Stu's Bits

Hello There

A complication of some of my short cartoons on the Aardman Animations youtube channel "Aardboiled": https://youtu.be/D87pX4v2hLw .

I know this thread is in "Showcase", but feel free to critique the cartoons if you want (on the writing, look, voice-acting, whatever).

And thanks to Nick Jay for writing the "William Tell" cartoon.

Kind Regards
Yacob

I very much like your drawing style - particularly good in the second one, love the shadows on their faces. The main problem for me is their brevity (apart from the pheasant one) which leaves me unsatisfied.
Congratulations on getting in with Aardman!

"Arnold, the amazing invisible cat" is excellent.

"Iced coffee" doesn't work, does it? Unless I've missed something, the coffee he is served would be at room temperature or slightly above and he would immediately reject it.

"Neither/neither" has two great qualities: it's very brief and it's funny. I'm absolutely astonished that I have never seen or heard that joke before. Originality too!

"Pheasant plucker" has defeated me, I'm ashamed to say. I simply cannot work out what the bleeped word (and hence, presumably, the joke) is.

"William Tell" is a classic case of more being less. The cartoon should end with the boy's question.

"Invisible man" is very short and reasonably funny.

"Get out! Shoo!" is short and funny. For me, it would be better if the shoe didn't speak but simply turned on its heel (see what I did there?) and slid away.

"The prophet Mohammed" is good, but for me it would be better if the final line were deleted and the man just stood there in silence for two or three seconds before it ends. In that way, the audience can pride itself on getting the joke before it's handed to them on a plate.

All in all though, it's certainly an entertaining couple of minutes!

The cat one's certainly the wittiest.

Thanks, Beaky! I am slooooowly getting better as an artist. I may end up making a longer cartoon later (though I have to come up with an idea for one first and be incredibly passionate about it because animation takes so long). It's definitely a nice bit of validation that Aardman weren't disgusted by my drawing ability, voice acting and music.

Thanks for the detail feedback, Rood Eye! Here's a reply that isn't quite as detailed:

- To me, the logic in "Iced Coffee" doesn't have to be airtight (as always, I could be wrong and if others want to voice their opinion on this then go for it).

- It would be ridiculous if no-one has ever come up with the "neither" joke before (maybe everyone else who thought of it was so ashamed they kept it to themselves :)).

- The censored word is the c-word - I didn't want the word to be completely audible, but I hoped people would know what it was by the "c" sound at the beginning and the "t" sound at the end (but if you couldn't decipher it then maybe I misjudged).

- I sometimes feel I need to make jokes clear (such as in "William Tell" and "The Dark Room"). Maybe that's because I'm not clever enough and feel that if I were watching my own cartoon (without knowing the script) I'd have to spell the joke out to myself.

Thanks again, Beaky and Rood Eye!
Yacob