Don Blur [I use the Gaussian Blur effect a lot]

Sorry, we're closed!

2010-09-15T17:39:00.003+01:00

Haven't written on here for a while... Looks like me and the whole 'blog thing' just don't get on too well! Oh it was fun while it lasted but other things come up and one tends to just lose interest. I probably won't be updated this ever again but for anyone out there, please head over to my YouTube channel to catch up on my current projects! =)

Radiohead's 'Nude' played with old computer parts

2008-06-12T15:12:00.000+01:00

Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Out of ideas...

2008-04-24T15:57:00.002+01:00

Complete writer's block? Having a hard time finding a killer idea to make a short film or skit? Total lack of creativity to begin with? Lazy?

http://viaggg.free.fr/3CH/3ch_web.php

'Nuff said!

THIS is what it's like to work in videogames.

2008-04-09T14:54:00.003+01:00

No, seriously. If you thought for one second it was all 'fun & games'... Just take a look at this video. This is as true to life as it gets!

Now go make me a coffee! (I meant that as satire, I don't touch the stuff actually)

It's been 6 months already...

2008-03-31T22:18:00.004+01:00

That's right folks! It's been exactly half a year (feels like only yesterday) since I managed to work my way into PYRO Studios and my 6-month trial period is about up. They want me to stick around so that's a relief! It's been great so far and everyone at the company are all cool cats and funny (and huuuge geeks).

Won't go into the details of the game for obvious reasons but I will say that quite a few publishers have seen what we've done of the game so far and are pretty interested. I might have said too much already so I'll just leave it at that.

I'm actually writing this entry from the office and it's almost midnight; high-time I got home I think (fortunately I live only a short 15-minute walk away).

Take care!

"Horton hears a Who" impressions

2008-03-23T23:50:00.003Z

For the longest time it seems as though CG Animated films have been trying to live up to it's predecessor, Traditional Animation.

Having watched films like PIXAR's 'The Incredibles', Disney's 'Meet the Robinsons' and recently Blue Sky's 'Horton hears a Who', it seems as though CG animation is finally being able to basque in an animated awesomeness of it's own right.
This past weekend I went to the cinema to see 'Horton' just for-the-helluvit and because Dr. Seuss is pretty cool outright.

I was amazed with the fluidity these characters moved with, no trace of an obvious rig anywhere (how great is that!?), moving in unexpected ways and oh! the facial expressions...! I just couldn't put my finger on it in technical terms but I put my mind to rest by finally accepting that what I was witnessing moving around on screen weren't characters with predictable limbs and skeletons but shapes.

By jove, shapes! Just like in traditional animation; a picture. A single 'drawing' clearly expressing emotion, intent and line-of-action. The animation itself was enough to entertain me but the film's also packed chock-full of slapstick humour, funny one-liners and a blatant pick at all the uncalled-for cuteness and clichéd-ness that seems to be littering enough movies today as it is.

The story is pretty simple and straightforward and could be told in under 15 mins. but that's OK, it makes for a great film hands-down and I couldn't keep the smile off my face the whole 88 mins. it actually lasts. Not bad for an animated feature-film made out of a 60-page children's book!

Go see it.

'Starless Night' featured in Smashing Magazine

2008-03-16T21:48:00.005Z

Well it definitely seems as though Starless Night is the talk of the town lately. The latest news is finding out about it being featured in the online mag 'Smashing Magazine' under an article named '25 Brilliant Animated Short Movies'. Here's an excerpt:

"Beautiful animated short movies are excellent for tedious coffee breaks and uninspiring monday mornings. To put some beautiful story in a short 2-5 minutes sequence isn’t easy, but even in this case designers and artists are quite creative and manage to come up with very surprising and unusual results. The selection below is supposed to make you cry, laugh, feel bizarre or even shocked — in every case being absolutely smashed.

Let’s take a look at the collection of 25 brilliant animated short movies. Among them you’ll find funny cartoons, typography-related movies as well as artistic masterpieces — hopefully everybody will find something interesting and unusual for his/her personal taste.-"

Check out the article featuring great shorts all round here.

Now that's just smashing! ;-)

666 visits milestone!

2008-03-13T10:12:00.004Z

Thanks for visiting and keep on dropping by for a visit! You never know what you may find... Mwuhahahaahahaha-*cough* Hmm...

Evil, to say the least.

'Starless Night' very popular on YouTube thanks to AniBoom

2008-03-13T00:25:00.009Z

You never know what you may find if you keep your eye on that 'related videos' section in YouTube and I just happened to spot a second instance of my short film Starless Night that had been uploaded by Aniboom.

Not only has it gotten more than 78,000 views, 160 comments and been favourited 676 times, but it has also recieved 4 honors amongst some of which are:

#35 Featured of Taiwan
#43 Top Favorites overall of Film & Animation this month (!!!)
#89 Top Rated overall of Film & Animation this month (again, whoa!)

This has been a real pleasant surprise for me and every single comment I read on both YouTube and Aniboom makes me feel more rewarded for the time and effort put into the making of 'Starless Night', not to mention that I'm especially happy that a good deal of people have found it sweet and entertaining.

'Memorable', perhaps? For that is what I strive for! ^^

The Animated History of Talarrubias

2008-03-11T20:05:00.006Z

I'd like you all to meet Marianito!

This fellow has been one of my best-kept secrets since as far back as the beggining of last year and I can finally show him off in public.

Marianito is the star of an animated featurette called 'La Historia Animada de Talarrubias' (The Animated History/Story of Talarrubias). An 8-minute short film was planned as a tribute to this town in Badajoz, Spain. The local Town Hall were our clients and I worked freelance on the project.

I was responsible for the rigging and animation of Marianito and since March of 2007 I've had the chance to work alongside a couple of extremely talented ex-classmates of mine and other equally talented people from elsewhere.

The short film will premier on Saturday the 29th of March and once that's over and done with I'll most likely get permission to upload it for all to see.

In the meantime, here's some info regarding the featurette (only in Spanish, sorry!)

La Historia Animada de Talarrubias

New drawings

2008-02-18T15:54:00.007Z

Been drawing a bit lately. If only I didn't always try so hard to come up with a cool concept first and instead just draw I might get better at it ^^

El Correcol by ~CarlCampbell on deviant ART

This particular one is based off of a character belonging to the extremely talented Blanca Helga (http://www.flickr.com/photos/blancahelga/). Go check our stuff out!

Cat wake-up call

2008-02-18T11:12:00.007Z

A friend of mine showed me this and I just wanted to post it. I love everything about this animation, the timing, the simplicity and the cuteness factor. Plus, there's a cat. What's not to like?

COMING SOON! "Animating for Videogames: A newbie's inside experience"

2007-10-26T15:30:00.000+01:00

Stay tuned for a not-as-in-depth-as-I'd-like but interesting enough post about my first experiences animating for videogames at PYRO Studios!

'Aniversario' to screen at Italy's Future FIlm Festival

2007-10-26T14:19:00.000+01:00

I guess it's never too late for years-old work to get some credit. This time it's in Bologna, Italy, at the Future Film Festival. They're gonna be doing a screening of Spanish animated shorts and Aniversario just happened to make the cut, so... yay! Go old shorts! ^^

I've also spent the last few months sending my shorts around the globe to participate in festivals, trying to bring 'Starless Night' especially to the front. For now it hasn't gotten any attention at all but I'll just have to keep trying, eh? Never give up!

'Ahivalabola' to play on TV!

2007-09-27T17:31:00.000+01:00

Hey! Cool things are starting to happen to me ()! Apparently someone liked my short and it's gonna be played on Antena 3's VU87 portion of the NEOX channel.

If you have TDT (televisión digital terrestre) you'll be able to catch it at 15:30 and 1:15 on October the 12th and again on that week's Sunday at 23:30.

If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch it on YouTube but I've also been told it will be shown on their site too. I'll look into that...

I got paid a small amount for the royalties to the short film so that was nice :)

TARGET ACQUIRED!

2007-09-24T14:57:00.000+01:00

It seems as though persistance, perserverance and all those other words that begin with 'pers' and end in 'ance' do pay off in the end. Next monday, October the 1st, I begin working at PYRO Studios as Junior Animator on a next-gen title for XBOX360 and Playstation3.

This means I might either start posting much more often or not at all... We'll have to wait and see. To all those who told me to never give up... THANK YOU!

Take-off

2007-09-17T16:22:00.000+01:00

For quite a few months I've been having a series of dreams involving catching a plane. On some occasions I've been able to board said planes but most of the time I just miss them altogether, plus the ones I reach never seem to be going anywhere at all.

The print on my boarding pass is always scrambled and unreadable but customs is always quite fast (it is a dream, after all), although the last time they printed out the x-ray of my bag for some reason and had a good laugh whilst going over it a number of times.

The airports are extremely bizarre, they just seem to go on and on and even if gates A through Z are in existence, gate F, for instance seems to be hidden at the far end of the continuously growing building complex.

Sometimes I don't make the plane because I've forgot a very important personal item back at the hotel, which normally happens to be a nice little cozy country hostel.

Why do I feel I'm missing a trip to somewhere? I'm missing 'the plane'. It must mean something important because a friend of mine pointed out that if it was something minor I'd be missing trains in my dream and not having airport trouble, specifically.

Unupdate

2007-09-16T17:44:00.000+01:00

Haven't posted anything in a while, I know... But then again, it's not much of a Blog if I don't post something now, is it?

Nothing really worth mentioning is happening right now... oh, wait. I've been going to a couple of interviews and with a little luck will be hearing back from them soon, so yeah, I'm looking for a job, THAT's what's happening. I wish I could post some of the work I'm currently doing to give these recent posts some more 'body' but it's all kind of confidential right now.

I don't have a flat in Madrid right now so I've sort of been staying at my friends' places. When I say 'friends' I mean practically ALL the friends I have here! I've been doing a sort of tour. Heck, guess that means I owe quite a few meals, huh?

Anyway, if there's anyone reading this at all, don't stress too much over me not posting... I think about blogging all day long! I'm just not really a blogger at heart, I'm a bit of a poser I guess, a Bloser- wait, no! That doesn't sound nice at all...

101 visits milestone!

2007-08-29T20:12:00.000+01:00

You love me! You REALLY love me, don't you? Oh well, as far as a small little personal blog goes, I just want to thank y'all for stopping by and hope you've been at least mildly entertained. ^^

A message to advertisers

2007-08-22T00:46:00.000+01:00

This video pretty much sums up 99% of advertising we're all used to seeing whether it's on TV adverts, print, panels or the Internet. Great piece of advice to most publicists out there although it seems to me as more of an accusation because like it or not, a company always has to sell a product and no matter how much it sucks up to a client it won't ever come close to real 'love' (so just remember that, kids and consumer whores).

The Break Up
Uploaded by geertdesager

Huh-what? Microsoft!? We'll have to wait and see what this is all about...

'Ahivalabola' featured at Sant Cugat del Vallés short film screening

2007-06-28T20:24:00.000+01:00

My first 3D animation short, Ahivalabola will be playing along with a few other classmates' short films at the 7th Short Film screening in Sant Cugat del Vallés. 'Bout time one of my shorts played at an actual physical place, hehe. Oh well... Woohoo! ^^

The tale of 3 pennies

2007-06-26T18:27:00.000+01:00

I've started to encounter a funny pattern recently. I should probably even say that the recurrence has been chasing me from how it's been turning out...

I was walking to CICE one day when suddenly I became aware of some loose change I had in my left pocket; three 1 cent coins to be precise. Since I thought no use would become of this shrapnel, at least not in the inmediate future, I thought I might just set them down on a bench forming a triangle. No reason, just a senseless/funny/symbolic sign of passage. I walked on.

A few days later, on a sunny Saturday afternoon on my way back home from CICE (sweet, sweet routine) I found 1 cent on the ground. No relation to my previous endeavour, at least not until I stumbled across a second 1 cent coin a few minutes later. I thought to myself that it would be too funny to come across a third coin so I started scanning the ground as I walked. After walking whilst looking down for a few hundred meters I decided I'd just give up, that finding another coin would be too much of a coincidence.

Minutes later I encountered the last coin and I didn't know what to make of it all... Almost in awe, I walked on a few more steps staring at the 3 coins in palm, truly amazed. Falling short of ritualistically, I set the 3 coins down once again, arranging them in a triangle this time pointing downwards.

Yesterday I found 3 coins again, except that they consisted of a pair of 2 cents coins and a 1 cent coin. I guess that either means the 'chain' has been broken or that my stakes have almost been doubled, hehe. What could it all mean? They say life is what you make of it... ^^

Sprite gets a facelift

2007-06-25T18:12:00.000+01:00

Jubilations! My second favorite fizzy drink in the whole wide world (Pepsi Twist is my top fave) has a new look. I don't think it'll make the stuff any tastier but the new design sure is, dare I say it... refreshing? Muahahaha! ^^

Now all I can do is hope that the new design will reach Spain so I can go for a cruise with my pimpin' new Sprite©.

Kampai!

Titles to songs I'd like to write

2007-06-25T13:46:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I wish I could play the guitar so I could lay down some basic cords and write some songs. Fact is I've been feeling strangely inspired to write a thing or two lately but I seem to have a fixation with possible song titles. Here's a few that have recently landed in my mindscape:

Hide the stain from prying eyes
Poisonhickie
She doesn't love me when I'm sober
Lying downwards, going skywards
Citizens of Lazytowne
Hiding (from her parents)
The clouds just stuck in the sky, that day
Time goes by and the cereal goes soggy
We can weekend

You may even do well in remembering these, they might one day become the latest indie smash hits ^^

Demoreel and Blog featured on 3Dinfográfica.com

2007-06-23T14:09:00.000+01:00

Both my demoreel and Blog have been featured at the 3Dinfográfica portal, yay! ^^ As long as the demoreel remains on the site, they've basically provided people a much easier way to download it so get it while it's still hot!

Download Demoreel (hotlink)

Animation Demoreel - June 2007

2007-06-11T14:33:00.000+01:00

Well I finally finished my Demoreel. It's interesting when one gets down to making a Demoreel because it gives you an excuse to dig up every single animation you've ever done- okay, maybe not ALL of them...- and you suddenly get a bird's-eye view of what you have created over the past few years.

I encountered more material than I even expected but already knew that 80% of it wasn't gonna even make it into the reel. Countless times have I bumped into essays on "Demoreel Etiquette" and I tried really hard to present only the pieces I felt most proud about. Up front you'll see 'El Guasa' which, despite being more than a year old, seems to stand the test of time as a well-done and entertaining piece and I just didn't want to start things off with a walkcycle or weight-lift or other things that seem to litter the length of countless reels.

Anyway, my hope's on that whoever gets round to my reel will appreciate a small short film at the beggining and that probably that might give him or her reason to keep on watching. Fingers and appendages crossed, I'm hoping to get my chance at animating full-time soon enough...

Downloadable Here

Lowmax animation: Tire Lift

2007-06-05T14:37:00.000+01:00

This is the second and last Lowmax animation I kind of rushed to slap on my demoreel last-minute. Having animated for almost three years straight I came to realise that I had never even done a simple weight exercise. Sure I'd done tonnes of walkcycles, jumps and whatnot, but I never put conveying weight into practice.

As with my previous Lowmax animation, I'm not completely happy with the results mainly because I rushed the whole thing and didn't work that long on it. Didn't end up too shabby for a first-time though so at least it wasn't all for naught. ^^

Downloadable Here

Aniversario 'Anniversary' (2005)

2007-05-29T18:31:00.000+01:00

This was officially my first short film done at CICE along with three other classmates. As such, before moving onto 3D animation our Coordinator (guy in charge of the Degree) felt that it'd be wise to crack a shot at Traditional Animation first.

I'd always been interested in traditional animation since I was kid, mostly due to my abusive watching of Disney movies and cartoons in general. Sure I'd come to terms more or less of how these animations were actually made, but I didn't know they were so labour-intensive. I had never really drawn much in my childhood, ever. Sure I'd sketch and doodle more than the average kid, and even enough to make a family member or two say proudly 'Oh you draw so nicely, you clever boy!' but not as much nor as good as the next man (or kid in this case) that was heading off to later become an excellent draftsman.

Anyhoo, long story short, I was overwhelmed by the shear amount of drawings I had to make all of a sudden, and if that didn't give me enough grief, there were immensely simple characters. Having said that, mine was the only group out of the whole class that decided to feature a character with arms and legs.
Why the overall doubt of going for more complex characters you ask? Well, you could call it a production decision, people knowing their own limitations and such, but it also could have because of the fact that in the whole three months that we were taught how to animate, we didn't even do as much as a single bouncing ball exercise. When you're the first lot of people to take on a new degree at a school, you're bound to experience all it's lackings first-hand. Oh well, it had to happen to someone...

All in all I don't really complain any more or hold any grudges. We were told about the '12 Principles of Animation' and things like that, I just wish we could've had gotten some supervised exercises. When this sort of things happen, I believe, it's when you've got to go and practice yourself if you're really THAT all interested...

Anyways, here's my first ever Short Film in all the history of the Universe, 'Aniversario':

Production time: 3 months
Render output size: PAL D1 (720*576)
Running time: 2'26" @ 25fps (animated all on 2's)

Waterman - Animadrid's ANIMAMAX 2006 Entry

2007-05-29T15:56:00.000+01:00

Animadrid is the biggest animation festival in Madrid as far as I know (with a name like that, it better be) and one of the most interesting events held during the festival is one known as Animamax.

Basically, a bunch of teams (consisting of either one or two people) get to show off their 'm4d aNiMeyShuN sKiLLz' by animating a series of premade characters in a previously arranged story premise. Last year's edition was about 'El Reto del Agua', a campaign ongoing in Madrid to promote saving water. Apparently the folks who organise the contest couldn't resist the whitty pun and presented us with Waterman, a re-hash of Enrique Gato's Tadeo Jones character, Lorenzo (the Sun), Waterman's arch-enemy and Isabelita, the last drop of water on the planet.

So with those basic story elements in place we all had to produce an animation in a race against time for 24 hours straight; no stopping, no sleeping and no turning back allowed. Since this is mainly an Animation race, no one was allowed to bring any animation that one could simply 'slap onto' the characters and be done with. BUT you could bring environments, textures, sound effects and music galore. None of this would guarantee your victory of course because none of us really knew what to expect until we actually saw the characters ourselves, which makes the whole deal a lot more fun.

My teammate was my good friend and roomie, Adrian Monroy. We made a fool of ourselves making an initial acting proposal but ended up scrapping the idea for reasons I can't recall right now. Here goes:

¬¬'

Moving on, we even made a pretty nice environment for our final story but accidentally we left it at home and had to make it as fast as we could, from scratch, at the competition, zoinks! Here's the final result:

We barely made it when the time ran out and hardly had time to add any sounds at all, not that it would've made much difference, mind you. Unfortunately, sadly, whateverly, we didn't come in 1st, 2nd or 3rd but it was definately a fun experience to work under that sort of extreme pressure and see what we could churn out in 86400 seconds.

Oh, and there was free food there ^^

Ahivalabola - My first CG animated short film (2005)

2007-05-28T15:14:00.000+01:00

This puppy was officially my first 3D Animation short film 'way back' (almost more than 2 years ago) and it was a huge insight regarding the production scale. When you tackle lighting, modelling, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, compositing, etc practically all at once (hooray for organisational skills), you tend to 'expire' quicker...

This short was actually a 4-man project but 2 of my group members actually left the Digital Film degree after barely starting this short and they left me with a... Let's just say his involvement with the project left much to be desired of...

Looking as far back at this as I do now, I realise the animation is lacking completely; I'd have trouble even listing two shots that pay attention to weight and good poses, not to mention timing. Fact is, it didn't turn out so bad in the end and it was a fun (and anxiety-ridden) experience ñ_ñ'

It's been on YouTube for almost a whole year now and 'dem hits don't lie. With more than 24,000 views, 50 comments and 100 favourites, the audience seems to have tagged it as a pretty enjoyable short so, again... YAY!

By the way, the aspect ratio's all wrong and I've wanted to correc that issue for almost a year, but in fear of losing all the precious 'hits' it's racked up, I think I'll be leaving it as is for the time being.

Production time: 3 months
Render output size: 720*405
Running time: 2'56" @ 25fps

LowMax animation WIP

2007-05-25T19:17:00.000+01:00

Trying out Peter Starostin's awesome LowMax rig. I'm also trying out Keith Lango's 'Organised Keyframing' approach to animation and I couldn't be happier. I really like the Traditional mentality when dealing with poses and timing and mr. Lango seems to have really made my day.

I hope to incorporate as many of his tips into my workflow as possible and hopefully throw some of my own shortcuts into the mix.
I say 'shortcuts' because Keith talks mainly about producing animation on a tight budget and I couldn't agree with him more; being good and fast is definately appreciated by any studio regardless of who they may be.

Downloadable here

I'm not completely satisfied with the results but I really want to keep exploring this workflow and not spend time polishing a first attempt so expect to see a new animation featuring LowMax soon enough!

El Guasa (2006)

2007-05-25T16:48:00.000+01:00

This project definately gave me and my classmates an intense three months... Quite some time's passed since then but basically we were given sketches of a character that each of us in our class had to model, texture, rig and make a 15-second short out of. It was fun to make a whole character myself as I'd never done that before ñ_ñ'

I wasn't happy at all with the direction the animation was taking and with 2 days to go I scrapped everything and started all over again.

On the appointed day, a panel of three judges (one of which was Miguel A. Jimenez, Rigging TD over at Ilion Animation Studios) chose my animation out of about 7 others to be transferred to 35mm film, YAY! ^^

Here's my animation

Production time: 3 months
35mm render output: 1828*988
Running time: 30"

Starless Night released!

2007-03-19T18:26:00.000Z

One whole year in the making (working intermittently, I'm not THAT slow, thankfully...) and it really paid off. It's a bold personal attempt at making a whole short film in traditional animation and it turned out better than I first expected.

Jerry Urazan composed the excellent soundtrack almost half-way through production and managed to really tap into the mood I was looking for to fit this short. His level of involvement with the project was definitely something I appreciate and, in the end, what I feel filmmaking and storytelling is all about; working with people that share the same vision and have similar sensibility about how things should all just fall into place.

Miaow!