beat me, cuz I'm just too rough
For my nature, my habitat, and even my environment
Don't try me now, just go into retirement
And think about what you have done
You got beat, cuz you tried to move on
You meet your fate when your lines ain't straight
They're in your lyrical debatin' when your styles ain't great
You got boogie-old rhymes to the point of no return
You switch, you discern, but when will you learn
That my rhymes burn, my brain waves melt
Who gives a damn how you fall, overturned black belts
I show you no remorse, I break off, I get divorced
Could I be the source of this regenerative force
Rejuvinated, I escalate it, you're underrated
Now you're underrated cuz your homeboys played it
Your weak appearances are only doing me the favor
While I'm kickin' butt and flavor showin' off on your behavior
Brother be beefing like a source that's protecting all people
put your hands up in the pulpit, coz it is drippin' like water
from a leaky faucet
Hand me the mic and I would rock it
To you, sometimes you got to stop it - To make it rhyme
It will earn full work and yo the final jam
is the freakin' bad bone, man take much and stand it
And, yo, to beat us right now is the chance
So everybody, yo, get on the floor
I wanna see your dance

Tystarr 2008-07-13 12:56:21

Dude whatever you make is gold, just make it.

And woow...Rtil.. I have never seen a rap written by you until now...on Jazz's page...Whatsup with that?

Revolution-Wolf 2008-07-13 13:49:45

Yeah.... it's called trying too hard. It's the reason I haven't even finished a flash yet... >_< .

And I am FIRMLY convinced that there is something distinctly wrong with rtil. Hey, maybe he finally snapped just like the rest of us.

Theo-art 2008-07-13 14:06:23

You and me both man. I sometimes make little to no progress for an entire day because frankly, I'm never satisfied. I usually "settle" with what I have and move on from there.

You're a very talented animator, what you might not realize is not everyone will disect your movies piece by piece, they'd rather enjoy it as a whole. I've always been a fan dude, keep pushin and don't let it get to you. :D

ElMagico 2008-07-13 15:16:49

rtil is a racist. he thinks all black people like to rhyme words together. the fact is that we never rhyme words together. this has been goin on like forever. i just wanna scream outside in the middle of some stormy weather. take off my pants and put on some skin tight leather. it's ridiculous. rtil stop being a racism machine. you're mean. bean.

CursedSeishi 2008-07-13 16:29:04

Dont sweat it about not sticking to something and constantly restarting. It happens to everyone. The one thing about artists, is that they'll always pick out the issues they see in their own drawings and art. I could draw the best damn thing ever to people, but I know i could take one look at it and start nitpicking details about it.

Art and perfectionism seem to go together quite alot, and all I can say is keep at it. You dont always have to follow that nagging inner voice, but it doesnt hurt.

I'd say the reason you are constantly restarting, is because you are aiming so high. You are wanting to make the next big series, so when you start on it, you'll always be picking at what you make. Just relax, I'm pretty sure the people who did make those big, amazing flashes weren't aiming for being amazing, they were doing it because they like it. They have a love of flash animations and games, so it isnt about being the best on some site, but improving and knowing you did your best on what you made.

Trust me, there are more than a few series on newgrounds that started off iffy, and have taken off after a while because its easy to see the person got better with each flash.

lol in short. Dont sweat and worry about if your flash is going to be the next big thing, just relax and do what you love doing, you'll improve naturally.

flash1015 2008-07-13 16:38:08

I'm going to quote a passage from David B. Levy's book
"Your Career in Animation, How to Survive and Thrive"

"unless you are Michelangelo, chances are, you will have room for improvement and will get better as you go. So, avoid the trap of having to redo all your previous work by not working start to finish.... Your older works represent where you were at the time as a filmmaker and there is nothing wrong with that. "

so to sum it up stay the course finish the project and then continue on to a new one. I myself have been the victim of working on various films and then just stopping them and restarting them in search for perfection, and with that I do not have a single flash film submitted here. Also take note that you do what you want to do thats why you are the creator and the ultimate choice is up to you.

Keep up your good work and have fun with it.

-Flash

frostblaze 2008-07-13 16:46:00

Your heart and your flashes are in the right place, and trust me, I know how you feel. Feeling like your flash doesn't meet your standards, feeling like you didn't try hard enough, and even coming up with something great to add halfway through the flash. Yep, I feel you. What I do is I focus on the positive instead of the negative, tell myself that it rocks real hard, and keep chuggin' along. It's all about self-confidence man, and if you have it, everything will be all right. Learn from your mistakes, no one is perfect.

Dazmi 2008-07-13 17:19:18

Everyone's like that sometimes.

For me, when I stop having fun doing something, or I want to take something in a diffrent directon, I usally start over.

But if it's near the end, or I never had fun doing it in the first place and I've worked hard on it I usally just finish it.
Like, school work. I have never started over on a school project.

Listen2Reason 2008-07-13 17:36:27

There are a couple of contradictory things here. First, if you never finish anything and never complete it fully, then you'll never get anything done...there comes a point where you just have to stop tweaking and put it out there.

With you, though, it's not so bad because you do release complete episodes. So it's not like nothing is ever completed. Personally, I think you're worrying too much about how things go together. So let's say the first three episodes are kind of badly done compared to the rest of the series...So what? Is that really a problem? Maybe sometime in the future you can go back and remake it. But again, sometimes you just have to get it done.

I know that it's very tempting to start a project whenever you have an idea. Starting projects is much easier than finishing them. But finishing them is the mark of a truly accomplished artist.

On the other hand, there's the "pilot system" effect:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month#The_Pilot_System">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth ical_Man-Month#The_Pilot_System</a>

This is also known as "Plan to throw one away". You create the first thing, find out what problems you had with the design, then create the second, much better thing. And you just throw away the first. It's part of the process. The original essay was talking about developing software products, but I suspect it applies to animation too.

(Also see the "second system effect" in that same article for another pitfal...)

But really, in the end, I think we all understand the problems you're going through. You have to figure them out for yourself, but you're only human, nobody expects you to be absolutely perfect. So just hang in there. ;)