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"Tanks for Nothin'" is my senior year animated short film from California State University, Northridge. Story and animation by Joshua Armstrong. Music by Travis Ragle and Joe Cisneros.

Tanks for Nothin' site:

tanksfornothin.blogspot.com/

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  • Alex Amelines 7 months ago
    You have a great sense of timing and posing. I also love the characters, nice work!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks! I appreciate the feedback.
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  • Designcollector ※ plus 7 months ago
    it has a sense!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    I'll take that as a compliment:) Thank you very much.
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  • Phil Schmidt 7 months ago
    nice one ...
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Glad you liked it! Thanks for saying so.
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  • Fernando Colares plus 7 months ago
    Great short!
    Very funny and well made!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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  • Laura Cook 7 months ago
    Really Great! Loved the music too - perfect!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks, Laura.
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  • Sarah Newbold 7 months ago
    Really nice film... Clear and well told. What did you do it in? AE?
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thank you! Yeah, I did most of it in After Effects. I created the artwork in Photoshop, and I used a little Flash too.
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  • Leonard Nicolas plus 7 months ago
    Yeah, very good. I especially like the space flight shot. The way you brought the character in the shot, and brought her back to the foreground, was great story telling. Oh and that helmet glimmer was REALLY working for me. Keep it up!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks, Leonard. I really appreciate the feedback.
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  • Green Gecko Films 7 months ago
    loved it man, really well done
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thank you, and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.
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  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Tanks for Nothin' is now on Cartoon Brew. Big thanks to Jerry Beck for including it on his popular animation blog.
    cartoonbrew.com/student/tanks-for-nothin-by-joshua-armstrong.html
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  • James Wright 7 months ago
    Wow dude. All animated in AE? Very well done! How long did that take?
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Glad you liked it, James. Yeah, about 99% of it was animated in After Effects. I did it in a very Flash way, though. I created the artwork and animated simultaneously. I developed the story/boards over the course of one semester and then animated it my last semester. It took me a long time because it was my first solo project and I was just learning AE. Also, AE isn't really set up for character animation. If I had it to do over again, I think I'd animate in Flash and then composite in AE.
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  • Rodrigo Mendes 7 months ago
    Very nice! I loved the little girl! She is so funny!
    Congratulations!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks so much for commenting, Rodrigo.
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  • olcay 7 months ago
    hey why don't you do a series for 1 session and sale it to some TV station

    it is very well done small animation film you made congratuation
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    I'm glad you liked my short. Thanks for the advice too. I probably should spend more time creating and marketing my own content. Right now, though, I'm really looking for some stability. I'm hoping to get hired on at a studio (to pay the bills). At some point in my career, I'd love to create and manage my own content. So that's definitely something to shoot for.
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  • cliff parrott 7 months ago
    Hi Josh, that's a great little animated film! I read that you did the animation mostly in AE - impressive! It has a great look to it. True, you could've done a lot of the animation in Flash and polished/composited in AE but the final product was very unique looking - it really made it shine. I taught a semester of Animation 101 & 102 at CSUN a few years back (say hello to Mary Ann for me). I've always been impressed with the calibre of talent coming out of the school and you're final film really raises the bar - bravo! If you haven't landed a gig yet, have you talked to Brendan Burch at 6 Point Harness yet? I'm sure they'd really dig your stuff. Best of luck, you have a bright future in the industry ahead of you.
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 7 months ago
    Thanks for the kind words, Cliff. Yeah, I really enjoyed my time at CSUN. They've got a nice little animation program. The Professors are top notch. Go Matadors! I haven't looked at 6 Point yet, but I appreciate the heads up. I think one of my past professors, Steven Theis, works there. I'd probably need to become more familiar with Flash to be marketable to them, though.
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  • Jen Coig 6 months ago
    Ha! Great work! And I can totally relate to the jealousy of my brothers' much awesomer toys at christmas. Great stuff, love it!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 6 months ago
    Thanks so much, Jen. You've got some awesome stuff on your reel. I appreciate you commenting.
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  • Maykol 6 months ago
    very nice, It looks very entertaining and quite professional. Congratulations!!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 6 months ago
    Thanks a bunch!
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  • motiontv plus 6 months ago
    The story rang very true for me as well! It would be fascinating to hear the background story ;) Great job Joshua.
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 6 months ago
    Glad you liked it. I can't point to a specific event for my inspiration, but I grew up with six sisters. I guess I've always been somewhat sensitive to the plight of tomboys. In hind sight, I think I was inspired by Calvin and Hobbs, too. I remember Calvin was always going on imaginary adventures in his comic strip. I think I've got to give credit to The Wizard of Oz for the inspiration to do the color shifts between Lucy's imaginary and real world. Other stylistic references for the retro aesthetic would be classic cartoons, UPA's style, and classic television shows like I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver.
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  • Jeff Weakley plus 6 months ago
    Curious about this statement...
    Joshua Armstrong 25 days ago
    Glad you liked it, James. Yeah, about 99% of it was animated in After Effects. I did it in a very Flash way, though. I created the artwork and animated simultaneously. I developed the story/boards over the course of one semester and then animated it my last semester. It took me a long time because it was my first solo project and I was just learning AE. Also, AE isn't really set up for character animation. If I had it to do over again, I think I'd animate in Flash and then composite in AE."

    I was surprised to hear you animated in AE... did you use Puppet Tool? What was it you found not so easy to do in AE for animation? I'm fairly new to AE and have used the Puppet Tool a little. I was very surprised to hear you had animated the whole thing in AE. Can you talk a little more about that distinction - animating in AE vs Flash?
    thanks. And great stuff
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 6 months ago
    I was kinda figuring out AE as I went. I don't really know the puppet tool, but that may be a solution. I thought the puppet tool lets you set pivots and manipulate an image at the designated spots. I would think it would cause unwanted secondary warping in the image, but I've never used it. For my work flow, I created artwork based on the needs of the shot. Whatever I needed to articulate I broke off as a movable piece. I would set the pivot points and parent the pieces as needed. For example, all the facial features could be moved independently, but were corporately Comped as the "Face" and parented to the head. I used the Warping tool on a lot of the character's pieces and the whole character to push the animation arcs.

    I found it hard to do "pose to pose" animation in AE because every pose is a hundred keys on a hundred different objects. AE is constantly inbetweening every key on ones, so every time you make in adjustment it effects everything else. Animation is all about making multiple adjustments in order to get the motion right, however, I found adjustments very difficult in AE. Also, it's easier to work on twos in Flash (half the work). Some of the animating challenges I came across with AE may have solutions that I'm just not aware of.
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  • Jeff Weakley plus 6 months ago
    Thanks for the reply. I'm fairly new to AE myself but have done a couple of things with the Puppet Tool and it seems to be able to do a lot of that movement stuff for you. My experience is that you just move the appendages however you want to move them and it memorizes and makes keyframes. It's not perfect but I was very impressed with it and how it cuts all the work you'd have to do in Flash. All I can say is, whatever you did, it was worth the effort. Really professional piece Joshua. And thanks.
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  • Adam Elder plus 6 months ago
    Hi Josh,

    Excellent work. I am actually often in the need of character animation, and could possibly use your help this week. Send me a message letting me know what your availability is like.
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  • Nate Vander Plas 6 months ago
    You have some skills! Hard to believe this is one of your first AE projects!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 6 months ago
    Thanks, Nate. I appreciate it.
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  • ciaran plus 5 months ago
    There's a huge amount of attention to detail in this project, even in something as throwaway as the credits. You've set the bar high for yourself for future work!

    Banging, I love it!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 5 months ago
    This was my last animation from University, so I wanted it to be my swan song. Thanks for noticing the detail:)
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  • Yvo O'Higgins 5 months ago
    Excelente animación y musicalización felicitaciones Josué :) , animó sólo con After effects?
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 5 months ago
    I'm glad you liked my short. Yeah, I did most of it with After Effects. I created the artwork in Photoshop and animated about 98% in AE and the rest in Flash.
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  • Kevin Dossantos 5 months ago
    Very good job, Joshua. A lot better than my senior film. The animation was great, the story was great, and l love your sense of depth you created in a 2D world.
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 5 months ago
    Thanks, Kevin. I was exploring After Effects while producing the animation. I highly recommend AE for achieving the multi-plane camera effect.
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  • Ike AhLoe 4 months ago
    hey! it was cool to see our films playing together in the kansas international film festival. to tell the truth there were only a handful of good ones including yours, mine, and a couple by rainmaker studios. anyways congrats on that and any other festivals the short is playing in, great job.
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 4 months ago
    Thanks, Ike. Your short was very impressive. I really liked it. Keep up the good work man.
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  • Parag Bodkhe 4 months ago
    That's really cool Joshua..........nicely timed, cool characters....... you have nailed it :)
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 4 months ago
    I appreciate the kind words, Parag. Thanks for watching.
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  • skellener 2 months ago
    Nice job Josh!
  • Armstrong Motion and Design 1 month ago
    Thanks, Steve. Glad you liked it.
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