Cintiq 12WX

Finally!!! I waited and waited and waaaaited but is finally on my hands. MUAHAHAHAHA!
A quick review for the geeks :)
It is amazing! There is nothing like it as far I'm concern. The 21' is better but way out of my financial capability (In Brazil we pay 5 times the price that you can pay in America).
The main differences between both could be:

On the 21' you can draw rotating your elbow. On the 12' you can just draw rotating your wrist. That can make it seems too small but it isn't. It is the same size as those tablet pcs you see nowadays but with the best wacom technology available in it. Additionally I think that, with the 21' you get tired faster, waving your arm all around all the time, and with he 12' you can ultimately do things with less movements. BUT, of course, you have way more resolution and magnification with the 21'.... is like you can work the details seeing the hole thing at the same time. But is a matter of getting use to it, and if you never used the bigger one, you will not fill the difference.

On the 21' you can see what you are drawing, what is on your working area and the menus at the same time. On the 12' you will probably hide everything else to see just your drawing, or use a second monitor to put everything else. Frankly I found the second monitor thing a good idea but I didn't got used to it. First because I do not always use the cintiq when I sit on the computer, so there is no need to keep it on all the time. And second because I'm already used to hide my menus with keyboard shortcuts. So, when I'm using it, I prefer to use the shortcuts to show the menus on the same monitor them to keep looking to both monitors. Because of this I end up using the 'clone monitors' feature and not the 'dual view' feature.

I think that hiding the menus with shortcuts is not really a problem, it's actually a good idea since you never know where you gonna work next and what equipment they have. Shortcuts are something that you really want to keep the same, no matter your pipeline, cause is kind of hard to relearn them all the time.

And that's it, I can't say anything really bad about the 12WX Cintiq. It is DaBomb :)
I believe that you can make your work at least 100% better + 100% faster = 200% easier... And the more you use it, better and faster you will be.

Heal Emru

Hey everybody,
a very nice friend of mine needs help! He has Leukemia and he is looking for a matching donor for bone marrow transplant. You can learn how to help him and a lot of people in the same situation going to healemru.com

His best chance for a match comes from a donor who shares his ethnic background. He is the son of two African Carribean parents. But even if you think you are not a match for Emru, do your registry, is ease, and you can save the life of many other patients.

ONE (The Film)

It's finally embedable... That's the film I did at National Film Board - HotHouse Program. My first author film!

Made with Flash and After Effects. Enjoy!

My Big Big Friend Wins!

My Big Big Friend wins Licensing Challeng at MIPCOM Jr 2007!

That is a Big Big news! And 2DLab studio will probably be the next Big Big Buzz in Brazil in the next couple of years!

I'm really proud of the work we developed their and now the banana tree is growing reeeaaally fast! We all knew that My Big Big Friend will be a hit from the beginning... Congratulations for all the guys that runs the studio (you hit the bull's eye this time) and for all the folks that plays in the backstage!

The short film that originate the series is now online. It was all made by Andrés Lieban, the head of the studio.

Some animation websites spotlighting the news:
AWN
Animation Magazine
KidScreen

Go Brazilian Animation! Go!

Working, working, working

Ok, now I'm pretty crazy! I'm working at Globo Visual Effects Department and living in Curicica, a neighbourhood near Barra da Tijuca in Rio. Veeeery far from my house. It's almost like another city! I'm just beginning but as soon as I have some work or studies that I can show here I will post it. Keep tuned!

For now I just have a freelance style for a commercial film. Enjoy :)

My First Solo 30 sec Author Film

My film (ONE) and the other 7 films from the directors of the Hot House - National Film Board program - are airing already!

The website is currently under construction but in the Animation Day (October 28th 2007) they will put a EMBED TAG available, so everyone can post the shorts in their blogs. Ehhhh....Free animation shorts soon!

And that's the project that I sent to NFB in the beginning of March 2007.
Note: The final peace is quite different form the project but that's was good. I think the final one have major improvements. Thanks to my nice friends from NFB that really supported my craziness.

Project: Basic Love
(Later renamed to ONE)

Artist Statement Outlining Idea:
The film begins with the Big Bang explosion. The unorganized mixture of cosmic matter blows energetically in abstract forms, strokes, colors and rhythm. In the bottom of the screen, a time counter shows how many “billions of years” remain to the end of the film (Starting with 13 billions). In a few seconds the mess begins to organize itself forming lots of stars and galaxies. Some planets and asteroids cross quickly before our eyes. Some stars get bigger and explode in millions of pieces. A big red planet approaches and we get close to its super hot surface that gradually becomes cooler and cooler until the atmosphere changes its color and water covers everything. We dive into the deeper and darker bottom of that ocean to finally find two microscopic basic elements that float lifelessly (The time counter decelerates and stops at 3 000 000 001 years).The elements touch themselves becoming one simple organism that begins to move. Suddenly, the counter jumps to 301 000 and the organism mutates into a man. He looks around and swims out of the screen.

Aesthetic Approach:
The film will have a “koyaanisqatsi'” cinematographic approach with a widescreen time-lapse camera capturing the cosmic dance in front of it. Time will accelerate (giving just enough information to let us feel what happens) and slow down (followed by the time counter speed) at some key moments to make everything clear and interesting to the viewer.
The visual style will change from abstract expressionism to mathematical minimalism as a metaphor for the natural order by what everything in the universe is bounded to, subliminally insinuating that life can only be possible in an organized environment. This also enables us to see the microscopic birth of life in a schematic and easier way.
The music style will be inspired on Phillip Glass’ minimalist vocal orchestra. The theme will change from a poetic and contemplative slow rhythm (at the Big Bang part) to a dramatic, fast-paced tempo, repetitive melody (at the birth of life) surprisingly emphasizing the slowest and smallest part of the movie. At the conclusion it abruptly closes with a strong and appealing silence (when men appear).

Story Intention:
The story suggests that the very birth of life was a 'chance encounter' by all means. It also illustrates how this microscopic phenomenon was fragile in the context of the macrocosmic transformations that was happening since the beginning of time. Consequently this statement brings an inevitable comparison between both moments suggesting that the viewers think about the place of mankind in the universe and about the meaning of their own life. It also creates some paradoxical questions in the subtext: Do the chances of life in the infinity grow or decrease? Is it improbable or inevitable?

Technical Notes:
I will try do develop the philosophy of use Flash as a painting canvas, emulating brush strokes of painters (like Pollock) or bringing strong visual styles and colors to the movie screen.
The slow motion parts of the film will be done with a mixture of full and digital cut out animation to bring a fluid and poetic quality to the movement.
The use of After Effects will bring some colors and texture fine-tunes, and will enable some fast lighting effects that are not Flash friendly.
The experience of this film will also be a great lab for my homemade Flash programmed tools and to test some new experimental techniques that I've been developing for this kind of “one man band” streamlined production.

Motivation behind this idea:
Talk about the secrets of the universe is one of majors themes that I want to work on as an artist.
I also want to do a film that step away from conventional rules of entertainment and fits between my art style and NFB production portfolio.

Pixar Workshop

Last week we finished the Pixar Workshop at Anima Mundi Festival. Mark Walsh (animation supervisor) talked about acting and character construction. Below you can see the hole gang! Who said that there are no animators in Brazil!?

I'm the only guy with a yellow T-shirt, up in the middle.

I heard that Mark will begin to teach at Animation Mentor soon. It seems like there is a lot of Brazilians students in their last class. Good luck guys! I'm starting my Maya learning curve myself...Lets see how this will end up!