Hello, im Dennis, im also referred to as Doomsday Orange. I am a 15 year old Russian currently residing in California. Animation always interesteng for me. In my younger days, I would do stop motion Lego and claymation. Then I would go to stick figure animation. And now im here, an SFM animator hosting a small channel on youtube making decent animations.

When im not procrastinating, I actually do animation work. Along with that, im facing a problem when i have so many ideas for animations when I already have plenty of animations to work on. I guess i can take that as a blessing since im not going to run out of content for a while, but I have so many things left undone. My animations are ranging from dumb shorts, to some more serious stuff, and then going to animations where I have scripts written out for them.

If you want to do a SFM tennis with me, I would gladly accept. Just contact me through here.

In my opinion, my best animation is also my most recent one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khLzpTYYUFg

Originally posted by Lain:

Hey you! I'm Lain - I live in little Rhody, America's smallest state which means I have a lot to compensate for!

I attempted to use Gmod in ye olden days for machinima before switching to SFM because of the amount of control it grants you over Gmod (although Gmod still has a few functions over SFM for the most part SFM still beats Gmod).

My animation experience is fairly minimal, I've attempted at several shorts now and typically what happens is I get sucked into making the actual scenebuild. Here is something I'm working on right now as of this posting: http://gfycat.com/MarriedJadedAzurevasesponge

My inspirations stem from old Gmod machinima, and from all the models that get ported to SFM. I see a lot of potential in what the source porting community can give to SFM and its made me want to utilize it.

Ultimately my goal in animation is to create an creative and emotionally effective film, albeit I doubt any of my current projects will attain that goal haha.

What I want most out of the challenges is to actually improve my animation.

If you wanna talk or whatever just hit me up, toodles!

Dude, no fucking way. Where the hell did you get all those models?!

Hi. I'm Alex, also known as Deslonic. I'm 16 years old and live in germany.

I don't really know how I got into SFM or which was the first animation I've ever seen. But I do remember watching Practical Problems some years ago. I already watched quite a lot of Gmod videos back then and TF2 was already my favorite game, and it still is. I thought myself "Man, this is far too good to be made with Gmod!" and then I started watching more and more SFM videos until I finally decided to do stuff myself.

Anyway, I'm not that experienced with SFM. Sure, I have over 330 hours in SFM, but most of it is making posters. I'm not that good at animating so far, especially because I've been using the motion editor so far and I'm just learning to use the graph editor.

I don't really have much outside experience. I used this stickman program "pivot" because I was bored, and thankfully I've never uploaded any of those abominations on YouTube and all proof of their existence is gone.

I've made some videos. The first ones were pretty much just to try things out, so it's pretty random. I obviously made some videos where I put actual effort into it. My most successful video currently has 37,000 views and I have no idea how. This is the link to the video.

I feel inspired by pretty much all SFM videos, which are somewhat well made. But especially by funny videos. If something gets me to laugh, I'm going to like it.

I also want to make people laugh and to be excited while watching my stuff. I also want them to look at something well made and with as much detail as possible.

I hope, I can improve my animations skills with the challenges. That'd be awesome. Gonna have fun working with you guys!

I'm Marjan from Serbia. 17 years old. Single.

Meet The Pyro got me into SFM.

I animated on gmod some time ago.

I've single-handedly made a lot of videos I regret. Like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bo1clZ_Y4

But I'm proud of the projects I've worked on during the saxxy awards: Mann Swap, Sky Fortress Remastered, Defuse On The Fly and Some guy challenged me to make a saxxy entry with 1 day left in the deadline* (*not really).

Any GOOD 3 and up minute SFM animation inspires me and keeps me motivated.
In particular I like The Winglet's videos, they're long, well-made, and uploaded quite often considering he's just one guy. Idk he might have minions by now, who knows.

I like to challenge myself. I'm starting with animation first, cause it works and then I'll progressively learn every creative skill there is. Hopefully, when I hit my 50s I'll end up making my own videogame, (or die trying).

Hey everyone. I'm Mark Palmer, 18 years old, and from Adelaide, Australia.

I tried Gmod a few years ago and found it too tedious. After the 2012 Saxxy awards I got into SFM and have been hooked ever since.

No animation experience outside SFM. However, I've had a decent amount of experience in film making in general.

I've made a decent amount of videos over the past year: https://www.youtube.com/user/tf2thewinglet
I'm not particularly fond of any of them except the more recent ones: Zero to Hero (a collab), Burning Through Space, Live and Let Spy.

Pretty much anything from Pixar or Disney really motivates me, in a sort of distant, ambitious way. The people who really inspired me to get better at SFM were Callegos and Nonamesleft. More recently, a SFMer called Jesse Baumgartener has been a big scource of inspiration.

Honestly, I want to be a little bit of everything. An animator, a director, a cinematographer, character design, lighting, writing... But I want to mostly stick with good old 3D character animation for films.

I mainly want to use OSFM Animator Challenges to help me find and meet other animators, as I haven't been very good at that so far. I got the feeling OSFM had a lot of very inexperienced animators, so it's good to have a smaller group for people who are a little more serious. I would love to use this group as an opportunity to collaborate with other SFMers, and hopefully work on some bigger projects together eventually.

I'm Thomas, currently 16 years old, from the Netherlands.

I started out making Gmod videos on my channel at first.
I really don't have much experience other than Gmod or SFM, just a tiny little bit of Blender and 3DS Max but it's probably not even worth mentioning.

I do upload stuff on my own channel but my proudest works are the collaboration ones (Including: Mann Swap, About a Scout, Caffeinated Catastrophe) . I do animation and I'm looking to improve more on lighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYeGqVto-gM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMduKamFEAQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHopT3BFYBc

I got inspired by a variation of things, both being Pixar movies and seeing what kind of animations gamers can make about their favorite video games.

I joined OSFM Animator Challenges mainly to pick up a new workflow, and possibly get some feedback on stuff because I feel like there's a lot for me to improve on.

I'm Jordan, I reside in the US in the state of Arizona, and I'm currently 15 years old; turning 16 in 2 weeks.

I have made Gmod videos in the past and that's probably what got me into SFM, because I wanted to learn a new way to animate rather than stop motion.

I made a few videos throughout my SFM years. My first serious video was Cliff Hanger, not too proud of it but it's what some people know me for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXXAKulPrdY

I also worked on a few collaborative videos, mainly animation and additional animation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaLdfMbV_LU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHopT3BFYBc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMduKamFEAQ

Exact same videos as Thoopje lol.

Many animations on YouTube inspire me to do animation myself. No animated film really inspires me due to the fact that I don't really watch films.

The most I want out of OSFM Animator Challenges is to get feedback on my work, because there's many things that I would like to learn.

Holy shit Its Winglet and Thoopje!! :D

HEY! I LIVE IN SCOTLAND! YAY! (Not England)

I got SFM when I was watching SFM animations on Youtube and deided I want to do that stuff too, I'm glad I got SFM.

I have no experience with animation outside of SFM, I don't have any SFM videos up at the moment but should soon.

What is one animated work that I feel inspired me the most? That's an impossible question.

When it comes to animation I just want to make videos that people will enjoy at the best quality I can manage.

OSFM Animator Challenges is what I want, it's in the name, challanges. Like contests and stuff, it could be a lot of fun!

Hello, My name is Owen. I'm 14 years old, and I currently reside in Ohio.

The Thing that got me into SFM in the first place would probably have to be pretty much a lot of gmod videos before SFM came out. I watched a ton of that shit and I really wanted to do that.
But with my slow, Windows XP computer, and my lack of animation skills at all at the time, I was unable to do so. Then, when SFM came out in 2012, I was furious that it was only for vista and windows 7. But then, I got a new windows 7 tower that year for Christmas, and thats when this whole train wreck started for me.

WAY back in like 2010 or some shit on a channel you will NEVER FIND EVER cause I deleted it, I did some really crappy, ASDF movie styled flash animations. And they were very horrible.

I'll admit, I've done some work that I'm not proud of at all. But, recently I have done some work that i'm very proud of! Take a look at some here! Some are still WIPS so those will be finished some time later:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKmAvJr7SZ4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um_p0WQkbpk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlEgaY5pZuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M1KmFmnkGc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDThBuwvA24

So, a short time into doing SFM stuff I wasn't very inspired by anything for any sort of project. But then, an animator named "Callegos Yavolitak" (Who is now a pretty good friend of mine currently) uploaded this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uDhwWJmrwk
It was one of the first SFM videos I ever saw that wasn't 2 minutes long. I can see some mistakes I had not caught then that are very noticeable but it still has held up quite nicely. It really got me wanting to make something.

What I most want to do in animation is mostly everything, except porn. I like exploring all different kinds of stories... except porn...

I just hope that these challenges are fun. I honestly want to have a blast with these! They sound super fun!

Well, I guess thats really it. If you wanna chat, leave a comment on my profile letting me know so I can accept your add.

Hope everyone has a grand ol' time with this!

Hey everyone! My names Austin. known by "speeder99123" I'm 18 living in California.

I got interested in sfm from doing stick figure and later gmod animations many years ago. I then worked with the leaked sfm from the old team fortress 2 beta before it was officially released. It was extremely fickle and crashed a whole lot, but I loved the tool set so much i stuck with it. Needless to say I was first in line when the official thing was announced.

I have played around with many 3d programs from blender, maya, 3dsmax and motionbuilder over the years. However I wouldn't say i'm well versed in any of them.

Most of the things I create I scrap before I ever upload them, but I have made many things for both myself and collaborating with others. My biggest creation is called "penance." I worked on it for just over 2 years with many people, including some from osfm. I was the lead animator and gave it the final push to completion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jNJnpAwaOQ
My most recent video I got contracted from another youtube channel to do. not my best work but I had just a month to get it done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX6Fo6lP-VU

I saw that winglet had also posted here, His creations are a major inspiraton for me from sfm I hope one day that I can be half as good an animator, cinematographer and director as him.
And I have to thank kitty0706 (R.I.P) and Dasboschitt for getting me into gmod animations years ago.

Biggest problem I still have Is animation timings, and going from a block to spline pass while making it look organic. These are the biggest things I wish to improve on.

I'm joining to get some feedback and critique from fellow animators, learn and colaberate with other members, so feel free to hit me up on steam if you want to chat :)

Dang, got some big names up in this.

I'm Sam, probably better known as SamSpielberg. I'm 18 years old and live in the good ol' US of A.
Been using SFM for as long as it's been around, which I believe is almost four years now. No prior 3D animation or 3D anything experience, minus a little screwing around in G-Mod for one summer. I do have some experience in stop-motion, as that was my field until SFM came along.
I've made quite a few SFM shorts in the four years I've been using it, but the one I'm most proud of atm is my highly-controversial 2014 Saxxy entry, Heavy's Game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4NrZwyGMBM

For me, animation is not something that I've enjoyed doing as much as the cinematic parts of making a short (i.e. cameras, lights, timing, audio, editing, etc.) Animation has it's fun parts, but I would much rather be directly involved with telling the story or joke then be directly involved with how the characters move in that story or joke. Seeing as how I usually work alone, however, I'm hoping to pick up some tips and tricks on just animating in general, and to meet some people who surpass me in animation.
Winglet, or Mark, you are one of those people that blow me away when I see your animations. Other influences would have to be McVinnie, Krunkidile, G6Kenny, Callegos, Ferhod, FatPiePro, and a few others that I can't think of right now.

Looking forward to seeing how this group will turn out.

Hi! My name is Nick. I'm 18 years old, live in Russia.

At first I worked in gmod, but the quality of the animation does not suit me and I decided to take a more serious program SFM. In this program, I work pretty long time (3 years). Besides SFM I have little experience in Maya and Blender.

I did a video for one of the competition and consider him one of the most a success.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNAGlExX0AQ

I am inspired by a lot of videos, not only on YouTube. But there is a person whom I admire. It Jesse Baumgartner.

I really like to do animation, if I have a good idea, I enjoy every minute of creation. Most of all I like the animated characters because each may have its own character and its own style of movement.

In this group i just want to have some fun.

Hey, my name is Ciaran McCormack. I'm Irish and currently living in California. When I was a kid I would do some stop motion or play around with flipbook animation. I didn't do the typical transition of trying gmod and going to sfm. I went straight to sfm. At first I got a bit frustrated because it was a hell of a learning curve. Then when Doomsday Orange started animating in SFM I decided to revisit it. I do models in blender and tried animation in that. I don't really have any noteworthy published works because I haven't rendered anything (I have like 6 videos just sitting unrendered). Most of my unrendered projects got deleted or corrupted when they transferred hard drives a couple months ago. Hopefully this will help improve my animation skill.I am the type of person who enjoys setting up the scene and getting small details perfect. I really do hope this will cover particle systems because I would like to be able to understand how they work so I can make my own.

Sup dudes? I'm Sean. I live in California. For most of my life I've generally been fascinated with the creational powers of animation.

When I was in sixth grade, I uploaded my first pivot stick animator animation, and when I was in ninth grade, I picked up SFM. The reason I chose SFM was just another result of my curious intuition; I just wanted another outlet for my imagination.

Some of the first videos I made were really iffy at first, but with the proper amount of time and Valve tutorials, I slowly inched further as a 3D animator.

The very first inspiration that drove me to start animating in the 3D universe was the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

What I'd like most out of this challenge group is a continuous flow of ideas to keep me practicing.