Animation Reel (August 2010)

Updated version of the previous demo reel from 2008. Most of the included scenes were done by myself in After Effects. 3D work was done in Maya. I take credit for most of the illustrations, except for the ones in the "priest scene" (minutes 0:30, 1:00). The 3D soccer characters are not mine, I just animated them. 3D models like the ones in the "priest scene" were provided to me. My job was to illuminate and render those scenes.

The rotoscoping scenes nar the end were done in After Effects. I used clone brush and a few layers were in 3D perspective.

Logos are property of their respective companies.

Charters Ecuador TV Spot

"Charters Ecuador" needed this commercial ASAP, this was done overnight. Their "Soccer Package" included flight tickets, hotel rooms and tickets to attend the Ecuadorian Soccer team's games in the "Copa America Argentina 2011" soccer cup.

Both 3D models (airplane and soccer ball) were provided to me so I am not taking credit for them. I just animated them in Maya. Compositing was done in After Effects. Audio FX and voice over were added by editor & friend Miguel Montalvo, from Ace Media Films (Quito, Ecuador).

Take a look!

2D Backgrounds - Nature Landscapes

This backgrounds are the ones I enjoyed the most. Most of the backgrounds done for the "Informative for Democracy" were illustrated in Toon Boom Studio. In this post you will see a different style.

Highlands
As you can see there is no contour lines on these images. One day I was asked to do something different and I did it. I just sat down in front of the computer, opened photoshop and began painting with my tablet. Once I finished the first background they told me "you are going for something more realistic now, go for it". In the third image you will see I put some texture, it was the only time.

Mother - children farewell
Here I did the same. Texture images were used for the house. The school that is far away in the back was done by another illustrator.

Coast
For these backgrounds I had to use photographic reference. A few texture images were provided also. First image depicts a random beach, the second one, the city of Manta.

Amazon rainforest
This is one of the very first backgrounds I did for this huge project. I knew that more TV Spots were on their way so I was like "I'm going to need a lot of stuff in the future". From that time on, I illustrated a lot of single objects. For the next projects I had a library that was just getting bigger and bigger. This background was composed from single objects in After Effects. it was used to show oil extraction.

2D Backgrounds - Miscellaneous

Backgrounds come from the "Informative for Democracy" project also. Here I will describe a few of them so you know what I did in each case.

Roads and neighborhoods
First 4 images come from a 3D setup I did in After Effects. They depict the Ecuadorian Coast region. Cartoon characters were drawn in Toon Boom Studio.

Oil refinery
Just a random refinery I did, it does not represent any real place.

Real locations
First picture depicts one of the police headquarters in the city of Quito. The second one is Montecristi (a coastal city), where the new Ecuadorian Constitution was elaborated. And the last one is the government's palace in the capital city of Quito, it is known as "Palacio de Carondelet".

Various

City in the highlands
This images depict the city of Quito, they come from a 3D setup that was done in After Effects. I take credit for everything except for the traffic signs and little dog.

2D Backgrounds - Interiors

All this background collection comes from my work done in 2010. I was involved in the "Informative for Democracy" TV Spots developed for the Ecuadorian government's "Secretary of Communication". We spent a lot of time in this project, a year actually. Well, here is what I did in Photoshop and Toon Boom Studio. I take credit for the backgrounds painting and compositing. Just a few vector images and a few textures were provided to me. Photographic reference turned out to be really useful a couple of times.

Some backgrounds were painted with just solid colors in Toon Boom Studio. Shadows and gloss/brightness were later added in Photoshop.

Chroma Key sequences & Informative for Democracy INTRO

In this post you will see a couple of sequences involving live-action footage and 2D material. Back in 2010 I was working at Urbano Films and got my chance to work on more than 20 3-minute-long TV spots. All of them were done for the Ecuadorian government's department known as the "Secretary of Communication". They where entirely shot in a green-screen studio and meant to inform the Ecuadorian people about the new laws and projects developed by the government. My job was to illustrate backgrounds and some objects that where going to be handled by the live-action characters.

Here is the opening sequence for every spot, all in 2D. I based the walk cycles on a demonstration from the book Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair.

In this video you will see a basic integration between live-action and 2D illustrations. I did a few masking too.

Now the thing becomes a bit more complex. We were requested to do some lip-sync and bigger backgrounds. You will see there is camera movement a lot of masking and rotoscoping. A few pictures were provided so the backgrounds could become more "alive".

"The Patriots"

This documentary miniseries told the story about the Ecuadorian revolution against the Spaniards back in 1809. This project was done in the year 2009, the whole event was known as the "Ecuador Bicentennial". There were 3 episodes developed for television. The actors played that century's most important characters, both Spaniards and Ecuadorian as if they were interviewed. Unfortunately there are no pictures from that time so our task was to illustrate and animate some key moments from that era. We chose to model every set in order to move the camera wherever we were requested to do so. Some references were provided including paintings and drawings.

There were 3 guys in the team, including (again) my friend Gustavo Idrovo and myself. We had a lot of reference from Quito's Historic Center for the architectural models. Back then there were no sidewalks and no electricity. The rest is still the same way they were 2 centuries ago.

My task was to model, lit and render the scenes in Maya. Later I had to integrate both the illustrations and 3D backgrounds so it turned out to be some sort of a motion-comic. Please be aware that a lot of the 3D furniture and textures were provided so I am not taking any credit for them. I modeled most of the buildings, did some clean-up on a few 3D models that were done by another guy who came aboard later. For this job I did some research in order to improve the lighting setup and rendering. I used mental ray global illumination with photons. A few times I turned on final gathering because of the shadows. Enough said, take a look!!

Now this was a huge render so we could zoom in & out or pan the camera from one side to another. First you are going to see the whole image, then a couple of detail shots.

This church was modeled by another guy. Once I received the model I cleaned it up and then textured and illuminated it. 

Here are some still pictures, the originals were huge so we could play with the camera inside After Effects. All characters were illustrated by Gustavo Idrovo in Toon Boom Studio. For all these interior scenes I am taking credit expect for some furniture and most of the textures.

Finally, here is a short movie with some new backgrounds and characters.