My interest in Animation and how I've gotten better at it.

Back in November of 2021, I was still relatively new to the Logo Community and have just been friends with a guy named Patrick Jenner. (who has a huge taste in Logo Content, and has created a little bit of my childhood)

One Sunday morning while we we're on our way to Church, i was scrolling through YouTube and I kept seeing these little objects like a test tube or a flower or a leaf with limbs and a face. I kept thinking to myself... “I wonder if this is what everyone in the community was watching.” so while we we're still on our way, I watched at least 2 or so minutes of “BFDI 1a: Take The Plunge” and a few hours after we went home, I watched the rest of it.

For those who don't know, Battle For Dream Island (BFDI for short) is a flash animated web series created by Michael & Cary Huang (The HTwins) and centers around 20 personified objects as they all battle & compete against each other in multiple challenges till there's one person standing, and that one person will get to win the grand prize, Dream Island! Over the years, this show has captured the minds of many fans and people from the early 2010's that they made their own fan shows based on it. soon the genre was named as “Object Shows” as so many people made their own shows, drew fan art of the characters, and some fans of the show who are animators even later animated for the actual show!

As I just finished the first episode, I felt interested in seeing more of these little objects with limbs and a face. so I watched like 1 or 2 more episodes of Season 1 and got bored like an idiot and went over to Season 4 Episode 1 (BFB 1: Getting Teardrop To Talk.)

Over the entire month, i continued watching more & more BFDI and kept enjoying and digging these episodes. One time on Christmas I persuaded my mom to buy me a few of the plushies and on Christmas I got both the Pen & Woody Plushies, I was so happy.

While 2022 came and went very Fastly, I continued and continued to watch more BFDI episodes and memorize every plot line or dialogue by heart, I also got into Inanimate Insanity and watched some other Object Show related content.

In Early 2022, there was a Reanimated Collab for the BFDI Twosday video by Jacknjellify by a fan of the show. I decided to give it a little shot, why not? I was still relatively new to Animation, and I could safely say that I had a lot to learn when the final product came back to me in my mind, because well, it wasn't that good. The part i Reanimated in the video is where Two announces that “Everyone must form their fingers, toes, and tongue, into the shape of a Two!” and Eraser with huge confidence tries it and for some reason fails and spins around into circles multiple times with creaking noises. After the release of that video, although it's not really that good, I was still interested in animating some more BFDI related content. so I continued and continued to reanimate more BFDI scenes like the one in BFB 19 where there was a little shot of Lollipop having an existential crisis because of Leafy & Ruby's obnoxious and loud singing, and ANOTHER one in BFB 2 where Loser is licking the jawbreaker from where it seems like Eggy is in the Jawbreaker but later the shot reveals that's it's Gaty, then she latches onto Pin.

When Mid 2022 came by, I was still wondering to myself if I could make my Animation's better somehow. One day, I was searching up tutorials on how to animate in the BFB style in FlipaClip (FlipaClip is the app I use to make these animations.) and I came across a little tutorial on how to animate a perfect blink in the BFB style, so I tried studying that short a little bit and it looked a lot better. After making that blink test, I felt like I had the Animators Confidence, like I have the potential to be a very good OSC animator someday. Eventually, I wanted to learn more & more and i saw another tutorial from a guy named “ZayDash Animates” as he was also animating in FlipaClip too and definitely had more experience than I did, obviously. I watched a lip-syncing tutorial in the BFB style where he explained how the mouths would bounce whenever a character would open their mouth and close it, as it was a very cool & exaggerated way to show how mouths operate in the BFB world. There were also some other ones by a guy named “WebzForevz” as he is an actual animator from the show, however though, BFDI is animated in a different software than FlipaClip, that being Adobe Animate CC (formerly Macromedia Flash 8.)  he also explained that in the same type of tutorial on how to animate in the BFB Style, he explained that the “Mouth's Bouncing” esq technique was coined by “Satomi Hinatsu.” A Animator/Voice Actor/Former Show runner for Jacknjellify.

It's safe to say that those tutorials really helped me a lot. Ever since I've watched that show, it basically changed my life a bit, and wanted to make my own Object Show. however, I didn't exactly have an idea for specifically an Object Show. As 2022 ended and 2023 came to play for a bit, I eventually had an idea for a BFB esq Series/Film. Well, In The Logo Community, there was a guy named Ivan “Tube” Soto. He is also another household name in the Logo Community and had his own series called TVOKids Logo Bloopers (which I had my own adaption on.) he obviously also did other things rather than just TVOKids Logo Bloopers, he made some other videos, with specifically his crew & friends. Back in 2021, he made a little movie with his crew that was split into little 1 minute or 2 minutes parts called “Fun at the Burj Al Arab Hotel” with centered around Ivan Tube himself and his friends get to stay at the, well... "Burj Al Arab Hotel." No offense, but there's not really that much of a plot in the movie.

After a little bit of time of gathering up the story and getting everyone's dialogue, I finally released the Intro and First Part to my film called “A Trip To Hotel May” which centers around me, NBC Tube & some of my friends as we stay at the aforementioned “Hotel May” ran by May Shukim (my old channel name.) it was received very well and i continued to make more & more parts and just animation in general after ATTHM Part 1 released.

These are the only found photos of the original A Trip To Hotel May, as well as some backgrounds.

Unfortunately, my old channel got terminated because of another Community Guidelines violation, so I only managed made 4 thirty or so second parts. However and Fortunately, I recently just regained access to my old channel called “The Great Mario Bros” which already has 2,000 subscribers a few weeks before my channel got terminated. So, I then released a video on that channel called “The Death of NBC Tube” which was explaining how i got terminated and basically what happened. I also mentioned that I emailed Google about the situation but I guess the email was... ignored? I dunno.

But, on June 21st, 2023, I have finally assembled everyone for a brand new reboot of A Trip To Hotel May with “longer parts and more animators.” and on July 15th, I have released Part 1 of a brand new version of A Trip To Hotel May. and a guy named "Tiniest Gomiz" helped me out a little bit with the animation, and I probably wouldn't have gotten it released without him. I eventually continued to produce 6 more parts to where it was eventually put on hiatus due to some controversy against one of the voice actors.

After A Trip To Hotel May went on hiatus, I was sort of bored and didn't exactly know what to animate. However, I was getting very interested in a little YouTuber by the name of “lotusbandicoot” who is a very good animator and can easily replicate any style, mainly the Ren & Stimpy one. Weirdly enough, he mentioned that he will have Animation/Layout involvement in the Ren & Stimpy reboot by Comedy Central that still hasn't been released yet. (however, it got leaked) other than that, he is widely known for some very cool stuff, like his “Steamed Hams but every scene is a different animation style” video where he basically replicated every animation style of every good cartoon back then. A few examples include: Ed Edd & Eddy, Beavis & Butthead, Chuck Jones, Rocco's Modern Life, Ren & Stimpy, etc. He also has some original cartoons like “The Mr. JB Show” and a bunch of other ones.

There's also another animation I saw of a Guy (Richard Williams) bothering someone (Milt Kahl) animating as he was concentrating on something, saying “he's not smart enough to think of more than one thing at a time.” That video was supposed to be an animated version of Lesson 1 in a page on “The Animator's Survival Kit” called “UNPLUG!” for those who don't know, The Animator's Survival Kit is a book by Richard Williams, the animation director behind “Who Framed Roger Rabbit!” I thought the animation in this video looked so fantastic and smooth, that I kinda wanted to check out this book a little bit, it seems very interesting.

Photo by: Eduardo Quintana

After watching those videos, I felt very interested in the traditional animation scene. Who says I can't give it a try? So i animated a little test with a character that I've been drawing a little bit now. He sort of looks like a Yellow Square BFB Esq Algebraian, and I animated him over audio of a line said by Emma Ross in an episode of the Disney Channel show “JESSIE.” but to be honest, animating this fully animated test was exhausting because i pretty much animated everything on ones and there was so many parts of the process including: storyboarding, rough animation, inking and paint. I believe it took me at least 2 or 3 hours to animate this thing, dang. I was at one point going to reanimate a Wilkins Coffee commercial where Wilkins & Wontkins are playing a game of cards, but I decided to stop working on it because of the same reason.

Now hold on now, i may have just gotten into Traditional Animation but i still haven't forgotten about my BFDI Animation skills. Instead of them being animated at the usual 12 or 20, they will be animated in 24 fps, like it's animated in the actual show. It was a very hard challenge but thankfully I made it. 

I made 2 new BFDI animations, one for myself and one for a Reanimated Collab. The first one i made is supposed to be audio taken from a “CaryCraft” livestream where Gaty (Satomi Hinatsu) says the F word, and Eggy (Katherine Sun) laughs. However, Nickel (Adam Katz) is very shocked and Tennis Ball (Cary Huang) is startled by Gaty's words. Tennis Ball then confirms that “if she can say the f word then he can say it too.” Eggy then trys to persuade Tennis Ball to not do it but she does it anyway... and the clip ends off with a freaking Emma Ross clip.

And the other one is supposed to be a Reanimated Collab for the BFDI X II 2024 Tour: Theater Etiquette trailer that they showed in all locations of the tour before the screening and was eventually uploaded on Jacknjellify's channel in full quality. and the Collab was hosted by Tiniest Gomiz on the same day the trailer came out on Jacknjellify's channel, and is somehow still in progress up to this day.

The portion of this Collab i animated in particular is the part where Candle (Inanimate Insanity) informs that all photography and video recording are STRICTLY prohibited during the screening, and then Golf Ball (BFDI) explains that if you are caught doing said action, there is a chance you will be kicked out of the screening. However, people actually still recorded during the screening anyways. Fun Fact, I actually went to the BFDI X II Tour 2024 location in Chicago and saw the two episodes, and i also got some new merch.

Now, there's one thing your probably thinking... What do both of these animations have in common? Well, one thing that may come across is that these are both very well animated parts, but also, your maybe thinking that they sort of follow the same principle. The kind of principle I'm talking about here is when I would move a specific object a few inches on its X or Y axis. 

Let me try to explain this physically, let's say we have Fanny, she's a sort of mean and ditzy character who hates everyone. What if she were to close her eyes and kneel down on the ground and then look left and go back to the same position very exaggeratedly. (kind of like a recoil) as Fanny kneels down on the ground, we would have to move the object on its Y axis straight down. on our first frame, Let's move Fanny's body down 1 inch on its Y axis, and then the next frame Let's move her 2 inches, and then the frame after that one let's move her 6 inches, and then once again after that next frame Let's move her 12 inches. and then sort of follow that same principle as she begins to slow down as she kneels down on the ground and then exaggeratedly go back up and look angrily to her left.

The reason why i wanted to do this type of principle is to replicate the Adobe Animate tweening style in FlipaClip so it can seem legitimate and real.

However though, things have come full circle because for Christmas, I finally got a new Laptop and downloaded Adobe Animate. Well, I really bought it awhile ago on another computer but the computer was kind of slow and acts up, so I couldn't really do things on it. I've been having a really fun time animating on Adobe, and kinda learned a few things about how it functions and works. Just recently, I Reanimated a scene from “BFDIA 5a: Get In The Van!” where Puffball Speaker Box gets stabbed by Pin. it sort of has a little bit of flaws where Puffball Speaker Box's asset glitches but it still looks very nice and smooth.

In conclusion, I feel like I've definitely gotten better at animation since I now have Adobe Animate now.

I might still be commonly using FlipaClip but that means I won't be switching completely. I'm planning on doing a traditionaly animated cartoon similar to Ren & Stimpy with the characters that I've been drawing lately and I'll still be giving future updates on that. I've also been a little busy working on a little movie called “CN Adventures: The Wholesome Movie” so stay tuned for more future updates on that also. 

So thank you for reading this post, and I'll see you next time.

- James H. (NBC Tube)