Climate Change - Conservation Agreements

A few months ago I finished working on this interesting project for the NGO known as Conservation International.

I had not done anything like this in years so it was both fun and challenging to develop all the art on my own (most of the times I take the artwork from someone else and animate it). The process began as usual: I got a script which I turned into a storyboard. Once it was approved it was time to get into production.

What's nice about a storyboard is that it makes it easier to illustrate all the artwork. You have a solid reference to work from, right? Well, in this case it was even better! The client just loved the style I used on the storyboard so there was no need to develop a new style, it was already there in the paper. So I scanned those pages and took them directly to Toon Boom, drew over them, tweaked a few things here and there and then started putting some color.

Once all the illustrations were colored it was time to take them to Photoshop. All of you who have read my previous posts know this is what I do: take the original illustration from Toon Boom and add some lights and shadows in Photoshop. Keep in mind that all these illustrations were exported as separate layers if they were going to get animated.

Now that the whole package was colored, I started all the compositing work in After Effects. Every object was in place just like the original B/W storyboard but fully-colored. It was really nice to see this thumbnails coming to life even though they were not animated yet.

All the animation process went very smooth. I have to admit this is the way things should go every time you work on an animation project on your own but they just don't. Due to time constraints, most of the times you just start animating the whole sequence on-the-go.

The end result is something that I am really proud of. I take credit for all the artwork and the animation. Sound effects and music were added by someone else after I delivered the video file.

Now go ahead and take a look!

Eye Fixation

It's been years since the last time I painted something just for fun. So I was there sitting in front of the screen playing with brushes and blending modes. That's how this multi-layer thing came to be an eye. I had no intention on painting a realistic eye so there was no research, just my imagination and the intention to make it believable. Some might say it looks like a deity or some sort of mystical creature, and the truth is any of those interpretations is valid because (like I said before)I just did this for fun!

Animatic Sample

This is just a fraction of the original 9-minute long animatic I worked on some time ago. It tells the story of young Ecuadorian guy who becomes a hero after standing against some bad guys. He has this companion -a female Condor- who aids him on his journey to fight the injustice and the corruption in Ecuador.

The hero has his ongoing comic book series known as "Capitan Escudo." He is developed by Zonacuario, which is based in Quito, Ecuador. These illustration/storyboards were handed to me as photoshop files, constructed on a few layers so I could animate each character on its own. Since this is an animatic I did my best to make it feel as close to what the finish product should be in terms of timing & pacing. Everything was done in After Effects with some puppet pin application over the characters.

2D Character/Creature Animation

Here is a sample of my latest work on character and creature 2D animation. 

The first images will be familiar if you have seen my other videos. So the new stuff is:

- The two men outside the restaurant,
- the flying dog with the red cape,
- the two superhero characters,

- and some of the creatures in the last segment, Seeds of Ralark. 

More creatures will come in the following weeks as soon as the game is released in XBOX Live. 

All characters, creatures and environments were developed by different illustrators. I only take credit for 2 of the marathon kids, the Blond and the African-Ecuadorian one. 

Videogame creatures animated with puppet tool

UPDATE: check the post from April 03, 2013 for the latest animations!

This is one of the latest projects I have been involved in. Due to this agreement I am not able to give away any details but I am allowed to show what I have done so far. These creatures were completely animated in After Effects using the puppet tool. This process is known as "cut-out" animation, this is not my first time doing it so that is why I am involved in this videogame.

Hopefully I will be able to show you some other stuff in the near future. I hope you enjoy these few animations. The illustrations are not mine, I repeat, illustrations were done by another artist, I only take credit for the animation. All artwork, animations are the property of Escapism Entertainment.

Life Drawing Workshop

Here is a few drawings from this workshop I have been attending in Studio City. Most of them were done with pencils, a few with charcoals. I know there is some nudity, hope I'm not breaking any rules, just want to show you what I've done over the last few weeks.

2D artwork - Informative for Democracy

This is a compilation of the 2D artwork from the "Informative for Democracy" project I was involved in until January 2011.

For one year I illustrated and animated these backgrounds and cartoons. The animation is really simple, cut-out style for the characters and a few lip-sync here and there. Everything creation is mine, in some cases I had photographic references.

In every infomercial you could tell there were different plants, trees, people, clothes, food and so on. The pictures you are going to see are just a small compilation of all the work I did for a year. We did 20+ infomercials and the number of new illustrations (single objects) was between 80 and 100 for each new infomercial. All are hi-res images!

As you can see there is a lot of ethnic races. Well, the idea was to depict most of the Ecuadorian culture we could.

Next, this video collects a few backgrounds with some animation. I take credit for all the illustrations you see there except for the traffic signs, the trees silhouettes, and water texture you see before the last scene. Those came from a vector library. 

I hope you enjoy all of these and expect some comments. I will be gone for a while, it is time to work on some new challenges!

Stop Motion - Puppets, Scenery

And now we are going to see pictures of a stop-motion project I did while studying. Here I did a lot of things, character designs (which were not chosen), scenery design (outside look of a mansion), puppet fabrication (2 characters), scenery building (front view of the mansion), and also a couple of Condor for the mansion. Because we wanted the project to have a "local feeling" we had the 2 huge birds as statues. The mansion was partially based on some architecture from Quito's civic center.

Sketches

All mine.

Condor birds

All mine. For the skeleton I used, wire and flex foam. For the body sculpting: air hardening modelling clay and plasticine. In the final stage I mixed regular white glue with blue acrylic paint. After putting it over the sculpted body with a flat brush, I got a nice stone-look with cracks. You can see it helped a lot.

Characters

I worked on the skeletons and bodies of the 2 characters (an old man and his servant), costumes were made by a classmate. Partial animation of the servant was done by me. Below: the servant. The guy in the third picture is a painter, done by a classmate.

Scenery

These interiors are not mine, just wanted to show what we achieved in this class. I will add a few pictures of the mansion soon.

More pictures and animation tests coming soon.

Graphics - TV commercials, corporate events...

This post is just about graphics. I think I should show some of the work I have done besides illustration, animation, 3D and compositing.

Here you are going to see mostly intros, outros, animated logos, maps, that kind of stuff. I remember having worked on a bunch of pilots as cameraman and/or animator. The following video is a compilation of the most relevant work from the years 2008 - 2010. It includes material from TV commercials, corporate events and TV shows.

Footage from policemen, firefighters, etc., is not mine. My job in this one was to create an intro for a show about cops: their everyday duty, how difficult it is to fight crime, and so on. So I took the main cut, added some filters, text and did a few masks.

I used the usual stuff for these graphics: Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects.

All logos and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Music from danosongs.com is licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution 3.0"

The Patriots - Compositing, 2D & 3D artwork

This compilation depicts my compositing job in "The Patriots". The project was developed during the Ecuadorian Bicentennial in July - August 2009. I take credit for most of the 3D renders. Some models were donde by an intern. Texturing, lighting and rendering was my task. 2D artwork was done by former mentor & friend Gustavo Idrovo.

The Patriots ("Los Patriotas" in spanish) aired in ECTV, an Ecuadorian TV station. The show a time-period interview-like show. Important figures from the Ecuadorian revolution and further independence were portrayed by actors. Our artwork came in whenever they would recall important moments before, during and after the revolution. As you will see, there are still images and a few scenes that look like a motion-comic. If you would like to know more about this project please take a look at my previous post from July 2011: "The Patriots".

Rotoscoping - 2D illustrations (Reina de Quito 2010-2011)

Here are some scenes from the 12 spots that I worked on in 2010. By the end of every year, Quito (Ecuador's capital city) celebrates its foundation anniversary. And so, a new Queen is elected for a one-year-term. This event is known as Queen of Quito ("Reina de Quito" in spanish).

A few months ago I got the chance to work on 12 spots, each one for each candidate. My job was to put some 2D artwork, clean up the streets or the sky and so on. It was kind of easy but like any rotoscoping gig, it takes a lot of time and patience to work with masks. I worked in After Effets, Toon Boom Studio and Photoshop. I only take credit for the illustrations. The spots were developed to introduce the candidates to the city of Quito and Ecuador of course.

Scenes from Corporate Video - AVIS rent a car

Back to 2009, working with "Primal Producciones" again. This video I believe was something like 5 minutes long. The funny thing was that it was being worked on in Quito, Ecuador but was meant to be sent to Colombia! This time we were 4 animators working with After Effects. All material was provided by a creative agency, they even gave us a photo-storyboard made with the pictures that we used in the final product.

Scenes contained here are just a small selection of what I did with After Effects in a 3D camera setup. The Avis logo is property of their respective owner(s). Please be aware, this video is not intended for any commercial purposes, just meant to show what I have done in terms of animation.

Digital Painted Backgrounds

In this post I will present 3 digital backgrounds. They were not commercial, I just painted them for fun.

The first picture is what I called "Lava Volcanoes" and you can see why is that. I remember that I got my digital tablet in June 2006, once it was in my hands I started painting whatever I could. So it came to my mind the idea of mountains, orange color, purple, a sad sky, I didn't want to paint a happy place or just  a nice environment. Most people thought my inspiration was the Ecuadorian Andes mountains but the truth is, it was one of my favorite movie-art-books: The Art Of Star Wars: Episode III.

Now this image is basically a photo with a few spaceships painted over it. I remember I took this picture from my room. I lived in the valley of Cumbaya, just 15 minutes from the Ecuadorian capital city: Quito. Behind those mountains is the city, so you can tell in Ecuador we are mostly surrounded by mountains (in the highlands I mean).

The last one is a fully illustrated sky. Last year (2010) I got a call from a friend and she told me some guys were looking for a team of artists to develop an iPhone game. Our proposition seemed to be the best but unfortunately the game never came to be. It all stuck in after we presented our character designs, a background and an animation test. The story was something about samurais but the gameplay was supposed to allow you to go back and forward through the different levels. Enough said, take a look!!

The Recyclables - Episode 3 scenes

Final episode of "The Recyclables". Simone and Bottle are looking for Cardboard in the sanitary landfill. Flex and Battery think they have everything under control, but they don't. Lucas, a new friend of Simone's gets there just in time to save the good guys.

The Recyclables - Episode 2 scenes

Scenes from episode 2 of "The Recyclables". The characters are now in planet Earth, the Recyclables have become friends with a girl called Simone. Meanwhile the Toxics are on their way to kidnap Cardboard.

The Recyclables - Episode 1 scenes

Going back to the 2008-thesis-project known as "The Recyclables". I posted a detailed description of this project weeks ago, so feel free to go back through my older posts. Below, you are going to see a few completed scenes including audio tracks and subtitles!!

Outlet Viajes - Illustration & Design

By the end of 2009, Outlet Viajes was almost ready to start operations in Ecuador. The logo was already designed but the catalog not. So it was my job to take all text and pictures they gave me and develop an A4-paper-size horizontal catalog, which was a bit unusual. Anyway before I started I must say I landed this job because my "seal illustrations" where chosen among others. They were looking for a local animal that could represent their tourism agency, there were 3 options: a frigatebird, a hummingbird, and a seal (not a sea lion).

The seal was chosen but I had to redesign it. Here is the final version and also a few pics from the catalog which had both english and spanish printed versions.