Hi Chris! I've seen one of your past submissions, it's so nice to see the final reel! As I said before, the storyline is very unique with the villain as the main character, eventually deciding to be better. Great job with the concept and sketches! I also like the idea of the 3 characters that influence him. I wish there was some music for mood or even a couple sound effects to help viewrs follow along. Some of your frames were also a bit too fast ( i had to pause a couple times, especially for reading text)..slowing these down a bit may help build stronger understanding with viewer. If you continue with this story, some additional frames between beats may also help. For those reasons, it's still a little hard to follow in places without a description. I hope you continue to build out this story in the future! Great job on your submission!!

Dear Chris the Adventuring Artist,

I think your story has incredible potential, your use of animation and focus on character development with short cuts and field of view shows tremendous room for audience engagement. However I think your story can have sound effects and potentially more shading with deeper shadows to highlight the characters and your drawing style. At some points in the animatic the sketches are not standing out because there could be some more planar shading and use of shadow.

Overall I think your art style has great potential and I encourage you to keep pursuing this style. My favorite stories are Lord of the Rings and medieval anime style films. I think the anime Berserk is a great animation to look at more in depth and maybe even look for some "behind the scenes" production to find some ways of adding to your existing idea.

Hi Chris, glad to see your story in full - it's strong and nice :)
There's no sound, right?

Your initial shots appear a bit too fast, so that I have to know from before who we're seeing instead of actually seeing it. The 'hero says live' shot is cool, but a bit quick, too.
Very nice touch that it's the hero who appears in dark shadows.
Nice that his first encounter is someone that physically offers kindness in the form of food.
It's difficult to see that they had a troubled past. It's visible for the thief (but that shot too is very quick)
Talking to his evil spirit is cool :) His face is very likable.
The shots in which he's getting his powers back are initially difficult to read, but it's there :) The fadeback to the other three is nicely placed. I agree with Paige below on the style.
You're not showing what he does afterwards, right? Why is that? I personally like to view it as "he's got his whole future laid out for him", though others could also wonder if he goes back on his ways. You're showing enough to indicate that he will lead a better life, though.

Hi Chris! I believe this is the first submission I see from you and I really like the concept you have developed. Usually, we don’t see an evil character trying to be better, so this makes your story very special. I also like the different perspectives that you’ve used.

The story was a little bit fast for me, I had to pause it a few times to understand what was happening, so I would suggest you to increase the time between frames a little bit, particularly in those where you added some text since it was completely impossible for me to be able to read it. Also, it would be nice to change the written text for dialogue, and you could also try to think about including some music. You have some dramatic moments in your story that I think you could increase their power by adding some music or sound effects.

Good job and congratulations on finishing the Xperiential program!

I enjoyed your variety of angles, use of bold values, and expressive character emotion. Your style of each character does a good job differentiating their characteristics and what type of role they add to the story. I’m not sure if my audio is messing up, but I think some sound effects or subtle mood music would help to elevate your story. Congratulations for making it to the final, and good luck with your creative journey!
Paige

Nice job Chris! The concept of a evil overlord who loses and tries to regain his power is very interesting! It’s a great twist on a standard hero story to see it from the villains perspective. I also like how you show the different characters who show him what it’s like to be good.

I like the idea of him having to face off against a dark spirit version of himself at the end. It’s a cool way to end it and very fitting thematically. I was a little confused what happened with the purple orb. It seemed like he flashbacks to the characters who taught him his lesson but I’m not sure what happened after that.

Nice job, I enjoyed it!