>Releases the first episode of his personal animation project
>It's met with overall positive but meager reception
>Release 2nd episode
>Viewcount drops massively
>Decides to create a specific youtube channel for it where all future news/episodes will be posted
>It has 1/20 of his main channel's subscribers after over a month
Is Zeurel actively sabotaging himself?
He doesn’t have a lesbian or a cute boy character to make zoomers give a shit about it. Women nowadays love anything that involves shipping and they also make up a large majority of younger animation fans.
>He doesn’t have a lesbian
Your pic is the Lesbian bait, the dinosaur space pirate is basically a butch Lesbian.
>cute boy character
Well there's a cat character that's supposed to be cute if that counts, not a fan of his design though, it's literally just a cat in a space suit, so lame.
>breasts
Nice.
But all the shows filled with lesbian bait flopped and are slowly dying??
>But all the shows filled with lesbian bait flopped and are slowly dying??
Not Helluva Boss and Lackadaisy, the TV shows only died because nobody watches cable anymore.
Where's the lezzy bait? HB is literally all gays with the females only implied to have/want sex and in the LD pilot the only romance looking interaction seemed to be the brown cat girl and tiger boy.
Unless lesbians are turned on by a psycho throwing dynamite and quoting poetry.
>Women nowadays love anything that involves shipping
Exactly why Zeurel is based for not including any
>nowadays
The dino chick is implied to be butch and I won’t be surprised if he makes an episode about her mentioning she loves c**ts and scissoring
Naw, he’s stubbornly sticking by his decision to work with the current VA for Shrike whose voice is fricking cancer.
He also lacks a knack for pacing and tension/release in storytelling so episodes just kind of happen. I was pumped for the pilot but no matter how many times ai tried watching it, I’d find myself zoning out. It was boring, there were WAY to many characters introduced, the music was a flaccid wet washcloth, there was no sense of drama or urgency, and the voice for the main fricking character is just goddamn awful.
The animation was quite good, but I have no idea how you take an awesome concept such as outer space bounty hunters and make it so god damned boring.
>but no matter how many times ai tried watching it
>how many times ai tried
>ai tried
>ai
GET 'IM, BOYS
I want Kara to beat the shit out of me because I got in the way of her mission then aggressively tongue frick my mouth while I'm barely conscious on the ground.
I can relate
sauce
Lascars, a French movie.
Have some more
i get it
But I thought go woke go broke? :^)
>But I thought go woke go broke? :^)
Fujoshi has existed since the early 70s with the advent of Star Trek fangirls making smut about Kirk and Spock. Long before America's obsession with political correctness began.
Go woke
Go broke
Ultimately croak
No exceptions
Show the one where they switch chests
>unpopular thing means bad
Anon...
Where in my post did I even imply that?
"Is Zeurel actively sabotaging himself?"
Nta but that doesn't imply the show is bad. If anything that implies its good but that the creator is doing everything possible to keep it from becoming more popular. I mean you can't sabotage something that's already shitty.
Putting his show on a new seperate channel almost no one knows about is going to further shrink his viewcount, this has nothing to do with the quality of the show.
>zeurel
that's a name I haven't heard in a long time
illiterate
Unpopular can mean "unsustainable" for these types of productions, regardless of how good they are.
Was it Zeurel who had some schizo episode on twitter where he was claiming some other guy's robot arm girl character was a copy of his?
Yes it was. I can't find the tweet but he got chewed out for it. The only similarities were the purple hair and the robo arm.
If it was truly amazing it would be popular, no question. Skirting on the line of being just "good" like Monkey Wrench was won't cut it.
In today's internet being "great" can still leave you in obscurity. There's tons of great artists who don't survive today's social media environment because the media monopolies have no incentive to help them get noticed.
You know Monkey Wrench is falling flat because it GOT tons of notoriety and promotion compared to what most animations get, and then viewers lost interest. It'd be one thing if he was struggling to be talked about, but it's talked about, and the talk looks like this thread. Basically:
>Wow, I wish a better writer held the reigns on this thing because that was money down the drain
Buddy, I said amazing, not "great". You would have to do something truly exemplary to not only be appealing to wider audiences, but also not have to sacrifice a shred of your creative vision to be more appealing. And if you pull that off, success is almost guaranteed with the most minimal of marketing.
Honestly I think the "build it and they will come" era of the internet is long over. You pretty much never hear of anything good or cool anymore. That's why Cinemaphile is such a wasteland. If you want today's successful webcomics, go to Webtoons - there they are, what little we can discuss about them. And top animations? Never heard of 'em - Youtube wants you to watch more content, not better content.
I do feel the 'build it and they will come' era has passed too. I've seen plenty of creators who have a great webcomic or maybe some cool animation that falls into obscurity cause it's nearly impossible to keep up with the current trends of social media. Sure you've got times they might get lucky with their content falling into exactly what's popular but usually you'll see people make 5 - 6 issues (if you're lucky) of their comic then drop it from being unable to find an audience or animations that barely crack 1k.
Sometimes it annoys me that if you really want to make your passion project then you're gonna have to do a 'I don't give a frick' side project. Usually with the most pandering shit of memes, crappy romance relationships, etc. which we all know is trash but ALWAYS seems to bring the people in. Hell you see plenty of animators needing to get their start animating memes for even the slight chance people will look their way.
I mean if it's not bite-size sharable it doesn't exist to Facebook or Twitter. Youtube wants spam to run more ads. No subscription function works anywhere anymore because the companies would rather control what you see than let you find your own content. If you share something non-preferred the media algorithms just bury it anyway so people barely share original content anymore.
The "I don't give a frick" meme project becomes your main gig and source of income. You never get to start something new or work on your passion project. The internet is soulless, monopolized, and corporate.
I hate that 90% of background characters are Furry DeviantArt tier OCs
The reason why nobody cares about a second episode is because people who find this shit boring, click out the video and forget about it. People who talk about it, care about it. I bet the watch time analytics would be pretty grim. I didn't finish it. The guy who told me about it didn't even finish it.
The two main characters look ugly after
Who is this show for?
It's seriously like he made a series about two side characters and forgot it needed a protagonist.
They originally were side characters with the protagonist being a human kid. The OG flash version was much better.
That's been the trend for nearly all alien-starring sci-fi comedy animation and strips for a while now. It didn't start with Sluggy Freelance.
I think Monkey Wrench's biggest flaw is its two main leads. The fact that its side characters are all way more entertaining, better defined, better designed, and all around more likable shows that the focus is misplaced.
I agree, the big guy is boring and the other is hysterical and annoying.
Wasn't there supposed to be a third character though?
I think I remember seeing several pics on Zeurel's DeviantArt with these two guys and another human girl character, can't confirm this because he delelted his DeviantArt account because of something relating to AI controversy or something.
>I think I remember seeing several pics on Zeurel's DeviantArt with these two guys and another human girl character
There was, but she ended up on the cutting room floor long ago. I guess Zeurel thought she was too generic and opted for alien species as the main cast instead. The last time she appeared was in 2017
https://twitter.com/Zeurel/status/891796785663852544
lmfao his show would probably be better off if he kept that character, the two MCs just look like weirdly stylized humans
I thought that was Leela from the thumbnail
And the big guy is Jet Black
This is all I can think of when I see the character. At least the other squid head character has a unique design but man the big dude is just so generic and all around lame design.
Wonder what her personality would have been. Already has the smug manic klutz and stoic tough guy.
What would be her niche?
She has the smug look, though I feel that futurama's Leela would be a good start, make her skilled and outwardly confident but riddled with insecurities adding in naturally unlucky.
Shame the show effectively ended, I'd watch a sci-fi cartoon about space mercenaries.
>I'd watch a sci-fi cartoon about space mercenaries.
Any recommendations? The idea is very appealing to me.
Anime:
Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy
Cartoon:
Final Space?
It's weird but I can't think of many cartoons where the cast is on a spaceship and they do odd jobs or missions for money. There's Star Wars: Rebels or Star Wars: Bad Batch but they have a cause, Star Trek: Prodigy, Buzz Lightyear: Star Command and Cleopatra in Space are about heroism or an organization.
>Final Space?
It starts out like one but very quickly falls into a cause/heroism, it does bounce between the two
As cartoons go there's a few but most are comedic in nature. Final Space, Bounty Hamster, Tripping the Rift, and My Dad the Bounty Hunter. Granted most these shows are meh at best and garbage at worst. There's other shows about space adventuring but they don't really feature mercs.
If you're okay with Anime the obvious go to is Cowboy Bebop and Trigun is great even if it's only on one planet.
If you want the live action route then you can't go wrong with Firefly and it's film Serenity. You can also watch Farscape for its awesome puppets created by the Jim Henson company.
We already know. She was entered into an OC tournament called Walking City. Zeurel even animated some of it fully voiced and everything. Hopefully it's still on his deviantart
>Hopefully it's still on his deviantart
Zeurel deleted his DA account over AI art drama crap
WAIT WHAT
WHEN
Ok, found and watched it, girl wearing a tanktop with jiggle physics and talking about how cold snow made her nipples hard would definitely have made the show more popular.
post?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YSHFp9BBqWKfEIitex1SzP4PAdpkdiNC/view
Her personality seems to have been Shrike but even less knowledgeable of Earth.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YSHFp9BBqWKfEIitex1SzP4PAdpkdiNC/view
Only part I could find.
This character looks even more annoying than the other 2 so I'm glad he didn't go with this. It looks like cheap waifubait this board would've never shut up about.
So Turonga Leela?
She looks like she'd fill in the role of "The Sister" to Shrike
Another unhinged character to compliment him but would also be somewhat more put together but not nearly as competent as she tries to appear
Almost 300% chance this was going to be a rip off of Leela from Futurama, and it got dropped because Zeurel didn't "get" the character and couldn't figure what made her role good in Futurama.
>remove the most interesting part of your oc
>be surprised no one likes your oc
Geez, I wonder what happened
1) Nobody can think of a good reason to keep her around outside of "UOOOOHHHHH"
2) A lot of indie producers feel compelled to keep characters and plot beats purely because they 'feel' they ought to, mostly because bigger budget productions have established a rote formula
>Every panel he did for the OC tournament with this girl was wiped from existence with his deleted DA account
>Only remaining artifact of it is this parody he did
Darn
The tournament comics were deleted? That sucks. Some of Zeurel's best work is his tournament stuff. Even the tournament version of Monkey Wrench had something the full and proper show is missing.
I'd watch the show if that coomerbait was a thing.
I feel so bad for Zeurel because he's a wonderfully skilled and talented animator but it's unavoidable to acknowledge that this project just isn't grabbing people.
I think the show would benefit from a third main character, someone to play off of would help the characters grow. Also having a character people would want to draw fanart of would dramatically increase the show's fandom. The main two have really unappealing designs, and I've seen earlier designs that were much better. I think it went through one revision too many.
>The main two have really unappealing designs
I actually find Shrike's (wait that's his name? Seriously no wonder I had to look it up) to be quite an appealing design. It has great tonal compositions, the color choice isn't over bearing, his lanky appearance does fit the archetype he's supposed to fit, and his design is very unique and easily recognizable. Honestly it's fantastic and I think its his voice acting and characterization that hurts him more than his design. I mean the idea of a Cheech Marin space merc sounds fun but the execution just doesn't feel right and Shrike lacks the same charm of the character for whom he's based.
This. It's the voice that ruins it. But while I do generally like Shrike's design, the red full body suit feels kind of… lacking? I feel like SOME kind of cargo shorts would add so much, but I wouldn't want to encourage Zeurel to make his designs MORE complex at this point
I think his face is too pronounced and detailed for what's supposed to be this floppy worm man thing. It's very expressive but needs less details.
The issue is it lacks appeal, and appeal is hard to quantify. I would describe Shrike as a bit ugly, the same way as I would describe Cow & Chicken characters are a bit ugly, but ugly Cow & Chicken characters are still appealing while Shrike is not. Just skimming around the sheet here's what I would point to if I was giving him feedback on the design:
- Skin and eye colors are pretty ugly. He looks sickly and unhealthy. He's not human but has human skin color which makes his "hair" look really nasty. There's a reason Bart Simpson could never be depicted with normal human skin color.
- His fingers are unpleasant, the shape is stylized but those shapes aren't working as well as they could. The nasty skin colors contribute to the issue as well, gross brown finger nails that fuse to the end of his finger, I just don't like looking at them!
- The shoes are almost appealing. but something's a bit off. I think its that they have that large central ridge going down the center of the shoe, it muddles the readability of the shoe's actual volume, and the shape within it can look at odds with the outer shape. I think this is best exemplified by the top left drawing, compare the outline of the gray ridge to the outline of the red part of the shoe.
- Lineart is a little too clean, its not an issue on most of the drawings but it contributes to how bad the fingers look. Hand readability is also questionable on the top left drawing.
- His bodyshape is unappealing as well, and the jacket only serves to make him look less interesting somehow.
In reference to his weird human skin, I remember older art of this character had him white and I thought it worked better.
>gross brown finger nails that fuse to the end of his finger, I just don't like looking at them!
Indeed, it's gross to look at, I actively tried to look away from those nasty ass fingers while watching the episode.
pretty spot on
Monkey Wrench has some cool designs. Why does everybody rag on the music tho?
People rag on the music? Why? It's not bad. I mean apart from the main them none of it is that memorable but it is still serviceable and thematically consistent. It does It's job that's all I care about.
In a post-indie game landscape, not taking more consideration for the quality of the soundtrack is frankly unacceptable, especially for indie media of its own class.
The guitar playing is fricking awful. The tone is a bit too whiney and those long tones were a terrible choice. It’s bounty hunting…IN SPACE! Pep up the rhythm a bit and make it feel exciting.
Most of the music isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself, but it also doesn’t particularly drive the narrative. It’s just there. It doesn’t sound like ockeroid wrote to screen. It feels like he just wrote a bunch of stuff based on descriptions and then those tracks were cut to fit.
Better scoring could have definitely helped some of the pacing issues and create more of a sense of focus for the meandering plot by directing emotional arc more. I don’t lay those issues at the feet of the musician, but a lot could have been done to help fix those issues.
He looks like a zoomer EWJ, which isn't a BAD thing per se.
But is it a good thing?
Opinions on this quick, slight redesign? Removed some details that seemed unnecessary, added some to the pants area
Make the pants the same color blue as the jacket and it'll look way better and cut down on needless extra colors. Though if you do that I suggest putting the lighter blue trim back on the jacket to help with distinguishing it from the pants.
You're right, it does look better
It really does.
Such a small change, makes a huge difference.
It does look better.
Just removing the disgusting fingernails works wonders, jesus.
I feel like I'm on crazy pills because of all the critiques I'd have for the voice acting, I feel Shrike's is the only one bringing the energy that the show needs (aside from the cat). Everyone else sounds like they're recording while trying not to wake their parents.
Beebs especially, Tyneen sounds kind of amateurish, or at least like her voice wasn’t properly cast
Shrike sounds like he's trying to fit in spanish lines just to say he speaks spanish and it's very jarring, to the point where it takes away a lot of quality of the show for me
>Shrike sounds like he's trying to fit in spanish lines just to say he speaks spanish
It's more like Zeurel's attempt at making him quirky, but it's lame.
>to be quite an appealing design
It's the best design because it's very reminiscent of another well-designed character. That's not a criticism, it's just a reason why it stands out compared to the other designs.
He must fricking HATE this comparison, but I think it's fair.
>the soulless version
What a stupid looking gun
rude
honestly better than the final design
Much better design, is this still by Zeurel?
The guns on the top right and bottom look cool
Also, the color choice was was totally inspired by pic related
This is way better than the final design, what the hell is this guy doing?
Spazzy space mexican is fine, but he doesn't bounce off the big guy, who is devoid of personality and honestly just doesn't look very good in design or motion. So the chemistry is just boring and half the time you're forced to look at this giant boring turd of a character.
>he doesn't bounce off the big guy
It really flopped a chance when they were talking about pizza in their first scene. The big guy sounds annoyed like he has to accept Spazzy's pizza fixation but he should sound excited, like they'll go get pizza together because they're friends.
You can tell he BADLY wanted these guy to be like Spike and Jet. A complex, long history that goes unspoken, where they grumpily and begrudgingly accept each other's shortcomings and quirks. Instead, he made wacky jackass and a soggy bag of manure.
Even at its silliest Bebop doesn't seem much like what he's trying to go for. Maybe taking such close inspiration from it was a mistake.
It's super weird that the series has more original characters than it knows what to do with and could probably have cut several of them from the first episode to save time, yet one of the main characters is obviously Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop.
Not even an homage to Jet Black. It's just a slightly fatter Jet Black, personality and all pretty much. A lead character. If this had gone live on cable the network would be sued, it's so blatant.
Normally a character like that would be in the background as an Easter egg.
>the network would be sued
Japs are too polite for that. But yeah, I'd lose the beard at the very least.
It's the robot arm and leg that's the problem. If you shave the beard he still has the other bushy features and the arm and leg have the same rounded designs and everything.
Like I don't know if the courts would agree it's infringing but it's close enough to be a viable case which means the network would settle.
Lose the robot limbs, or make them more boxy, or frick add more robot so both his arms are robotic. Just not have it be so obviously Cowboy Bebeop's Jet Black.
Apparently the creator has never seen cowboy bebop, and due to comments like this, he probably never will
She looks fun, and she probably would have brought coomers to watch the show more. But it's his decision at the end of the day.
Still, I do think the main duo need a crew of their own. The type of comedy show he's trying to go for would benefit from an ensemble cast rather than just two dorks.
it gives a mixture of Mighty Ducks and Osmosis Jones vibe
the show is just Cowboy Bebop but Spike acts like Lupin the Third
Earthworm Jim needs to lay off the meth.
I legit thought it was some earthworm jim fan animation for a few seconds the first time I saw the thumbnail. Ironically probably would've enjoyed that more...
s… sexo?
i bet she farts alot
God those paws look delicious.
He makes cool stuff so I’ll keep watching, Lythero can pay his expenses.
I noticed he wanted to give up on episode 3 being fully animated, but suddenly he decided to animate the whole thing. Some good money must have gone his way.
The animation is so fricking good, GODDD
Jeez this is really unfortunate. Animation is great but man oh man. The Cowboy Bebop guy endlessly humming and hawing about whatever, all the misguided attempts at being emotional or being cool, the one attempt at a joke that falls even flatter than everything else. It's doing tell don't show, and even then what it's telling you isn't anything of any importance. It's a scene that'd get cut from whatever it was in, and you'd find and watch it in the DVD extras and go "well OF COURSE they cut that!"
it'd be nice if the characters shut the frick up for two seconds. you'd think he'd understand the importance of silence given that he's using Bebop as a direct reference
That's the sad thing. Disney Afternoon / Ren & Stimpy tier animation in service of no story and boring characters.
the soft shading and some of the color choices really bring it down for me, and the base art style is already... niche I guess.
How would you fix this design?
Not perfect but so much better than what we got, impressive for a quick edit posted on Cinemaphile
ewww, for such a graphic and stylized look you'd think zeurel would know better than to try soft shading like that
>soft shading
What an eyesore, Zeurel probably did so to cut down on production time, but it looks so so bad.
i think his style is very early-2010s newgrounds-ish, which isn't really popular anymore
I think his old style had way more potential to be aesthetically pleasing. Shrike looked like a 2004 edgelord and it's fricking great. Now he looks like John K redesigned him. NuShrike has this Earthworm Jim head and huge jaw, along with disgusting dark triangle fingernails and an overall less interesting silhouette. He's basically Ren Hoek and Earthworm Jim combined, designwise.
Anon, this is just Trigun.
I prefer Trigun over Earthworm Ren.
holy frick that's way better
I think it’s too derivative of that guy from trigun
Very clearly inspired by trigun.
I see Zeurel's work was always very derivative from that pic.
You can still see some of the issues here, interestingly. The facial expressions are much more ugly than they are cool, and the fingers are still pretty bad.
I have no idea how anyone thinks this is better than what we got. It looks like bart simpson had a kid with vash the stampede.
Contrarianism. I've noticed people on this board are a lot more critical of this indie show than shit like picrel, which I can only feel is out of crab mentality.
>so you can't criticize something cuz it's indie?
No, but most of the critiques are really trivial shit that you'd get called a homosexual for making elsewhere like this dude
>Pic related deserves worse
I don't even know what pic related is, anon. We aren't all up on whatever cultural war imperative necessitates we hate random cartoons on Disney+ or wherever you found this.
I watched Monkey Wrench. I have no interest in whatever your pic is about because I'll guess I'm not the demo anyway.
>wherever you found this
There've been daily threads shilling this reaching 300 dipshit
Not all of us are drawn to clicking on and reading through baby show threads.
You don't have to enter the thread to see it my dude, and it doesn't disprove the point I was making anyway. You can admit you're an illiterate moron, anon, you'll feel better.
It is actually totally normal for your brain to just gloss over things you have no reason to care about. I can glance through the catalog and my brain will only actually acknowledge the couple of threads that are either of particular interest to me, or that particularly annoy me. I'm not really gonna see a fricking Handy Manny thread even if there's a Handy Manny thread there.
The culture wars guys suck each other off all day and always "think of the children" until bump limit, that doesn't mean the threads are good or that I read them.
nobody watched that
are his shoes guns?
homie that shit is terrible, looks an like a DeviantArt Triggun OC, new Shrike looks much better
> Now he looks like John K redesigned him
Nah if anything it looks like Doug Tennapel redesigned him. People always accuse cartoony animators online of mimicking John K, but so many have other influences, and it seems Doug is one of Zeurel’s influences.
Doug’s style was more edgy and cartoony like Zeurel’s, while John K’s was cartoony but it took far more influence from Bob Clampett and Basil Wolverton and from golden age cartoons.
Another big difference between Doug and John is that Doug’s style, like Zeurel’s, is far more angular than John’s and John hated angular cartoons
So much of Zeurel’s style is so similar to Doug Tennapel’s, to the point where this looks like a pitch Zeurel made:
%3D%3D
You must think very lowly of Doug Tennapel to even compare them
Considering that Doug’s current career is getting into fights with other Comicsgate losers and filming himself reacting to political news like a geriatric boomer, that’s not saying much
This is edgy to he sure, nearly to the point of revulsion, but this version has a much more defined character than the final version just in the design.
Like just looking at this guy I know how he'd act in every situation.
I thought the whole shows was gonna be like this skit and they would just drive around being space morons
The way he holds his gun reminds me of SCUD the disposable assassin.
why oh why did he think some beaner knock off of earthworm jim being his MC would take off I will never understand. He failed the moment he put pent to paper to write this shit out.
Honestly the MCs kind of ruin the show for me. Both of them, though Shrike is certainly far worse than his large companion
Nah, Beebs is worse because he’s boring. And I usually LOVE the voice-of-reason in a show! Shrike's antics at least make the lead duo mildly stimulating.
Smoking is bad, kids.
Yeah hes extremely bland, only exists to be Shrikes tard wrangler and nothing else
I know right? This show has nothing going for it beyond animation and art
I still think this
Was his most compelling animation original
In the original the MC was a grounded personality human fleeing earth that was fighting a war with AIs. There was also some kind of cyborg girl genius who we were told was merely acting moronic.
I don't get why THIS is the concept he wanted to pour himself into. I remember watching the original videos over a decade ago and even then it was medicore compared to his other stuff. The pizza loving mexican alien in generic space just wasn't that interesting
The voice acting in this shit is unbearable. Why make the main character have the most annoying voice ever?
Maybe he should collab with Liam Vickers now that Glitch helped get him into a creative groove with Murder Drones. The name recognition will probably do wonders.
would probably do wonders for him since Liam has proven himself to be a much better writer and has made two better web animations on his own
Plus, just imagine something like Liam' art animated by Zeurel.
Cliffside reboot would be awesome, and something from SSTWL animated by Zeurel would be kino
Viewer dropoff is normal unless it's a real breakout hit. The second channel thing is definitely suicidal, I don't know what he was thinking.
He's committed, but this shit sucks.
it's sad to see someone so committed and hopeful over the success of something only a few will ever give a frick about
>watch it
>it's well animated because zeurel is a pro
>don't chuckle at all
>lose interest half way through
He really should just stick to reviewing chink tablets and animating vinesauce bits.
I lost interest just as an action scene was starting. I should be EXCITED
> I lost interest just as an action scene was starting.
That’s a music issue. It really needed to ramp up the excitement but it was just meh.
Not enough sexy women, not enough content (he really hurt himself making the designs more complicated than they had to be), and the music is shiiiiiiiit.
>Not enough sexy women
be forreal
It's not "Not enough sexy women", it's the lack of hmoxf. Isn't it also implied humans are outlaws in that setting simply for existing?
Yeah. Although the L.A.W guys who are enforcing that seem to have a lot of people who dislike them.
Kinda wonder what that's all about.
>L.A.W
ZEUREL! YOU NEED TO PUNCTUATE ALL THREE LETTERS IF IT'S AN ACRONYM! ZEURRRELLLL
>black man
>white woman
of course
I'm actually interested in why Humans are persona non grata in this setting. Did we frick up the galaxy so bad that literally every other species had to team up to push us back? I hope a human character shows up at one point. That's too much of a interesting potential plot point to just not expand on.
In the prototype Humans had a technological singularity and were in a civil war against AIs, which destroyed the solar system.
So, they're Quarrians from Mass Effect, aliens mad that they unleashed a robot apocalypse on the galaxy.
If he made all this girls the center of the show it would've been an instant success.
Not unless the writing also got better.
I'm honestly not usually the type of person who rags on writers since I think they're a tiny part of what is otherwise a very visual medium, but in this case, it's absolutely one of the major things holding the series back. Zeurel animates gorgeously and has -okay- overarching plot ideas, but he really really REALLY needs someone who specializes in story to help him fill in the details and figure out how to make the stories go (and give characters motivation, drive drama, control tension and release, etc).
>Writers are a tiny part of an animation
Yeah I mean we all like to watch colored lights spin but if they give one colored light some dialogue now you're cooking with gas.
The writing is as important as the sets, the character concepts, and everything else. If you can't write you can't make a thing anyone will sit through.
agreed, but the reason I mention it is that storygays on /co seem to emphasize writing almost over anything else in a lot of threads which I tend to disagree with. Monkey Wrench is one of the few situations where I feel like the writing really IS holding the show back.
Just being good isn't good enough, need to be interesting too. There's millions of projects out there on the internet, you need to capture people's interest in other ways too instead of just making it good.
The first episode of Monkey Wrench sucks because there are no stakes; sure, you get the basic setup of "we have to escort this guy", but there's no strong reason given as to why this actually matters, or why we should want Shrike and Beebs to succeed. The ONLY reason we get is that Shrike wants to go to some dumb fricking arcade and eat pizza; who cares? What's sympathetic about that? Cowboy Bebop establishes Spike and Jet as stragglers, barely able to eat and running a shitty run-down ship, so there's a sense of urgency to their bounties; there's nothing on the line for the former pair. Not even Beebs seems to give much of a shit about the fact their bounty fell through by the end of it; there's no emotional core.
The tone is a mess; it feels like one of those stories that's only light-hearted because the writer was too scared to play it straight. It starts off with a gruesome murder and deals with a bunch of heartless bastards that actively backstab and sabotage each other, but the way they interact with each other is silly and toothless; gunfights where nobody dies, shallow "oh, boy, not this character!" relationships between the various factions, the utterly awful handler character that's sloppily introduced and does nothing but waste screentime after, and so on until the setting, plot and tone have butchered each other beyond any hope of being good.
It's Cowboy Bebop without a spine, Wander over Yonder without a brain; either way, you're better off watching Space Dandy. I haven't watched Episode 2, but the pilot is genuine dog water and I'm not surprised the viewcount fell off.
In the 2nd episode, they're hired to save animals from a dying planet, like in Futurama. So they meet some little rock animals who declare Shrike to be part of a prophesy and they force themselves into his unwilling hands. Then they hand the rock animals over to the employer, who promptly kills them all in front of the duo, who don't care. Then the employer betrays them with no explanation by attacking their ship, so they fight until their employer is beaten. Roll credits.
this sounds like three generic but functional plots combined into a singular nonsensical plot
Yeah, exactly. Turns out the planet isn't in danger, the prophesy isn't real, the rock animals don't matter to anyone, and there's a bounty for beating the employer (that they didn't know about) so they make a profit anyway, but the employer could have just left after the job was done and there wouldn't be a fight scene but story-wise, same difference.
It weirdly doesn't hit any of the beats that make one of those plots work. They don't want to fight their employer on their own, they don't want to help or save the rock people, and the planet isn't dying so there was no ticking clock to drive the action. It's super fricking weird and episode 2 really reveals that whoever is writing is not a real writer.
Also the employer had a mech suit and was apparently a dangerous bounty, why did they hire a couple of rubes in the first place? The entire plot is a mix of unconnected trope scenes mashed together without a thought of narative. They could have had some more scenes to link it all together but instead we needed time for the characters to have a scene messing around with plants, talking about comic books and showing the rock race his head pocket thing.
it just sucks dude are you crazy? it just. sucks. anyone who likes the things it's inspired by are going to walk on by. people who have never seen what inspired it could possibly swallow their pride and slurp it up.
personally as well, shrike accent REALLY bothers me and that kind of corny shit never bothers me dk y. spanish 2nd language for me.
Monkey Wrench doesn't have a waifu, there are no cute wives for me to obsess over. Though, godspeed.
2 in the first ep alone, dude. 3 if you're freaky. What, you wanted HUMAN chicks?
i wanted a GOTH CHICK, ZEUREL. you FRICKING hack
I've seen this posted and discussed and honestly I just don't feel any pull to watch it because I don't like how the characters look. It's that simple. From the designs alone it looks like it was initially conceived of in a different time period for an audience that no longer exists. Someone here said it looked like Newgrounds shit and I agree, this would have blown up back in the day. But that era has come and gone and that sort of stuff doesn't pull audiences anymore.
I also think it wears its visual inspiration on it's sleeve in a way that makes me not want to watch. I just assume it will be derivative. And then other people say it isn't very good so why bother? Dude should move on.
When it actually was on newgrounds it looked better
I've wanted to make a web animation but I have no idea how I'd get the word out there whenever I released something for it. Sad to see this guy was able to spread it around well but it still fell off.
same. i like being creative but the social part is too difficult for me
This is the hardest part these days. A lot of animators get more views from Newgrounds than Youtube now but Newgrounds is still fricking dead in terms of overall viewership. All the animators we do talk about it have been online for ten years and got started way back when. You don't really see any new people.
wow I watched this guys flash animations over 10 years ago on dA, crazy to see him putting out the same characters
ENTER
TheMysteriousMrEnter?
Endzone OCT was unadulterated kino
Hes so cute wtf
god this brings me back, though Karl I think was in the tournament with OPs character
Same here. Just looked back on Endzone, which then reminded me of Endling.
>Check the tournament chart for Law of Talos
>Spoiler/Black Ace got taken out by Chimbley Sweep
Curious to know how that happened, considering that unknownperson had to give him a symbiote to make the fight between him and Climber more interesting and the one with Karl was a game of cat and mouse until Karl sends him to New Jersey with a single kick. I think this was the one Zeurel sperged about and I guess I can kind of see why. Also unknownperson’s and even Zeurel’s OCT animations are part of the reason why I wanted to get into animation in the first place, which is also why I’m kind of bummed that Monkey Wrench isn’t doing that well.
I really miss this early DA artstyle. There was a lot of artists that did a cool mix of Japaenese and Western design values.
Only seen the first episode and I think I can tell it's the kind of series that's written by an animator and not a writer. I see when funny stuff is meant to be happening, but so much of it relies way too much on the expressions and not the setup or punchline.
Also is it just me or are the colors way too saturated? I didn't realize until I looked away from the screen and could still see the characters ( `~`)
This thread is brutal and unforgiving, Jesus.
I get it personally. Episode one came out and it's a pilot. So okay, there's some issues, the writing was clunky, some character dynamics need to be assessed. Okay, cool. Can't wait to see episode 2.
Then episode 2 comes out and it has the same writing problems as the past episode but now there's less time and budget so the visuals aren't as fun. It really needs to be said Zeurel is not a good writer. If he's writing solo, he should get a real writer. If he has a real writer and he's fighting that writer or trying to take over, he needs to stop it. All this work is for nothing if you're animating a bad story with bad characters. Who's going to care about these guys at this rate? The only upside is that at least neither is a Mary Sue power fantasy.
Sometimes it has to be. It's unfortunate that things turned out THIS sour though. No such thing as a bad idea either
It is, and I feel a bit bad, but at the same time the stuff being discussed really isn't arbitrary or spiteful. Nobody is saying "this sucks" for no reason. The problems are universally understood and quick to identify.
It's telling that there is no real disagreement either.
This, the animation is great but everything else is just bad
>the stuff being discussed really isn't arbitrary or spiteful
This. I think the conversation around Monkey Wrench tends to be more thoughtful than almost any other show which is usually:
>brown girl bad
>lesbian bad
>mary sue
>nepotism
>calarts
>forced /misc/-bait
I think most anons *want* this to be better than it is. It has a very professional veneer. Zeurel is a professional animator who loves animation and that shows because it's pretty universally accepted that the animation is really really good. You can tell that when he watches other productions, he pays A TON of attention to animation and catches details that most other people probably wouldn't. Unfortunately animated productions are a sum of their parts and despite being a large chunk, the actual animation is still just a part.
Because Zeurel has the animation-side on lock, I think Monkey Wrench would heavily benefit from having a co-producer who might not know much about animation specifically, but understands film and visual storytelling from a broader perspective. Let Zeurel control concept and big picture type stuff and focus on nitty gritty animation stuff, but then let the other person check him on other storytelling details. "The plot doesn't make sense here...why are the characters doing this? We need to give this scene a greater sense of urgency. The music needs to really amp things up here."
Cinemaphile mostly likes brown girls now
I dunno about that. Seems to be, at best, an even split to me. There are 'brown girl fetishization' threads, but there are just as many if not more complaining about brown girls as if the recent polychromatic trend in animation somehow threatens the existence of white people.
>brown girl bad
>lesbian bad
>mary sue
>nepotism
>calarts
>forced /misc/-bait
These things are all true tho.
this is the same guy that threw a temper tantrum after losing a fricking deviantart upvote contest. and the same guy that threw a bigger temper tantrum after people shitposted on his pony video.
he deserves this mediocrity.
Source? Id love to read that
this man speaks of what ye seek
I’m not sure if the Escape from Nevarra page is still up, and since he deleted his account I don’t think his comments would be there either. And while I don’t know about him getting pissy about comments on his Sandvich video but he still has it on his channel: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aYAGB11YrSs&feature=sharea
Black Ace losing out in Escape from Nevarra and the Sandvich video, yeah?
> after people shitposted on his pony video.
I watched it, seemed fine, why the shitposting
Oh I checked the description, pedo posting huh? Anyway I can read the comments though?
Writing and drawing are two completely different skills. Most are good at one. Very few are good at both.
This. Zeurel is pretty good/great animator but his writing is just eh
https://twitter.com/Zeurel/status/1690529185029353472
I hate these fricking things
I wonder if Zeurel is aware of these threads, and if so, how he feels about them.
if he reads them, I just hope the knows that most people just want him to be better because he has a lot of potential. and I agree with
It's nearly impossible that he wouldn't have any idea that his show is discussed here, but whether he actually reads it or not is another story. This place has a (not unfounded) reputation of being a cesspool of trolls, schizos, and idiots. For every thoughtful comment, there are 5 of some moron trying to stoke the flames of culture war shit. I think some people specifically avoid coming here and I don't blame them.
I like it, not perfect but its got potential
cool logo
I remember watching this dude from Newgrounds way back when.
Wishing him and this series well. The character designs are ugly as hell, so it's clearly a passion project through and through.
>it's clearly a passion project through and through.
Too bad it's costing him way more than it has earned as he said in a recent update video.
This is why artists should fear AI, imagine not needing to pay VAs and speedup your animation production with the help of smart tools, we are not quite there yet but we are not far either.
Sigh... this discussion of OCT makes me miss this git.
God I wish OCTs were still a thing. I had so many ideas for characters and the entire genre died when DeviantArt got its redesign.
Why don't you make your own OC thread?
The part I miss is interacting with other people, and seeing how they'd tackle my characters or what crazy shit of theirs I'd have to integrate into my story.
For example, once I was planning to enter an elderly Chinese husband and wife to a tournament, because the idea of everyone else trying to make them fit into their stories with their edgy teen OCs was funny.
Making OCs in isolation just doesn't do it for me.
Hmm. I've never participated in one, but that sounds incredibly fun. Could it be possible that something like that could be arranged here on Cinemaphile?
That could be fun. Cinemaphile might be too schizo and lazy to do it, and Cinemaphile would be hard to host it on, but it might be possible
Have you checked out the /qst/ board? it seems designed for what youre trying to do
This was my first draft of a OCT prompt or whatever it is, inspired by how this thread is currently going.
I don't know how I'd actually run it at all, because I've never hosted a tournament, am lazy as frick, and have more important shit to do than babysit a bunch of schiz/co/s.
Maybe I'll just start a thread with this sometime soon and hope it all sorts itself out.
Oh wait, you might not know that I mean OC Tournament, not thread.
Ah, OK.
Rewatching the pilot and reading this thread had me re-evaluate a project I had been working on myself for the past couple years. It's obvious that the writers grew up with a lot of different inspirations and want to throw a lot of ideas into each episode that rely on a strong pre-existing level of media awareness. "This episode can pivot from this particular story formula that was used in a lot of cartoons, to this other particular story formula, and then this third other one, and it'll be OK because we have the full context for what's going on. If we just write an episode that hinges on one formula, it'll be too boring and rote for us (because we have to be intimately familiar with the material as we re/write and plot it out) and too boring and rote for the audience (who we assume are just as familiar with cliches and cartoon stories as we are)." Except this leads to a lack of graceful and cogent formatting. Even when you understand what the character archetypes are aiming for, they're not all that interesting, to say nothing of the people who are walking into these cartoons without that level of media awareness.
It really does make me question how much of my own project I need to reconsider, or even rebuild from the ground up since it feels completely guilty of the same potpourri problem going on with Monkey Wrench. But the project is partially a collaboration between myself as a writer-artist and a lot of other folks as writers/script submitters. Perhaps I could continue with the project as is and then create an AU on the side to try and streamline things to have more focus.
True and I especially notice it with webcomics/webtoons since they're easier and are the new "thing" everyone wants to make. It always is pretty obvious when someone watches media without actually asking themselves why they like it or what works about it.
I'm also in the same position where I'm reading through this thread and hoping I don't end up passion projecting my way into ignoring all the flaws with the stories I make, but then I see the endless YouTube comments praising it and I wonder how much it even matters lol.
>but then I see the endless YouTube comments praising it and I wonder how much it even matters lol.
I'm curious how many of those comments are from aspiring animators/voice actors/storyboarders, trying to ingratiate themselves to the people working on Monkey Wrench or to other animators/writers/etc that they can potentially network with
Well definitely a few, but of the 42k likes on the second episode I would assume they barely make a dent in the overall fanbase.
also
I wish you mentioned the rock things all had such annoying fricking voices so I knew not to even bother. Boring story is one thing, bad writing whatever, but why do all the episodes also have to have side characters with forced haha voices?
>that they can potentially network with
They would probably go beyond a youtube comment if that's what they wanted
Some of them are aspiring artists, some of them are friends/colleagues, but in general you'll find more positive comments than negative ones on most projects (unless the creator is being a real ass). When people critique things in youtube comments, they come across like a real shithead even if what they're saying isn't totally off base. The occasional "neuro-divergent" individual will pop up and list off all the things they think suck, but most people understand how rude that comes across so they keep critical comments to themselves.
I'll be honest that I'm already doing a webcomic that has a similar premise/vibe to Monkey Wrench and seeing this has made me start rethinking things on it. I was already planning to soft reboot it from an episodic plot into a linear plot with more character building. The whole fact people don't seem to care about the MCs of the show and their general disinterest in anything actively going on in the episodes despite it's good animation just has me realizing that as a writer I've gotta step it up more to really make my stuff stand out.
The setting is just a backdrop, but every story, no matter how outlandish it is, is a human one at the heart of it. Try to figure out your character motivations. The characters need to recover an egg, but that is not their character motivation..that's the plot. Each character should have something that drives them. They're psychologically motivated by something. Maybe they need attention, maybe they desire respect, etc. Figure out what drives these characters, but then bury it in the story. Don't overtly acknowledge it or make it obvious, but in any given scenario, ask yourself: Knowing what I know about this character, how would they react to this situation? Cowboy Bebop wasn't *really* about bounty hunting. The Walking Dead wasn't *really* about zombies. Venture Bros wasn't *really* about supervillains and super-scientists.
The best way to understand character motivations is to live life and to have *been* that person at least at one point in your life. Chuds on /co criticize "self-inserts", but what they don't realize is that every compelling character IS a self-insert. You are able to write for a character well because that character represents a part of yourself. You understand what they would think and do in a situation because at one point, you were that person and you know what you would have thought and done. The "self-insert" becomes more problematic when writers use it to fantasize about what they wish they would have thought and done as opposed to how it really is. Everyone fantasizes about standing up to their bully, but in reality, most people just half-assedly fight back, but then get angry at themselves later. That process of mental torment makes for a much more interesting character than the guy who always knows the right thing to say.
New writers tend to confuse a story's plot for what the story is about. If you ask them what they're writing about, they'll tell you it's about bounty hunters recovering an egg.
>Chuds on /co criticize "self-inserts", but what they don't realize is that every compelling character IS a self-insert
>Chuds
>/co
Also this is a shit take in general. A character is always going to have some element of it's creator's personality in it but that doesn't mean every character is a self-insert.
It's not a shit take, but claiming EVERY compelling character is a self-insert is an admittedly poor way of expressing said take.
Jesus, you get it. Wish you didn't unironically use chud against detractors but whatever I'll take one other person on this shit board understanding writing.
comparing this thread to the other threads up about indie projects is just sad
Like murder drones?
Murder Drones threads are one of the few threads on this fricking board where the majority of people are positive about what they are discussing, which is impressive by itself, but doubly so considering it's an indie production. I'm glad Murder Drones is doing so well, it's come a long way. I feel reallg bad for Zeurel, he clearly had a lot of hope in Monkey Wrench but it's just not there. Other indie animation series have way more experience in their teams, and know exactly what they are selling to exactly what audience they are selling it to. Zeurel knows neither. It's unfortunate, he's a really good animator.
Murder Drones is fricking trash with a story people like to pretend makes any sense.
I'm really sorry you're too mentally moronic to understand a cartoon show's story.
Nta but you must seriously have brain damage if you lack the attention span to watch MD and not be able to put the story together so far. Yeah, you don't get all the answers right now - it's almost like the plot is a mystery and the entire point is that there are some things you don't know until they are revealed later on, anon.
People in the murder drones threads are not over the age of 18 and should cease posting here
Come on, anon. Tell us how you really feel, buddy.
I want to get into Murder Drones but the threads are what put me off is that's any indication of the types of people it attracts. I just want to see some cool and cute murder bots.
Anon, if you are on Cinemaphile of all places and think that the people in the threads for a certain cartoon are indicative of the majority of the people watching it then you are clearly a newbie. Do you even know where you are?
There's lots of regular show discussion in the Murder Drones threads, just ignore the shit you don't like and enjoy the cool and cute murder bots.
The murder drones thread is the only example I can think of where anons are so in love with their own thread that they actively refuse to engage with drama or have arguments, just to keep the thread nice.
you basically never see that level of self policing here, it’s inspirational honestly
isn’t the MD thread a blood cult run by a psychic guy?
Not really, its full of deviant weirdos because MD is created and directed by Liam Vickers who very obviously has a type and made his show around his fetishes which of course got a lot of people interested. Its coombait but in the most masterful way Ive ever seen. Helps that he has a lot of experience in this sort of thing
Imma give murder drones a try, there barely any cartoons coming out rn
So why don't you read classic literature instead? Beowulf, Arthurian legend, The Odyssey, Dull Gret, Jason and the Argonauts, Finn Mac Cuhaill.
Its not a bad Idea but I've been on a Garcia Marquez binge and now I'm reading the general in his labyrinth. I don't dislike classics but in terms of literature I gravitate towards modern and early 20th century stuff, but this is a cartoon thread anon. I love toons and animation more than I like literature.
Positivity has no place on this board.
It's better then that, it's deviant positivity where you embrace the cuteness AND the horrors beyond human comprehension.
I really don't get the appeal of it, I watched a few epodes and the story/characters left me more confused than anything. But hey, at least people enjoy it
Hilda threads and Harriet threads are similar, even if they aren't as big I think
>I really don't get the appeal of it,
It's a mystery plot where cute robot characters at the forefront disguise the eldritch biomechanical horrors in the background. That's the appeal.
If you're confused, it's because you're not putting the plot together using the information the show is giving you. It's VERY show-don't-tell, nothing is explained to your face and you have to pay attention to what is shown as nothing is done without a reason. If you don't get it, that's fine. Like I said, it's a mystery plot. There are plently of videos that explain the general gist of what is going on in the lore of the show, if it interests you enough. It's an aqcuired taste though. If you're not into a show where the story is more "complicated and has a lot more fricked up eldritch shit beyond human comprehension in the background pulling the strings than the first episode would lead you to believe" - I suggest you look for a more simplistic show.
I get the general idea, I just fine the way the story told to be completed schtifretic, like the prom episode and the camping one
I can understand it fine. You're just getting lost in the sauce and several large details the show is giving you aren't sitting with you and being contextualised, it's quite a niche kind of plot with the kind of cosmic elder-god puppetry thing it has going on. If it doesn't click with you and you are constantly confused - and you can't just sit through it to enjoy the characters, action, music and whatnot - then you should just drop as it's simply not your sort of thing. Much of the viewerbase is already familiar with Liam Vickers' writing, plots and themes - as he recycles a lot of his old ideas from previous projects into Murder Drones. If it's not your thing, it's not your thing, though I would recommend you at least give it a try at understanding it because the story is great.
What kills me is N and V's designs are just a very edgy rendition of Kagamine Rin & Lin and nobody else has noticed this.
I'm not really seeing it. Like, at all. I have no idea what these two are so I looked them up, but I don't see a resemblance. I think you're having a bit of a schizo episode, man.
I was actually thinking of Enceladus V, which was full of praise and love and fanart, even someone working on it came by and talked with people and they ended up reaching their goal.
What is that? Never heard of it.
I'm not a fan of the whole tik tok thing, but I do wish them luck. I hope they crush their fundraiser too. If there's a way to check out the episodes without having to be on tik tok I'd definitely check it out.
>tiktok
Interest immediately lost. What a fricking awful way to platform your.. show? Whatever the frick this is.
There is a huge difference in quality between the animation and writing. Many of the jokes fall flat, things just sort of happen, and the entire thing ends up being kind of boring. The two main guys designs are unappealing, and not in the way I think was intended. I doubt many are interested in plushes of these.
Also, Monkey Wrench is a bad name. When you google it, the first thing that comes up isn't this, but the tool. I was confused by the name at first as I thought it meant the Earth Worm Jim guy was a stylized monkey creature or something.
It is a huge shame for Zeurel as the animation is really good and he obviously had high hopes for it, but I can see why it doesn't have mass appeal.
Did they actually fund the plushies? I remember when they were doing that and I thought they fell short of their goals, but I also wasn't following it super closely.
Nope
Yes, so someone did want them
https://www.makeship.com/shop/creator/zeurel
Ah, okay.
>Also, Monkey Wrench is a bad name.
Another shot in the foot that one. No way this show will ever show up on google's first page when you use that term, unless this show becomes wildly popular wich it won't.
Is there a reason it's even called that? Is it like a bebop thing where something in-universe is called that? Is that the team name?
>Is that the team name?
Yep, in the first episode they show a ranking of merc teams nad they are listed as that name, for what reason they chose that name hasn't been explained.
I'm 100% convinced that's also why we got that weird 80's guitar in the theme. "Monkey Wrench" hints at 1980's garage/motorhead culture where dudes in jumpsuits would work on cars while listening to stadium rock and glam metal.
...Except apparently the guy doing the music doesn't actually play guitar so we got the flaccid performance that made it seem like it was going to be a steamy scene in moonlighting instead of an exciting space adventure featuring alien bounty hunters. I honestly don't know how you take a show about adventures in space and make music that sounds like...that.
>I doubt many are interested in plushes of these.
Honestly, why the hell didn't he make a plush out of the cat?
It's seemingly a no-brainer. It's also one of the designs that lends itself best to a cute plush, unlike the two MCs.
>”omg this thing is FLOPPING omg, why even bother”
>upload on his personal channel has 400k views for a second entry for a “new ip”
Why do you guys like lying?
Because for a project that took this much effort, had a team that big, and had animation quality that high, and had a community of animators pumping it up, 400k views in 3 months is not very good by youtube standards. There are short student films that do better than that in a week. The pilot, which came out a year ago, barely cracked 1 million.
To keep up that level of production, the show needs to be more popular than it is.
It's gotta suck when something with that much effort limps along, but a fatass like Nikocado can eat noodles on camera and get over 500k views in 11 days.
I'm not disparaging Zeurel or Monkey Wrench. I'm rooting for their success and want them to succeed along with all the other new independently animated series, but don't try to pretend that the show is doing well.
Because Zeurel has made posts like picrel. 400K obviously shows there is an audience, but those numbers aren't anywhere enough to fund 30min episodes with that level of animation. You need Helluva and Lackadaisy numbers.
Those numbers also haven't led to much in terms of fan engagement. No one is talking about it outside of Cinemaphile who is just talking about it failing. No fanart. Nothing.
That's actually pretty fricking sad. I've been watching his shit for ages and was really excited to see him finally get his show out the door. Its really is a damn shame.
how did you feel about the actual show he got out the door?
Solid 6/10, I suppose. I enjoyed what I've seen and want to see more.
I was hoping he'd take lessons from the pilot and fix stuff moving forward to episode #2, but it seems like he's staunchly decided to go down with the ship. I didn't see any major improvement between the episodes which doesn't bode well. It makes it hard to get excited for the next installment whatever the form.
Unironically going the webcomic route might be better for him, either with traditional page layouts or take the project to Webtoon so it can be like a series of vertical storyboards or cartoon screencaps. It won't have the issues of conducting music, voice acting, or timing audio to motions in general either, so there'll be fewer headaches in the long run
>or timing audio to motions in general
This is what I don't get...gooseworx is fricking EVERYWHERE in indie animation, but I don't think her sound design is ever particularly great. Is it just that she's friends with everyone, or what? The final mixes also tend to sound kinda lifeless which doesn't help Ockeroid...some of his music would do a better job if it was banging a little harder.
>Is it just that she's friends with everyone, or what?
Yes, Networking is the single most powerful tool to success in ANY field, for better or worse (more of the latter imo).
Seriously. Just do what Harry Partridge is doing now with his Starbarians comic
I got a perfect idea. Make it a webcomic and then every year or in a few months, when you have the money and time, make a Monkey Wrench cartoon as a gift to the fans!
Agreed, seems like the best route for him considering his resources.
It's hard for me to believe Zeurel didn't see some of the VERY obvious flaws with his show during production, then again I'm very hyper critical of my own work and I guess it's easier to find faults in the works of others than your own to most people.
My impression is that Zeurel's had the first 2-5 episodes' scripts ready for a while now and was giddy to get to animating already. Episode 2 was def already deep into storyboard work by the time the pilot released. Too late to make any fixes by that point if you're the only writer. Real tunnel vision type beat
He is also absolutely insane for deciding to go with 30 minute episodes from the get-go.
Nothing about the story seems to warrant such a long runtime per episode. I am convinced it would have been better paced and less boring if it had been cut down to 10-15 minutes.
There seemed to be a lot of filler. Honestly, I've tried to watch the pilot a few times and I keep tuning out. The story starts and then it's like "oh hey, there's also this character, and this character, and this character, and in the end, they don't actually matter, the end".
Shit, now I feel terrible AND disappointed. Fricking Zeruel has god tier animation skills so of course his writing is severely lacking. I hope he can downgrade it so he can tell the story he wants
I wish he could hire writers or at least editors, but this is his story and of course he needs to tell it his way.
dunning kruger effect. He's not a writer so he thinks that his writing is fine.
Maybe it’s not even that. He’s had this story in his head for so long that he finally wants to share it with as many people as possible. He’s focused on the wrong things
Bro, 400k views is nothing and the point is his views are dropping
It must be extremely infuriating to realize the big animation project you spent so much time and money on will never get more views than the 1 min TF2 shitpost you made 10 years ago.
Anyone got the drawing of that nerdy boy?
>Shrike wants excitement and danger in one scene
>scared to go into a cave next scene
>Suddenly excited for it because it's like one his cartoons
>immediately back to being scared
It's such a shame but the cgatacter writing and dialogue just isn't there. There's no flow in these conversations, and even after the two episodes I can't a grasp on the dynamic here other than the big guy just being slightly more professional.
I believe that good art and animation can make up for mid writing usually, but the writing is almost too mid.
Maybe he's bi polar?
Huh, that would be interesting, actually.
I knew that gun looked a bit familiar, that dial on the front end gave it away.
The obvious solution is to make Tyneen and Kara main characters. Episode 2 bombed because they weren't in it.
mid show
Genuinely better than what we have now
And that was almost 14 years ago.
How is it even possible to go from this masterpiece to what we have now?
5 mins in and I already like it a lot more than the show we have
>black woman is the one who takes him out
Oh shut up this was decades before this was a thing
Since some of his goons working on his show might see this and pass it along to him on discord: yes.
He's the ultimate animator director. He only understands how to animate and not how to write a cohesive interesting story. He wears all his animation inspirations in his sleeve, but his show has nothing to set itself apart from the myriad of oversaturated sci-fi shows that currently all work against each other. He wants it to be cowboy bebop without interesting characters and firm setting. He wants it to be bounty star without the shonen character development. Something all you fricks need to learn is why things work and don't work so you don't waste money and time on large overblotted projects like this one. His only hope at this point is that the "animation appreciation" community mindset being promoted by rubbberninja and other animation talking heads keeping attention on these failing projects so they don't get ignored among such hits as fricking skibity toilet. Consider that. 2m+ views in under 2 hours for a literal shit post compared to months of concentrated effort and money that result in fricking 30minutes of animation that barley breaks 1 million views after months of shilling. Hazbin hotel was a perfect storm. Trying to constantly recreate that storm is what keeps Zeurel, ukino Joe, happy harry and all the other old ngers trying to remain relevant by doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results. Cw down to earth was cringe wannabe anime shit but at least it represented it's creator's intent. It was edgy and stupid but it had heart. This "Safe as milk" show deserves to be on life support until Zeurel gets his act together and makes what he really wants. But that's just one little bears opinion.
i geuinely hate how much i'm enjoying you avatargayging as boo boo. but aside from that: you're basically right
>such hits as fricking skibity toilet
This will never not be funnysad to me, dozens of episodes of the same inane shitpost outperform all indie animation out there. What a world.
>Something all you fricks need to learn is why things work and don't work
how do I know that
>2m+ views in under 2 hours for a literal shit post
Lmaooooo
it's better than helluva boss but zeurel doesn't understand fandom bait like viv does
he should put a cute girl in it
There are cute women in it, but they aren't main characters and there are no tumblr sexymen for women to latch on to.
Both suck for different reasons
I like it
I do too, everyone here is just so damn critical.
They believe Zeurel is dumb for making a "bad" product but they fail to realize that making a cartoon in general, with so many factors involve (animated, voice work, coloring, design, background, audio etc), is much MUCH difficult than they realize.
I bet if everyone here tried to make their own animated cartoon, they realize it extremely hard and the end result will come out just as bad if not worse than they think Monkey Wrench is, it'll probably have just as many flaws if not more flaws than what they criticize Monkey Wrench for having.
I've seen many critics try their hand at being creators and their products ended up having the same flaws as they criticize others for having. It reminds me of the Mario movie.
You burying your head in the sand isn't going to change the fact that he can barely make money off this and his views are dropping.
Zeurel isn't stupid; he's probably one of the greatest 2D animators in the indie sphere currently, but come on bro. The writing is on the wall, even HE admitted that Monkey Wrench was not nearly profitable enough to justify its 30 minute--and I want you to really get it Anon--THIRTY MINUTE LONG ANIMATED RUNTIME. That's insanely fricking expensive, and its all time views peaked at barely over 450k. Not even half a million people watched it in the span of 3 months. And in the meantime, minute long tiktok-esque shitposts like Skibidi fricking Toilet get 20 mil in nearly a day. He's got talent, and nobody's saying they can just do what he did, but it's clear as day that Monkey Wrench is an objective failure, not a subjective one.
>this juice tastes disgusting
>NOOO you dont understand you have to take all the factors in mind you have to appreciate the hard work the fruit farmer and the factory worker and the packager put in
Anon, Zeurel made a bad product full stop. He expended all his time and effort and money into animation and colouring and neglected every other aspect, aspects that maybe dont seem important to you but their neglect has noticeably hurt this show. You dont have to make your own cartoon to understand that the product Zeurel is making is an inferior product in everything but animation. I have seen animated series with millions of views that were made in fricking powerpoint or MS Paint
Yeah theres definitely a difference between critiques Ive read here versus some Mauler type who will hyper nitpick every tiny thing thinking they know 169% of good filmmaking or some shit
You're not wrong in the sense that almost nobody in this thread could do better.
However content consumption and content creation are too different things. Just because people can't do the latter it doesn't mean they can't have a good take on the former. They probably won't know the best solutions to certain problems, kind of like a patient with a health problem going to a doctor. But the patient if anything will be the expert when it comes to describing the problem, or at least its symptoms.
Honestly to me this thread has been pretty constructive in its criticality. In a way that's actually kind of rare for online spaces, usually people totally rip into something or they'll be way too soft on it.
I think the reason critiques have been so constructive is that this isn't an offensively bad or incompetent show. He has skill, there's potential. But I just don't think this is the idea he should be spending that on.
No one is devaluing how much time, skill and effort it takes to make something with such a high production value. The reason why Cinemaphile is baffled by some of Zeurels decisions is he is such a good animator it sucks to see him drop the ball with the writing and characters, and it sucks to see him depressed and disappointed by the lack of fan engagement and views.
I think the majority in this thread would have wanted him to succeed, he deserves it, but I would lie if I said I was invested in the story or characters.
30 minutes of hand drawn animation per ep is INSANE for a "new" IP. He really would need Lackadaisy and Helluva numbers to make it a successful endeavor, several million views per ep at least.
Why did he choose 30 minutes? Youtube wants 10 minute videos or hours long documentaries or shorts? And the original Monkey Wrench prototype
was 10 minutes is genuinely better than the current Monkey Wrench
>Why did he choose 30 minutes?
Because he had too much faith in his ideas, so he gambled on them.
Doing smaller stuff like short clips and comics to gauge interest before going all out would've been safer and smarter, but isn't the only option.
You can get away with skipping ahead, but you've got no idea if you'll stick the landing.
>30 minutes of hand drawn animation per ep is INSANE for a "new" IP
yeah, especially when the episodes could probably be cut down to 10-15 minutes. One of the reasons I still haven't been able to fully pay attention to the pilot all the way through is that the idea just kind of meanders at a certain point. The plot gets convoluted, too many characters are introduced...I think his the effort:reward ratio would skew towards his favor if he just simplified his narrative ideas.
You're free to like Monkey Wrench, I'm sure many people do. But that doesn't mean it isn't still flawed. A lot of the criticisms ITT are BECAUSE we see the potential Zeurel has in making something truly great. His efforts are admirable, yes, but misguided in some areas.
Man, if you'd remove the thing in the middle, replace it with the chick and make the robot the second side character, you'd really have something.
i'd even go so far as to say that if given the choice i'd rather watch a show about the two on the right
what do you think of the nerd looking guy in red in CW
? Zeurel seems to have completely forgotten about him
Not that interesting.
Pretty sure that's the same character as the chick on
No the CW short has the chick but with purple hair as a seperate character
Maybe an amalgam, then?
Looking at this and the original CW short it becomes apparent the removal of the two other characters was a bad move.
Really want to know more about the human and robot, given that whole AI War on Earth.
Give the girl character Shrike's bipolar personality
Give Shrike more of Bulldog's grizzled-veteran/wrangler personality while still keeping him as a bit of a frickup
Keep Beebs as a side-character that operates his own ship, occasionally runs into Shrike and they reminisce about the 'good old days' before getting into a friendly skirmish over the same job (or conflicting jobs); Beebs seems competent enough to square off against Shrike and the girl OC 1-on-2 and still escape unscathed
this shit looks like fanart trying to pander to a coomer fanbase and not an actual show with a story meant for everyone
What the actual frick are you talking about, moron?
She-Ra schizo.
Is it the someone that won't stop crying about comic shops?
all of indieshit is made to pander to the most niche groups imaginable and because of that the things always lack any sort on consistency. it's why Viv characters look like what an invader zim edgelord autist fanboy thinks is cool.
This. Meanwhile SU and Owl House have much more cohesive and outright better designs.
meanwhile I can believe that ND Stevenson and Sugar, in spite of being part of "the industry", put actual soul into their projects and because of that they managed to stand out from the crowd and gained a real and honest following, instead of solely existing to rake in patreon bucks.
>you think this show is a mediocre failure?!
>well you couldn't do any better!
That is entirely besides the point jackass.
The vast majority doesn't know shit about animation but they are the people all artists must appeal to, they are the consumers.
I think the conversations regarding Monkey Wrench have been abnormally civil. Most of the time people just take a giant shit on an entire show and write it off for superficial reasons, but in this case, it's unanimously agreed upon that the animation is amazing, and that the writing needs a lot of work. The jury seems split on voice acting and music.
I think the reason people keep talking about it is that we WANT Monkey Wrench to be better. The premise is pretty badass and with talent like the crew Zeurel has assembled, I think they're capable of making something truly amazing. The problem is that he doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that there are some things outside his wheelhouse.
We're not obligated to enjoy something just because we couldn't do better. Making an animation is hard. So is being President. So is cooking in a professional kitchen for a restaurant seating 80 people.
Yeah its nice seeing an informative and interesting thread for once even if it got derailed by some schizo homosexual and the morons falling for his bait
>be cut down to 10-15 minutes
The CW Down to Earth short was 10 minutes and was far more engaging and entertaining than both of Monkey Wrenchs episode so yeah he really does need to cut it down
This. 10/10 animation, 7/10 concept, 5/10 writing.
Just make 2-to-5-minute shorts that are non-stop jokes. That's what the internet wants.
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON
SIX FOOT EIGHT
WEIGHS A FRICKING TON
the fact anons bother properly criticizing this project instead of just going "it's shit" shows that they're being more than fair. Monkey Wrench is boring and has no specific audience. Even if it becomes a webcomic it's gonna have the same issues. A while ago Cinemaphile had a long thread just like this about Blu Rivers, and the author took the crits into account and improved. As a creator, if you see a project fail but no one tells you what you're doing wrong it's incredibly frustrating. I hope Zeurel considers reading this thread
>As a creator, if you see a project fail but no one tells you what you're doing wrong it's incredibly frustrating.
This is so false holy shit.
>but no one tells you what you're doing wrong
If you can't see what you're doing wrong you're either purposely ignoring audience feedback or so hilariously inept you should consider abandoning your creative career entirely.
It helps the legit criticism outweighs the bullshit.
For every post saying to add lesbians or ship/coom bait there's tons of critique over how to improve the art and writing.
>the suggestion to add coombait isn't "legit criticism"
Come on now, have you SEEN the indie cartoons and web comics that actually resonate with audiences??
>the suggestion to add coombait isn't "legit criticism"
No, no it isn't. Adding coombair won't fix the fundamental problems of the pilot and won't help in the long run. I mean look at the DCAU; the sexy designs were only part and parcel of the package.
Plus let's face it, people jerk off to fricking anything and will make porn of it even if it has to be off model. It really is the part you need to worry about the least.
Don't those kind of indie end up flavor of the month that's quickly forgotten about?
Yes, very much so.
Id say it is legitimate criticism in terms of audience retention and popularity and all that, same as saying it should 10 minutes instead of 30 because youtube favours either 10 minute long or hour long content
If it's a good well written and well animated cartoon, it will get retention and popularity.
People give shit to Lackadaisy but there is enough there that you don't need to be a furry to enjoy it.
>As a creator, if you see a project fail but no one tells you what you're doing wrong it's incredibly frustrating.
On the one hand, it is. On the other hand, it can also depend on the social media spaces you use and just where exactly you reach out for feedback to begin with. A lot of art communities on Twitter/Tumblr/Instagram are very 'safe' with their feedback and at best you'll get things like two asspat positive comments sandwiching a tiny negative comment (there's literally a ""guide"" on Twitter about how to formulate constructive critique that looks like this). If you surround yourself with yes-men fans or employees who don't want to rock the boat, you're unlikely to get a lot of constructive critique. On the other other hand, reaching out to places like Cinemaphile means you have to separate the wheat from the chaff, you can get helpful negative feedback, unhelpful negative feedback, more unhelpful positive feedback, or "lol add coombait unga jerk me dicky"
>its bad and its never gonna have an audience
That's not being fair, that's just saying "it's shit" with more words
Youtube cartoons don't do that amazingly due to the platform and the demand for videos that are either multihour long documentary, shorts, or 10 minute videos.
I tried to like it.
The animation is great.
But the story/writing is just so meh.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
This shit has more SOVL than 99% of animation these days. Helluva is for shipping obsessed homosexuals anyways.
Both this and Helluva suck balls.
You wouldn't know what SOVL if it kicked you in the balls
>mogs the shit out of indie sludge
>dyke-ra and the diversity hires
>mogs the shit out of your bland mainstream slop
Can't hear over delicious brown tomboys indie slop
>Can't hear over delicious brown tomboys indie slop
Not gunna lie, anon, pretty based. Even though I don't actively watch the superman show, I do admire your tastes.
Wish I could say for indiegays. It sucks knowing I have superior tastes in a sea of midwits.
>inferiority complex on Cinemaphile of all places
It's a shame a slop enjoyer such as yourself can't recognise how bland and shit your tastes are, especially compared to the likes of Women That Can Literally Kill You. It's okay, anon. One day you'll stop being a gay, take the corporate wiener out of your mouth and stop proclaiming your soulless shit is superior to the "indiegays", and then maybe you'll actually appreciate some media with actual substance and SOVL in it instead of artificial corporate out-sourced slop.
>actual substance and SOVL
only furries and coomers watch indieshit.
So much this. The industry provides enough for us.
>Nobody brought up furries except (You)
>Nobody brought up Helluva/Vivzieshit except (You)
I was talking pretty specifically about Murder Drones, which actually does have soul and doesn't owe its success to furries or coomers. You trying to make furry shit indicative of all of indie really says something about where your thoughts lie.
>Verifivation not required.
Frick Vivzieshit
Frick La-cuck-daisy
Frick Murder Droll
This is not a fursite nor a place to shill indie cartoons.
It's a thread about indie. Frick off back your capeshit thread, Black person.
>implying I like capeshit because I don't worship indie cartoons
Capeshit is garbage. Indie is garbage. Both need to being shilled here. Simple as.
You entered a thread on the COMICS AND CARTOONS BOARD, specifically about indie animated series, are are proceeding to complain about "duh shills" when people are discussing indie cartoons in a thread about indie cartoons on the, like previously stated, Comics and Cartoons board.
Frick off and/or have a nice day.
Indie cartoons aren’t real cartoons and are often fronts for shilling. Talk about a real cartoon or comic, like She-Ra or Steven Universe.
Animated capeshit has more sole than anything indie
>stop talking about comics and cartoons on the comics and cartoons board
Sperglord.
Furries were never allowed. We ran you off once and we'll do it again. Fang winning ms. Cinemaphile was bullshit.
Oh my god, was that what this is seriously about, Anon? Which waifu of yours did the big bad dinosaur stomp all over? Please tell me so I can laugh even harder
Frick you, ms. Cinemaphile and this entire board was dedicated to appreciating fictional women. We could have had Chel and her fine as win as was tradition. Instead the fricking dinosaur won and turned the whole thing into a Reddit popularity contest.
>its a Chelgay
It's a made up tournament on some taiwanese tap-dancing forum where cheating is an obligation, morons avatargay and do scat RP, and every fetish under the sun gets a chance in the spotlight. There wasn't any integrity or dedication since 2018, but better luck next year.
Ok normie
fapping to a cartoon robot girl doesn't make you any different than a furgay. shit, even the robots have hair.
Finding charactets cute and enjoyable to watch doesn't equate to fapping to them, you fricking closet coomer. Every single cartoon with a fanbase, EVERY single one, has a population of coomers that jerk off to it. MD isn't exempt, the majority of people just enjoy the characters.
>robot girl with no pants
>another one with an open collar, thigh high socks but no shorts
>this one is wearing garters
[sarcasm]yeah, nothing says "with coomers in mind" about these characters[/sarcasm]
Zoomers have fried their brains with porn lmao. No wonder indie slop appeals to them.
>robot girl with no pants
That's a dude anon.
And you've pointed out they are robots.
Do you actually have a point here? You're not actually saying anything beyond pointing out the show has great character design and yet still doesn't owe its popularity to furries or coomers, but because it's actually quality with soul put into it.
>You're not actually saying anything beyond pointing out the show has great character design and yet still doesn't owe its popularity to furries or coomers, but because it's actually quality with soul put into it.
Please study Rebecca Sugar's art for the love of god. You don't know what quality is.
Nobody actually believes this.
opinions are not facts.
it's your "opinion" that SU character design is too simple or not angular enough, but it's not bad and that's the fact.
It’s problem some moron that thinks Bruce Timm and Stephen Silver is a good designer. This board is poisoned.
Nature is healing.
Oh lord, that fricking guy. That's a shame, this thread was one of the most genuine on the board.
>shilling indie shit
>genuine
Monkey Wrench has its own dedicated schizo?
androgynous character design is meant to tell the coomers that fapping to the male characters is "not gay".
knowing how to separate real character design from titillation is what makes the so-called "industry slop" so great.
Painfully obvious samegay. Try harder next time and maybe people will believe you're an actual mainstream shill instead of a falseflagging sperg.
See
MD is nothing but soulless coom air to take in patreon bucks. Stevenson and Sugar actually put soul into their works and have real fanbases.
Stop samegayging you StevenUniverseSchizo flooding homosexual. Nobody believes you. SU always was and always will be fricking garbage, nobody actually thinks the designs were good.
Only dumb zoomers think SU's designs are bad.
Peridot's original design is kino but her midget form fricking sucks and loses everything good about her design. Even then her design is the exception. Most other SU designs are terrible especially post Jail Break.
This design is more harrowing and probably fits the persnickety evil characterization of her early personality better, but short-stack peridot is better for coom-bait.
but short-stack peridot is better for coom-bait.
This! REBECCA knows coom bait. SU is fricking sexy.
MD isn't funded by patreon, goes to show you actually don't know anything about it and you're just in this thread to LARP about your love for steven universe. You're not convincing anyone.
See
Indie is the real slop, not the industry. You should be grateful we have Steven Universe.
>MD isn't funded by patreon
so what? sew buttons.
it's a cash grab, and if you still want a real example of "SOULful" quality animation that everyone agrees was great? pic related.
This is just as soulless as indie slop. We were robbed of Jibaro kino.
lmfao watch the original if you want SOVL
Watch the second episode. Its nothing like the pilot
Just because it has soul doesn't automatically make it an exciting experience to watch. I kept turning in and out. It felt mind-numbing, and at times annoying due to the voices of some characters.
Is it better than Vivzpop shit? Sure, but Vivzpop shit knows its audience. Monkey Wrench feels like it was made for the likes of the common Cinemaphile-poster, geared towards millenials who lament the death of western hand drawn animation, but the viewer count and these threads make it evident it didn't really manage to capture that audience.
>Viv and Tracy
Tracy made 2 mil on her crowdfunding from amassed fans while Vivzie had rich grandparents. Tell me who’s more deserving of a show.
Should Zeruel do the same?
Neither of them deserve a show. Both of them scammed their audiences.
How so? I get in Viv’s case, but lackadaisy is going to actually take time
Tracy is just as much a scammer as Viv.
Explain
Obvious bait is obvious. Stop biting.
If you're referring to her accepting patreon donations most probably donated to see her continue with the comic, only for her to put her focus into the animated pilot and show instead. ok. I can see how that is disappointing, but it isn't a scam and the comic is free.
The show’s free too, isn’t it? The kickstarter was for merch to fund the show I think
Yeah. Though, it would be a scam if the show never came out because people paid up to 10k to have their cat OC's appear as cameos.
>cat ocs
>for five figures
Oh nooooooooooooooo.
>The creators of the Lackadaisy animated series reserve the right to refuse any request for a design that does not harmonize with the overall aesthetic of the series.
So no furry fetish sparklecat that stands out like a sore thumb.
Well that’s a good thing I’m still pissed about Beelzesparkle on Helluva
I’m saying oh no because these people put a down payment just for their ocs to cameo. What are they going to do if the show isn’t made? Is it like a quarter to them that kind of money I’m hoping a few fatgays passed with their designs. The Irish caretaker or whatever from Rocky and Freckle’s childhood seemed hefty enough.
Not really worried about it not getting made.
Quoting anon from another thread
>A lot of people involved in this project have a lot to lose. Lackadaisy is Tracy's life's work. Fable is a professional animator who stands to lose a career. Spike owns a comic distributor. If they fricked over their backers, they'd all basically lose any semblance of reputation they had which would frick over their careers and besmirch all the work they've ever done.
But there was only 3 OC slots. 30k out of 2 million. People really wanted those plushies and the reprints.
Oh ok, so where are they?
Both furry designs on both shows suck ass. You unironically got better furry art from She-Ra.
Tracy gave the audience exactly what was promised with her last kickstarter, or more, because the pilot ended up being way longer than what was initially proposed.
How DID Zeurel fund the first two episodes? I haven't kept up with him or the progress of making it.
I think he could make big bucks on patreon or with a kickstarter offering custom animated loops of people's OC's and/or cameo appearances in the background of the show.
>I think he could make big bucks on patreon or with a kickstarter offering custom animated loops of people's OC's and/or cameo appearances in the background of the show.
He did those, many of the background characters are backer's OCs.
Well, shit. He should offer it up again if he isn't already.
I don't get it, 1st minute into the pilot theres hot rabbit furry lady, deurtagonist is hot bara fury man, why is this not catching on?
It probably wouldve if she was in the second somehow
I love the moronic fat cat
that is all
Didn't finish the first episode because of the spanglish
Kinda weird that Zeurel thinks spanglish is a quirky character trait uh?
Many of Shrike's quips rely entirely on it.
I just hate the voice acting of shrike. If he was going to have a beaner character say Spanish lines to seem interesting, then maybe he shouldn't have gotten the most boring pasty looking motherfricker to voice a space Mexican. I dunno if you showed this to Cheech and told him a white boy voices in the lead, he'd be disappointed.
Why do all indie cartoon threads devolve into sniping at other indie cartoons?
Are the neopuritans acting up again?
Oof, those hangers…is it getting hot in here?
>thread invaded by schizos reeeing about indie
>joined forces with a StevenUniverse-tard
Thread death had to come eventually.
It'll be very convenient for any die-hard Zeurel defenders or other folks in the industry on their ivory throne that need a quick easy excuse to dismiss all the salient criticism in the thread
Nah frick Zeruel, this will help with the silent criticism.
The frick happened to this thread?
Schizos woke up and realized there was a thread they forgot to shit up
Some schizo LARPing as Rebecca Sugar's #1 fan samegayging.
damn, a shame that this thread was invaded, it was really nice so far and very impressive that its survived so long
as a creative or whatever myself i think people really really need to value outside input more, honestly that even unwarranted criticism should be appreciated
both so we get better results from stuff like this and so more people connect or whatever
also murderdrones sucks go back to your thread, liam vicker's only good show was the interencion cube one
Creators need to stop listening to the haters. Don't like, don't watch.
you should be able to distinguish between someone blindly hating with no benefit and someone critiquing your work out of some deep drive for it to get better, otherwise they wouldnt even bother critiquing it
As a fanfic writer, you learn to write for yourself and ignore everyone else.
well duh yeah, your most important audience is yourself
but some outside commentary with differing views really does more good than harm, the last thing you want to do is trap yourself in an echo chamber keeping yourself in a creative ditch or something
Yeah but writing fanfiction isn't the same thing as writing a wholly original work for an audience. Writing for yourself is essential, of course, but there needs to be consideration for what an audience wants that you apply to your work in tandem with that. If Zeurel wasn't trying to reach a larger audience, he wouldn't have sunk thousands and thousands of dollars into each episode.
But fanfic doesn't cost money. Whether you can continue your fanfic or not doesn't depend on how many people read the last chapter. A fanfic isn't a "product" that needs to appeal to millions to keep going. He needs this to be a sucess, so he can't just write for himself.
>also murderdrones sucks
nah it's pretty kino, just as kino as internecion cube. pretty much the exact same story beats with some characters switched around and a larger plot. ypu're just coping. if you knew anything about liam's old shit apart from "its the cube one" you'd know that already you ingenuous homosexual
disingenuous*
i know that the rest of his work sucks ass
cliffside was miserable, people only like it for the spider chick and nothing else
now go to bed young man, you dont want to ruin your middle school sleep schedule
>doesn't disprove my point
>only response is "no, and now im going to call you kid like an edgy preteen who can't think of anything else to say because he's stumped after he said something blatantly moronic"
Holy frick, Liam Vickers' 5 year old low-budget pilot animation sucks compared to his newer, higher funding, higher quality stuff? Who the frick asked for that revelation? Because I didn't. No shit Cliffside looks bad now, Internecion Cube was 10x better than Cliffside as only an animatic, and Murder Drones recycles similar concepts, themes and character traits from Internecion Cube along with other Liam Vickers projects like Design, puppetGAME and Black Dogs. All of these are literally prototypes of how Murder Drones turns out. Like I said, you are a disingenuous homosexual.
Did Murder Drones mog your favourite show or something?
Murder Drones has yet to mog She-Ra
your point is that youre a 14 year old schizo that will stand by their shitty web show and die for some reason
and im very aware that every thing of his is just his recycled fetishes and character archetypes, just cube one had the most well rounded world, characters and like stuff going on
also the first episode was dreadful with awful writing, pacing, worldbuilding and designs and i have no interest in watching the rest regardless
id detail him way less and make his face less of a shit brick, though not 100% sure beyond that without doing something way too drastically different
i think shrike atleast is a kinda appealing detailed ugly somehow, i guess his zany and abstract form put him a bit above
this guy is kinda just a fat ugly human
>y-y-you're underage because I have no argument.
Fricking moron. Just admit you're a sperging autist in denial and save everyone the time reading your inane dribble. Your show got mogged by something of actual quality and substance, and you're coping.
HAVE NO FEAR YOU QUEERS
Someone archived Zeurel's deviantart stash so go nuts
https://archive.org/details/zeurel-deviantart-collection
Also I can't believe that I remember when Josh wanted to have Lariat and Triangle on Monkey Wrench after Walking City. Hell, the original Monkey Wrench crew had other members, too
Those older designs for shrike and Beebs are so much better and appealing it genuinely hurts to see them downgraded to that corporate-looking slop monkey wrench has. Completely removed all the charm it had to make something absolutely bland and inoffensive.
The industry wins again.
The robot's display face turning red (same as the Synths from the pilot) and expressionless when the girl was killed makes me want to know more about them and that Robot vs Human civil war, humans being banned from space by aliens. Earth's orbit is filled with wreckage and corpses and the moon's been blown up, interesting place even if it's just backstory and motivation of two of the characters.
Big straightman & irresponsible spaz duo isn't enough main characters for interesting interactions.
why didn't he just plagiarize Hazbin Hotel and the other one if he only wanted a recurring consumer base?
Animation is great but I just thought it was a very boring show.
Anyhow anybody else here watch A Fox in Space?
The one episode every 3 years show?
That Fox in Space?
Indeed that fox in space
But I think the quality makes up for the wait time
There were a few threads when it came out, maybe its high time we had a thread for that
I just remembered this old animation of his with those two characters. Good times..
I think the main characters are generally just unappealing, in terms of both personallity and appearence, especially the big guy, honestly just flat out repulsive.
wow frick all the haters in this thread
Silly anon, its 1 on 160 youre going to get gangraped