Community - The Mantis-Eye Experiment

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Comment Thread

by Clayton
(unregistered id: 713168E46D)
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It,s been a while since I've seen this episode and I still laughed my ass off when Brock sings "move this" and it's good to see 21 and 24 the way they used to be.

Dec. 6, 2010, 7:01am

by Mike
(unregistered id: DA1A2954DF)
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Badly drawn? Man, they were so absurdly off model in the scene in the Cocoon. They were like two blobs of henchmen. Not that I'm complaining because their beatboxing was amazing but I love how huge a leap in quality the animation took between season two and three. It's like night and day!

Dec. 6, 2010, 12:48pm

by The Mysterious 'H'
(unregistered id: B7D02EEF34)
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I kinda liked it when they went off model. When they go off model nowadays, that's disturbing, but Seasons 1 and 2 off model is nice, very Hanna-Barbera-ish.

Dec. 6, 2010, 3:07pm

by Mike
(unregistered id: DA1A2954DF)
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Off-model in newer episodes is a little weird looking but it's much more subtle. Seasons 1 and 2 had some really painful moments. Dr. Orpheus, in particular, I felt like the animators never knew what to do with him. His court testimony in Trial of the Monarch is all over the place. Sometimes he looks great and other times he's a crazy mess. It's kind of amazing.

Dec. 6, 2010, 6:16pm

by The Mysterious 'H'
(unregistered id: B7D02EEF34)
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I agree with you on Orpheus. That was a mess for sure.

Dec. 6, 2010, 6:20pm

by Jory
(unregistered id: 9F1235068D)
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Yeah, I think the perspective on Orpheus' face in that scene kind of haunts my nightmares. In Seasons 1 and 2, going off-model generally meant very wonky and occasionally quite shitty (but still funny) drawings. Seasons 3 and 4 the characters' proportions just get all distractingly weird and menacingly ugly, or maybe Billy will have two robot hands or Jefferson's mustache will flicker from existence for a frame or two.

And I don't know if nobody has made this observation around here before*, but the really off-model shots of 21 and 24 in the cocoon are actually their season 1 models, as if some terribly out-of-the-loop animator didn't get an important series of memos.

*I've been a Venture fan since the first night the pilot aired, but only a Mantis-Eye fan since the gap between seasons 2 and 3.

Dec. 7, 2010, 2:44am

by The Mysterious 'H'
(unregistered id: B7D02EEF34)
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Yeah, Season 3 and 4 off model is verging on anime physiognomy. Not that I have anything against anime- I just don't watch it or care for it.

Dec. 7, 2010, 3:13am

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