Cyanide and Happiness Short - A Review

This cyanide and happiness short is about a character named 'sad Larry' who meets with an old friend whist eating lunch. This old friend tries to cheer him up, but when that fails he kicks food in his face. It is a comedy themed animation, and is named appropriately as the cartoon is only around a minute long.

In terms of the storyline, obviously this animation is very basic. But because it is just a quick comedy type animation I feel that this cartoon does not need a good storyline, it is a very comical quick Flash animation. Because it is set in this style, the graphics are relatively simple as well, although the animation does run smoothly.

Again in this animation as the previous one that I reviewed the animation involves both frame by frame animation and tweening.

Leo and Satan - A Review

Leo and Satan is a comedy type Flash animation in which the storyline involves a little boy and Satan, the devil. In this particular episode Leo and Satan are playing video games when they lose the batteries to their controller, then after wrecking the sofa to get them Satan turns in to the huge demonic creature that he is, and breaks down in to hell in anger.

The storyline for this animation is somewhat lacking a lot in terms of the cartoon, but in my opinion are made up for with the funny antics included during nearly all of the episode. Furthermore, the style that the cartoon is made in, the storyline does not seem to be as important as what is actually happening on screen, it is more about a few quick laughs. Also, as the cartoon is only 3:22 minutes long it would be counter productive to introduce the audience to a complication storyline.

In terms of the actual animation used, there seems to be a mixture of frame by frame animation and regular tweening used in Flash. The frame by frame part is used for the lip sync parts of the animation and some movement, such as walking. There are usually tweens in the background moving simultaneously to the frame by frame part. The combination of these two types of animation makes for a very nice and smooth looking animation.

Upon further investigation, I also managed to find out that the animation was made at 25 frames per second. Enough for the cartoon to look smooth and at a high quality/frame rate but low enough for a decent upload speed to the web.

All in all, I give this animation an 8/10.

I'm going to make a cartoon!

For our next assignment at college we have been told that we will be making 2D animations. The only major thing we have been told about it is that it must be at least 45 seconds long, and it will be made in Flash.

In the next few days I will be posting my research on existing Flash animations, this will include what I did and did not like about them. The content of them as well as the actual animation techniques used.