Animation and Video Life

Mid last year I finally concluded my Men In Black series staring Barack Obama and AKON, the parody series I started way back in December of 2008 - and boy had things changed at GoAnimate by August of 2010 when Part 5 was finally released! If you haven't seen the previous episodes then I strongly urge you to take the time to watch them otherwise the current episode may not make a lot of sense. Click the following links, Episode 1 , Episode 2 , Episode 3 and Episode 4  to take you to each animations corresponding blog post. I was lucky to have started Part 5 before all the major changes came in at GoAnimate with the introduction of Premium Goplus+ accounts because one change was that AKON's theme vanished from public access. Even for Goplus+ members. Fortunately, if you already had an AKON animation in draft or previously published, all the themes components would still show up in the GoAnimate studio. I think this is still the case too. If you copy an old AKON anim...

This Full Energy cartoon won one of GoAnimate's semi regular 'Quickfire' contests with the theme of 'Summer Fun'. A quickfire contest is exactly as it sounds. You get given a theme and a few days to make an animation and the toon judged the best by GoAnimate Staff usually wins. There's no real prize except the winning entry is a guaranteed Staff pick and you get bragging rights for that particular competition. The Full Energy theme was a natural fit with it's existing trailer park background complete with fold out chairs and kiddie pool. The theme already had a BBQ too (or outdoor grill if you're not familiar with 'BBQ'). Quite a number of people have commented on my Full Energy cartoons saying I'm the best at coming up with ideas for the theme. I'm not sure what that says about me. Maybe I just have an eye for 'low rent' style characters since my Bat Storm series is also about 'low rent' characters. My cartoon is...

GoAnimate made some major changes to their site mid way through 2010 creating something of a divide when they introduced Premium GoPlus+ accounts. i.e. paid accounts that give you access to more features. Unfortunately what this meant for free GoAnimate users, who now found themselves with a 'Basic' account, was that they lost a lot of things that they used to get for free. A major loss was the ability to mix themes - which now became a Goplus+ feature. Basic account holders also had their animation lengths limited to 2 minutes where as previously there had been no limit. Adding further insult to injury, in order to upgrade a basic account to Goplus+ users needed access to a credit card. With many younger users on site you can imagine the uproar as trying to convince your parents to pay for an upgrade with their credit card is not always the most easiest of tasks. At around the same time GoAnimate started to roll out its Lil' Peepz theme and Character Creator with mor...

 GoAnimate, MJ's Gay Lobster Arm by Cut Paste Anime I don't wish to harp on about a subject having already been accussed of PR speak for GoAnimate but now the issue of Harry Partridge Snubs GoAnimate is over being a hot topic I felt a review of would give me some closure. So here is what I've observed from the whole she bang. Harry Partridge is an awesome animator. I've seen Harry's work long before his jab at GoAnimate . I wouldn't class him as one of my heroes but he definitely knows his craft. He does some fun animations and has a great sense of humor.    The majority of people who commented in support of Harry's GoAnimate Video on Newgrounds , Cartoon Brew and especially on Youtube really had no idea what GoAnimate is or what it can do yet they felt they had enough knowledge to call people who use GoAnimate 'lazy', 'untalented' and ignorant of what professional animators actually do to make cartoons. Not to mention all th...