Animation and Video Life

Ever since the closure of The GoAnimate Complaints Department due to Happy Bunny's license expiring there's been something of a gap in social satire of GoAnimate Staff and member relationships. I honestly don't think any of GoAnimate's existing characters could replace Jim Benton's Happy Bunny on the Complaints Desk. Rather than try to do that, I thought, why not look at another area of the site that could use a little help. There's always been areas of customer service where GoAnimate staff could use a little help - usually because they're too busy making the site even more awesome behind the scenes. At the time Staff picks and how to get one was a big talking point on the GoAnimate Forums (Staff picks are always a talking point). The biggest issue being how to get staff to actually view your animations. Thus I created the Staff Pick Submissions Department with Sid (Vicious?). Staff Pick Submissions by etourist on GoAnimate Animation Softwar...

The Last Complaint... March 12, 2012 is the day Jim Benton's Happy Bunny Theme license expired on GoAnimate. Before it did I wanted to release just one more episode of this topical and much enjoyed series. This was the result, completed in just five days. (I usually spend at least a couple of weeks on these). The Final Complaint - GoA Complaints Dept. by etourist on GoAnimate Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate. Over the years my series The GoAnimate Complaints Department has become synonymous with the Happy Bunny theme for many people on GoAnimate. Here's something I wrote in the comments on the video... The Complaints Dept. is one of GoAnimate's longest running series, with the first one minute episode appearing about two and a half years ago. Even though there's only 10 episodes it's continued to be popular and has been one of the most imitated series from my own catalogue. All but one uses speech balloons to tell the jokes. Including thi...

Ever since Chaostoon released his Sonic the Hedgehog character into the community on GoAnimate you've all thought it but it took the More Actions Protest Group and a plucky little chick to take the complaint to the top... well Happy Bunny at the GoAnimate Complaints Desk at least. GoAnimate Complaints Basic by etourist basic Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Apologies to Chaostoon but you did commit the sin of promising so much (making Sonic available to the community) if people supported your FaceBook quest for tickets to a festival and under delivering on people's expectations - even though they knew Sonic was done as an April Fools joke and was never intended to be a full character. Hopefully you might deliver a few more actions when the paid work dies down a little. You'll notice that this animation also includes a Sonic the Hedgehog head prop created by me and attached to a blue Happy Bunny body. That prop was the start ...

GoAnimate Complaints Department - Cyborg Bunny was prompted by me being featured on the first episode of GoAnimator, RoTV's series, Robot Turkey. However the idea to replace Happy Bunny with a robot rabbit at the complaints desk is something I thought of way back in December of 2009. GoAnimate, Product Manager, Nicolas , created his own custom character set known as Isometrix which I featured in my animation, Blink  in December of 2009. At the time Nicolas suggested to me he would create an Isometrix rabbit character. I said, if he did I'd definitely use it in an episode of the GoAnimate Complaints Department. I guess Nicolas got too busy because, as far as I know, he never made a rabbit Isometrix character so I never used it as a robot rabbit on the Complaints Desk. Then in January of 2011 RoTV released his parody of Adult Swim's, Robot Chicken , called Robot Turkey, featuring me, which prompted me to revisit the idea of a robot Happy Bunny. Ro's animation is b...

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

GoAnimate has been beta testing a new feature that allows you to add video objects to your animation. More about that in a moment. Just prior to the video feature's release to GoAnimate beta testers I made an animation called 'Moonlighting - TET's New PA'. The premise being Jim Benton's Happy Bunny, from my GoAnimate Complaints Department , series decides to take a job moonlighting as my personal assistant. The idea came about as I way to humorously inform my fans of the status on some of my on going series projects like MIB and Harry Chalk as well humorously look at some of the problems of being a popular GoAnimator. Moonlighting - TET's New PA by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! There's not much more that needs to be said about the above animation. It's basically the GoAnimate Complaints Department in a new setting with a trap door. I discovered GoAnimate's new video upload feature on GoAnimate...

After doing a GoAnimate Complaints Department Christmas Special many people suggested I should do an Easter Special. Initially I felt, with Easter being in early April it was too soon to bring Happy Bunny back to the Complaints desk. After all it takes time to build up ideas as well as collect them from the GoAnimate community. However it was the Easter holiday, which is a popular time for bunnies, so how could I not do an Easter Special? Despite my initial reservations about having enough ideas the finished special is over four minutes long - making it one of the longest episodes in the series. If you're not familiar with the Complaints Department series it does contain a lot of GoAnimate Community references as a basis for it's humor. Which is one of the reasons why the series is one of the most popular on the site. This episode alone has been viewed more than 6000 times. GoAnimate Complaints Easter Special by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com ....

GoAnimate's Product Manager, Nicolas , created a series of Isometrix custom characters and props which I wanted to try out but really didn't have anything in mind in terms of a story line. Not to be deterred I decided to start putting together a scene with the available props in the hope that something would come to mind as I worked. The result was Blink which you can watch in the player below. Blink by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! This animation is probably a classic example of an idea that just evolved as I worked to find inspiration. As mentioned I started to piece together a background using the available Isometrix props. Nicolas had designed an orange picture frame for the theme which I decided to use on the wall of my background set. Trouble was I needed something to go inside it. Trying to feature as much of the Isometrix theme as possible I decided to use some head props inside the two photo frames I'd placed each sid...

People seem to like Happy Bunny so much as GoAnimate's Complaints Desk Operator that he was the obvious choice for this years Christmas animation from yours truly. This outing I wanted to get back to a more universal humor and move away from some of the GoAnimate member centric humor of the previous episode, hence no members were parodied, sent up or poked fun of in the making of this animation. Except perhaps for myself. My goal was to try and use as much of GoAnimate's Christmas theme as possible whilst still trying to maintain the idea that this is a Complaints Desk and therefore people should be complaining. It was obvious to me that Happy Bunny would naturally be cynical about the whole Christmas Holiday season and not really appreciate any attempt to decorate his space with 'holiday cheer'. However he would also get a certain satisfaction out of undermining the Christmas spirit by spreading the cheer with 'False Hope'. This time around Street Fig...

It appears you can't keep a good (or even a bad) rabbit down. Not even death has stopped the return of GoAnimate's favorite complaints desk monitor, Happy Bunny. This time around the rise and rise of GoA member, Coady , is one of the main themes. Coady is so nice and so popular that other members just can't help but devote entire forum topics to We Love Coady !! Coady recently passed me on GoAnimate for most views of all time so this video is therapy whilst I try to recover (LOL). Of course the Complaints Department wouldn't be the same without Street Fighter's, Ken, complaining about having to pay real money for Bison. I've extended that theme with a special guest appearance by me complaining about all the money and go-points I had to spend just to make the video. Then there's the usual random references to things on the GoAnimate site like the regular complaints about no Sonic the Hedge Hog or Mario themes and more. Oh, and if you've never heard of T-...

TET's Animator Dominator Competition has ended. It was well supported but perhaps didn't get quite as many entries as I hoped. However promoting the contest was a lot of fun in the GoAnimate forum on this thread that ultimately became the inspiration for the winning entry. The forum banter that went on between various people, who are featured in the winning animation, as well as others, gives some good insight into the various characters. The same thread also inspired the story line for my official announcement animation below. So without further a do - watch the video to see who won then keep scrolling to watch the winning video. TAD Winner Announcement by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! After the view collecting portion of the competition ended it looked all set for an easy win by the front runner but a decision by entrants in the voting forum to up the voting points from 20 to 50 points per vote changed things considerably. In ...

A recurring theme through my GoAnimate Complaints Department animation series was Street Fighter's Ken complaining about the need to pay 400 GoBucks in order to fight the Street Fighter Character, Bison. This complaint is actually a common one from GoAnimate members (particularly younger ones who are unable to spend real money online) who feel you shouldn't have to pay for anything on the site. Well at least not the characters they really want. I've been wanting to do a real 'fight' animation for quite a while but the Street Fighter theme has never really inspired me. There are just too many Street Fighter, fight animations on GoAnimate. It's hard to come up with something original. As Ken's complaints became more persistent through the course of the Complaints series it was clear I'd found an angle for something new in the fight genre for GoAnimate. Happy Bunny Versus Ken! It sounds silly. A cute bunny rabbit up against a martial arts extraordinaire - ...

My original animation, The GoAnimate Complaints Department , is far and away my most successful Animation on GoAnimate to date. As of this post it has been viewed more than 6229 times, received 133 comments and recommended 57 times. It has also been sitting in the number one spot on GoAnimate's homepage as a Top Animation for at least two weeks (which is a long time in internet time). I never planned on making a second in the series but you know how it is. You think of an idea you left out, then another one, then another and before you know it there's enough to warrant a sequel. This time around I put out a call to GoAnimate members who had their own Avatar Head prop to feature themselves in their own animations. I thought it would be kind of cool to have actual GoAnimate members appear since this series includes so many community, inside jokes. In the end, my final animation was three times longer than the original and, by the feedback I received, even funnier than the first. ...

GoAnimate released its new Stick Figure theme to mixed reactions from 'love it' to 'there is not enough actions' prompting some spirited discussion in the site's forum . Notably, one popular animator reminded everyone that regardless of the theme's limitations (and the need to purchase many props with 'gopoints') people shouldn't lose sight of the fact that so much can be achieved with the site's studio at no cost to the user and that the staff are constantly working on improvements. One of the issues included the lack of fight movements on the figures as many GA members envisioned emulating some of the all time classic stick figure fight animations that can be found on YouTube . Undaunted, one of GA's favorite community members, Coady , created an animation to showcase that the new stick figure theme could get its fight on. In the midst of it all, I too, had noticed a general string of complaints being made that often came across as slig...