WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:04.630 You are watching Scribble Kibble, a weekly show about animation. 00:00:04.630 --> 00:00:10.860 I had time to binge watch Betsy Lee’s entire No Evil series and I have to say that after 00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:17.130 watching all 20 episodes I am genuinely interested in what will happen next. 00:00:17.130 --> 00:00:20.630 I even bought the comic to get the scoop on the prologue. 00:00:20.630 --> 00:00:26.690 This is the best independent online animated series I have seen so far. 00:00:26.690 --> 00:00:36.960 Sure, I’ve seen series that use really minimal animation, but No Evil is way beyond stick 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:41.799 puppet characters. 00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:50.780 The art and voice acting are good, the story and writing are good, and the series didn’t 00:00:50.780 --> 00:01:00.269 fall apart after two or three episodes - which is the fate of most online serials. 00:01:00.269 --> 00:01:06.600 By some sort of animator magic Betsy Lee has created 95 minutes for this series over the 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:07.600 past four years. 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:08.600 An hour and a half. 00:01:08.600 --> 00:01:09.600 That’s a movie! 00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:13.250 Of course No Evil starts out a little bumpy at first, particularly in terms of the audio 00:01:13.250 --> 00:01:17.990 work because you can hear the white noise from the microphone whenever a character speaks. 00:01:17.990 --> 00:01:20.740 That goes away in later episodes. 00:01:20.740 --> 00:01:26.990 Sometimes the voice actors don’t enunciate or they speak too fast, and many of the characters 00:01:26.990 --> 00:01:32.539 have unusual names that come out of folklore (primarily Aztec lore), so fortunately the 00:01:32.539 --> 00:01:33.950 subtitles work. 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:37.430 Click them on if you need to. 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:39.539 Now! 00:01:39.539 --> 00:01:42.370 I have some recommendations on how to watch this. 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:46.439 The first is to set a movie night and let the No Evil playlist run from the beginning. 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:52.179 That’s the best because Betsy Lee knows how to let the lore in her story unfold. 00:01:52.179 --> 00:01:58.579 The second recommendation is to watch up through episode ten, or to only watch episode ten. 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:00.530 That’d be good if you don’t like human-ish animal characters but want to get a feel for 00:02:00.530 --> 00:02:01.530 the series anyway. 00:02:01.530 --> 00:02:04.500 This is the place to make your choice, because the next thing I’m going to do is give a 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:08.380 synopsis of the No Evil story so far, for anybody who needs a refresher. 00:02:08.380 --> 00:02:10.179 The next time I start talking I’m going to spoil a lot, so… yeah. 00:02:10.179 --> 00:02:15.569 The world of No Evil is populated by spirits (magic animals who can take on human form) 00:02:15.569 --> 00:02:16.770 and humans. 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:19.510 All live in harmony thanks to the power of a mirror. 00:02:19.510 --> 00:02:23.810 However, the humans and spirits argue over who should command the mirror. 00:02:23.810 --> 00:02:28.739 Because the existence of the powerful magic mirror actually results in disharmony, the 00:02:28.739 --> 00:02:34.630 frog spirit Tlaloc uses a tuning fork and trades his life to break the mirror. 00:02:34.630 --> 00:02:40.890 It shatters into four aspects, or Tezcatlipocas: red, white, blue, and black. 00:02:40.890 --> 00:02:45.500 The aspects are scattered around the world, only to resurface years later. 00:02:45.500 --> 00:02:49.190 In particular, the Black Tezcatlipoca spreads like a plague. 00:02:49.190 --> 00:02:54.489 It kills any plants it touches and puts any living creature it touches to an endless sleep. 00:02:54.489 --> 00:02:59.329 To stop the black plague from consuming everything, four spirits combine their powers to create 00:02:59.329 --> 00:03:02.970 a force of will strong enough to seal the black away. 00:03:02.970 --> 00:03:04.640 Of course there’s a price. 00:03:04.640 --> 00:03:09.000 The raven spirit sacrifices her life, while the three monkey spirits each give up one 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.310 sense: sight, hearing, and speech. 00:03:12.310 --> 00:03:13.349 See no evil. 00:03:13.349 --> 00:03:14.360 Hear no evil. 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:15.470 Speak no evil. 00:03:15.470 --> 00:03:20.220 A few years later, the seal breaks when some punk kid shows up and starts tearing the pieces 00:03:20.220 --> 00:03:23.830 of the Black Tezcatlipoca off of the spirit guardians. 00:03:23.830 --> 00:03:28.299 The main characters in No Evil must now try to find a way to suppress the black plague. 00:03:28.299 --> 00:03:33.390 A healer and a shaman can individually cure most cases, but to actually solve the problem 00:03:33.390 --> 00:03:37.000 their best bet is to find the being who can wield the Blue Tezcatlipoca. 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:41.930 Yet thanks to loco power-obsessed kid, the first course of action is trying to get the 00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:46.110 other two pieces of the Black Tezcatlipoca and keep them safe. 00:03:46.110 --> 00:03:47.110 And that’s it. 00:03:47.110 --> 00:03:48.510 That’s where we are now. 00:03:48.510 --> 00:03:54.470 No Evil is a super inspiration to anyone thinking of making their own series. 00:03:54.470 --> 00:03:58.290 Watch any episode and you’ll notice there aren’t buckets of special effects. 00:03:58.290 --> 00:04:01.640 The camera movements, when there are any, are very simple. 00:04:01.640 --> 00:04:03.670 Everything is drawn by hand in Flash. 00:04:03.670 --> 00:04:05.750 Even the backgrounds are in Flash. 00:04:05.750 --> 00:04:11.250 All of the voice acting has a do-it-yourself feel to it; Betsy Lee does several of the 00:04:11.250 --> 00:04:16.170 voices herself and most of the characters are voiced by people she knows. 00:04:16.170 --> 00:04:19.550 They all get together and record in the same place. 00:04:19.550 --> 00:04:22.530 Everything about the animation is completely doable. 00:04:22.530 --> 00:04:23.730 You can make this. 00:04:23.730 --> 00:04:28.010 Granted the animation in the very first episode still outranks a lot of what I see on YouTube, 00:04:28.010 --> 00:04:29.010 but! 00:04:29.010 --> 00:04:30.430 You can make this. 00:04:30.430 --> 00:04:35.170 All it requires is true dedication and a story that you’ve written that you can work off 00:04:35.170 --> 00:04:36.680 of and expand on. 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:40.240 You don’t have to have the whole story finished when you start, but enough that you know where 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:41.500 you are going. 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:46.410 Take your time, start small with short minisodes one to four minutes long, keep drawing your 00:04:46.410 --> 00:04:51.740 cartoon, and after a few years you will have a legitimate series with dedicated fans. 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:56.780 Not fans of some other show, not fans of fan art, your fans. 00:04:56.780 --> 00:04:58.750 Your fans. 00:04:58.750 --> 00:05:04.190 There is one aspect of No Evil that is highly unusual for an original series, and that is 00:05:04.190 --> 00:05:05.190 the singing. 00:05:05.190 --> 00:05:06.190 It’s fantastic. 00:05:06.190 --> 00:05:11.040 That’s why I suggested episode ten, because that was the episode that made me take a hard 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:12.100 look at the credits. 00:05:12.100 --> 00:05:19.310 It has an amazing triad song, which is an adaptation of the 1934 fast paced boppin gospel 00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:29.320 tune “There Ain’t No Grave.” 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:33.480 Betsy Lee and the male voice actor Mr. Shoes arranged their own version of the song to 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:42.580 be very slow and haunting. 00:05:42.580 --> 00:05:45.450 She sings the two female parts and he sings the male part. 00:05:45.450 --> 00:05:47.240 It’s really quite spectacular. 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:50.070 You don’t get that anywhere else. 00:05:50.070 --> 00:05:52.190 People try to sing duets and it sounds off key. 00:05:52.190 --> 00:05:53.430 Let alone three parts. 00:05:53.430 --> 00:05:54.430 Heh. 00:05:54.430 --> 00:05:58.740 It was so good I had to see the credits because I thought the characters had different voice 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:00.910 actors to do the singing parts. 00:06:00.910 --> 00:06:03.350 They don’t. 00:06:03.350 --> 00:06:07.710 In terms of visuals, the only thing that is different are the patterned dresses and items 00:06:07.710 --> 00:06:09.130 you’ll see from time to time. 00:06:09.130 --> 00:06:10.760 They’re pretty, aren’t they? 00:06:10.760 --> 00:06:18.550 It just so happens I put up a tutorial on animating textures like this that you can 00:06:18.550 --> 00:06:23.970 see here, but to summarize: you can download images and use them as texture fills in Flash. 00:06:23.970 --> 00:06:28.820 If you’re on the level with masking (something I didn’t cover in the tutorial) you could 00:06:28.820 --> 00:06:34.870 also mask the pattern onto the clothes fill layer like this. 00:06:34.870 --> 00:06:38.780 No Evil doesn’t push too hard on animating the textures, just a few simple changes in 00:06:38.780 --> 00:06:41.530 the pattern position to give it some kind of movement. 00:06:41.530 --> 00:06:44.970 Oh, oh, one more thing. 00:06:44.970 --> 00:06:46.740 The sign language in episode 17. 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:52.830 Wow, what a lot of work to animate all of that. 00:06:52.830 --> 00:06:55.310 You thought lip sync was tedious to animate. 00:06:55.310 --> 00:06:59.150 How about every artist’s favorite thing, hands? 00:06:59.150 --> 00:07:02.750 Hand lip sync. 00:07:02.750 --> 00:07:06.180 Seeing sign language animated was pretty sweet. 00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:11.560 Wow, after making this episode of Scribble Kibble I feel so inspired! 00:07:11.560 --> 00:07:27.350 I hope you do too. 00:07:27.350 --> 00:07:31.870 This seems like a good episode to post all of the anthro themed Scribbles art you’ve 00:07:31.870 --> 00:07:32.870 sent me. 00:07:32.870 --> 00:07:37.030 If I were a spirit in No Evil, I wonder what my power would be? 00:07:37.030 --> 00:07:38.030 Ink! 00:07:38.030 --> 00:07:39.030 Of course ink. 00:07:39.030 --> 00:07:41.440 Yes, the power to inspire creativity. 00:07:41.440 --> 00:07:44.290 What would you like your ability to be? 00:07:44.290 --> 00:07:51.970 Healing, water bending, shapeshifting, reanimation, being a soul-sucking, murderous little *quack*. 00:07:51.970 --> 00:08:35.400 Hopefully not that last one.