#slamacow

[eyeofgender]

Suddenly finding myself missing Slamacow a lot. Their animations were some of the best Minecraft animations on the web, and still are some of the best. There were characters, story, worldbuilding. I miss Bart and Dave so much right now. I know Slamacow has probably long since moved on but I still wish they'd come back and make more. It felt like the story was unfinished, and there's nothing sadder to me than abandoned characters and an unfinished story.

[anessthetic]

i luv them so much😔😔😔😔😔😔 i’m so happy that i can draw them with my today’s skill

[kittenface40]

How come an animation in 2013, still look so good, 11 years later!?

Instead of devoting an iota more thought to the mc movie, I will simply go rewatch all of Slamacow's animations and delight in how good animations based on Minecraft can look, eleven years ago. Join me.

[jetra4ivor]

The many different ways you can animate a Minecraft movie.

Vanilla Minecraft doesn’t really allow expressive features for characters, so over the years animators have gotten creative with how they use the blocky bodies to convey emotion and movement. Here’s a list of different ways this has been achieved in the past 15 years.

The Captain Sparklez way:

In “Revenge” we see an early attempt at lip synching with these strange mouth shapes that cycle through the animation. This style of animating lip synch would become the basis for how Minecraft Story Mode operated, where there are base shapes for mouth expressions that sometimes defy the boundaries of their blocky faces in weird ways.

What I like about Captain Sparklez is that he’s been around long enough that his animations have evolved with him, and he’s got a whole new way of animating.

The feature I dislike the most about his newer style of animation is that they treat the face as soft and stretchable. This allows greater expression, but at the cost of bending the pixelated shapes in ways that pixels do not bend.

On the other hand (literally) one of the things I like about this style is the slightly rounded edges of the bodies that give everything a real sense of volume. I also like how hands are treated. Normally they are blocky fists, but they can open up into individual fingers when needed. A subtle trick that allows for greater animation movement without betraying the blocky aesthetic of Minecraft.

The Minecraft Story Mode way:

This method was inspired by Captain Sparklez but they take it in a different more defined direction.

As mentioned before, mouth shapes are pre-defined and are cycled through. For a video game, this has the advantage of needing only a few shapes that can be swapped in and out whenever needed to save on space and resources.

It does have the disadvantage however of occasionally looking stiff and sometimes the mouth shapes can’t quite convey the exact emotion needed. “Oh” shapes are are also weird as they extend beyond the boundaries of the blocky face and use smaller pixels to generate the shape. This can sometimes look off-putting or feel odd.

MCSM also treats the bodies more stiffly. The arms and legs have bends at the elbows and knees, but that’s about it. The toros can bend slightly but for the most part everything is kept pretty stiff. Again this has advantages and disadvantages. Broader movement is easy to do, but more subtle movement is tricky. There are no fingers either so when a character needs to hold something it just clips through the fingerless stump.

The Villager News way:

This method is even more limiting. One of the fun aspects about it is that they use their limitation to their advantage for comedic effects. The legs and arms for example are perfectly stiff and do not bend. This is hilarious with the villagers who have to gesture with their arms stuck in this folded pose, and when they dance their large stumpy legs clop around almost like a horse.

There’s still a tiny bit of flexibility though. The eyebrow bend and the mouth can push the bottom jaw down for big mouth shapes.

The Official Way:

In the official Minecraft update videos we have the last interesting way to animate characters… and that is to be completely stiff. Arms and legs do not bend. Faces are pixel art painted on the front. There is no dimensionality at all to their features.

Like the Villager News method, this has fun restrictions. Arms and legs sway in one motion just like in the game itself, and getting certain gestures can be extremely tricky. It also doesn’t allow a great range of expressions as most of the acting now needs to be done entirely through the eyes.

Conclusion:

Each method described above have advantages and disadvantages. If you’re looking for a smooth Pixar look, the Captain Sparklez way is probably the best, but it comes at the cost of abandoning Minecraft’s blocky norms. The stiff nature of the official style fits better with the conventions of Minecraft, but can come at the cost of being able to express the characters movements more fluidly.

I just find these various methods fascinating. How many different animators have tackled the challenger of animating blocky characters in such vastly different ways is neat in my opinion!

Which way is your favorite?

[mooncakemocha]

nostalgia broke down my front door and threaten me with a knife to draw this

[voidandradiance]

someone get me the "and when the world needed him most" meme and edit in slamacow, element animation, and MAMASB0Y

[spicypopsicleng]

Comfort character road-trip redraw meme.

Still really like this doodle so I might as well post it here 👉👈

[teratolust]

Bart walking in the woods

(Made since June) (From Samacow)

[livmightlive]

the Minecraft movie trailer really shows how much they’re ignoring the actual roots of the game and community 😭

there’s over a DECADE of incredible Minecraft animation they could’ve used for reference and they churn out this??? 😭 it feels so soulless

slamacow, the digbuildlive project by bootstrap buckaroo, YouTuber music videos like those of captainsparkles 😭 even smps and drama series could’ve been used to inspire!!

I’m just so disappointed, they’re killing art

[appri-dot]

Enderman x Zombie will always be a top 10 minecraft ship for me sorry sigh

[anessthetic]

hi

i’m in my minecraft era

and im in my nostalgic era. DOES SOMEONE EVEN REMEMBER THEM AND SLAMACOW’S ANIMATIONS???? HELLO??

[masterpaulox]

This idiots think they are the Simpsons by being on my couch for hours now

[laulo821]

cube land

taken from this screenshot of the music video linked above. this music is very dear to my heart so i drew a frame of it. also it's because i'm itching to draw him but i don't have any good idea so... yea

[zeddunes27]

No one survives in this forest tonight 😨💀

Happy halloween 2023 🎃👻

For:@smangoishkathy-chan

Follow me on twitter:⬇️

[cila-17]

Steven. I know you’ve been in exile for years but we need your help!

Please for the love of god!

I wrote a script for a Minecraft movie years ago. Maybe now that my writing skills are better than when I was 13, I could write a screenplay more artful than this.

well… at least Jack Black is in it. That’s something. But by god! 13 year old me would gasp in horror at this!

Hell! Make the Fallen Kingdom music videos into a movie! I would watch that!

you can't convince me that there was no ai used somewhere in the minecraft movie pipeline

[spicypopsicleng]

Slamacow fanart from June!