At 11/8/25 08:00 PM, UncleYuu wrote:I recently started a Kickstarter campaign for a movie I've been working on for 2 years now called Tomo & Miho. It's an anime inspired rom-com about self-improvement for yourself and your significant other.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1012247889/tomo-and-miho-an-anime-lgbt-romantic-comedy
The film has been a blast to work on and most of it is already completed, we set up a kickstarter for the the final animation, music and backgrounds.
I worked closely with a lot of very talented animators and voice actors, including a lot of Newgrounds residents to make this project come to life!
Check out our kickstarter page and hopefully we can get this movie made!!
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this would be hitting its goal, even though it looks great, it could do with some serious improvements. Having seen a bunch of other Kickstarters and discussions around them, and they hang around four points.
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1) Campaigns usually do better if you've produced a trailer/video explaining what you need done. The rest of the internet could probably explain it better than I could.
Technically you have a video, two of them, that are both hosted on YouTube, None of them are set as the Kickstarter trailer, but the "Day 1 video". is embedded as a link.
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2) The editing in both videos seem to be mainly carried by one of your voice actors, the editing falls a bit flat (ugly red text, poor typography), and the animation is not perfect. You need to be good enough that people want to give money to you.|
Take feedback from other creators here, you cannot improve in a vacuum.
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3) You claim "most" of it is already completed, even though it's just storyboards and voice-acting, is a bit of a white lie. Animation, both roughs and cleanup, is arguably the most time-consuming and expensive process of them all.
Good advice for filmmaking, or video-making in general is to look at other works, understand why they work they way they do, and how you can implement those features yourself. For example, look at Cassandra Complex, another animated project that I also ended up finding on Newgrounds.
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Although CC is of a diferent genre, it does use a stylized artstyle that does set the vibe it's going for, dark and edgy. Meanwhile, looking at your previous animations, and the animation at the start of the trailer, while they do show off your technical skills in character anatomy and fundamentals, style-wise, they feel a bit bland and stiff, and needs serious improvement.
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Given you're making a rom-com, I feel like it's important to convey character emotions and actions as best as possible, but given it's a prety massive project with limited resources, this would have to be balanced with efficiency.
Again, this can be explained by better animators, but I'd say maybe don't go too hard on yourself trying to ape a professional anime, look at smaller independent productions for inspiration, develop a style that's simple and easy to animate, while still visually appealing and still anime-esque.
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The only two Newgrounders I can think of that can nail that look are Snackers and POSTBOY. POSTBOY's style is a bit rougher, and he has put out a 20-minute animation with a rougher style.
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This does not mean directly copy these animators, "Understand why they work" applies here too and sometimes imperfections in animations/art look nicer, and you should lean into that if it helps. Maybe change up your line brushes and don't worry too much about being perfect.
So, my advice:
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Given the storyboard/animatic seems finished, work with the style you already have as a base, then experiment with things like colours, outline brushes, etc. Try to limit your animation to make it quicker and easier. Animate on grey, not white- this is especially important for getting colours right.
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Your finished visual style and creative flair should be presented all throughout your campaign video, including the editing.
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If you're hiring other animators, they can't do much to save your project if your art direction is shit. Nail down consistency before starting animation, and set an example for other animators to follow.
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Take feedback from other creators here, you cannot improve in a vacuum.
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There are plenty of external resources on Newgrounds, including music on the Audio Portal. Reach out to musicians.
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Given that this campaign is likely to fail and you'd get nothing if it doesn't hit target, go over to Indiegogo, turn on flexible funding, and preferably lower the goal a bit. It will hurt a bit, but it's better than nothing.
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