silly little thing

Just a silly little model that I just finished for an animation exercise with Nani, hopefully I will post it here pretty soon! It isn't that special but, I'm really pleased with it. As people used to say "simple things please simple minds" ;oP

presenting MiauMau

Hello everyone!
Here's a few drawings from my latest pet project... It is a bit of a "self-portrait", in a certain way it is more of a alter-ego, pretty much like Clark Kent and Superman. Basically if I put a pair of glasses on and change my hairdo, I should look something like these pictures!!
Scary!
Ok, enough silliness. These drawings represent the 6 basic facial expressions: Happiness, Hanger, Disgust, Surprise, Sadness and Fear, they also include the basic phonemes* that are used to do lip sync in 3d.
Hopefully, I will be able to show you the full 3d model pretty soon. Right now, Miaumau is still under construction and with the help of my bear and MacGio (a friend of ours, check out his website), this little kitty will finally see the light of day.

*Here's a little something something for you guys out there who either want to learn a bit more about 3d character animation...
If you have looked through several book about 3d animation you will find that they tend to use more phonetic blendshapes than the ones that I mention in this post. I tend find those unnecessary, they just seem to confuse me even more, and to be honest (in my point of view) don't really help when I'm trying to do lip sync, especially if I have to do it quickly.
It is better to keep it simple!
As Robert Browning used to say, "Less is more"

Lost projects

I was rummaging through my computer and found these drawings that I did awhile ago. They are concept drawing for a project that me and my bearfriend (check out his blog!!!) were concocting together.
It was called "Orson & Steve" and it was about an old obese chess playing Persian cat fighting against his owner brand new birthday present, an annoying and hyperactive chihuahua for Polly's affection. One of the interesting ideas that we had on this project was that each one of us was going to only animate one of the pets (I was meant to animate Orson and Ricardo would animate Steve) allowing our different animation styles to shine in that way.
If you are curious about how we got to these exact names for our short stars, well... We were looking for inspiration everywhere, and we stumble across the notion that Orson Wells towards the end of his life started to look like a fat Persian cat (don't mean to offend, I love the guy, he was a great master) so, we started to look for a chihuahua like real life actor and Lo and behold we got to Steve Buscemi (again I don't mean to offend, he's one of my favorite actors, but he does look like a chihuahua!!)

So, am I right or am I right?
Just click on the image above of Polly and the gang, to take you to a set of pictures.
Enjoy!!

the kitty that started it all!

(No this is not a picture of the cat that started it all, let's just say that this is the cat that made it "worse"!)

You might have gathered by now that there's a bit of a running theme through out this blog, if not well I'll explain to you... I love cats! There I said it, it is out in the open, but please don't stop reading this blog, I'm not one of those scary people that obsesses with cats, dresses them in costumes (the cat from the previous post ISN'T mine! I would never do that to a real cat) and treats them like (or sometimes better) a their own children. This post is a kind of explanation to some of the next posts.
I love cats because I find them beautiful creatures and I respect them, especially because when someone has a cat, that person doesn't really own it but, the animal chooses to stay in the house. Think of a cat as a house mate and your life will become much easier! Sure, it is a house mate that doesn't pay the bill and you have to feed but, a house mate non the less.

Ok, so we have established why I love cats so now I will explain when it started. Who is the original Miaumau?
When I was little, my stepfather had a lovely Siamese cat named "Abdul da Purificacao Smith" (according to him, the cat was a polyglot on account that he could meow in three different language, Arab, Portuguese and English) . In fact this cat was kind of an ice breaker in my relationship with him (I was three, and wanted my parents together, go figure).
This was a truly wonderful cat, intelligent and lovable, in that particularly non clingy cat like way. Used to "protect" me every weekend morning from the scary painting that my stepfather had in the living room (a self portrait of his grandfather, his eyes followed me everywhere!! Freaky stuff!) as I watched tv.
He was very particular about his food, he only ate dried stuff from one particular shop and boiled fish with no bones and I loved the way how he knew exactly the time when my stepfather was arriving and sat at the door waiting to greet him.
Abdul was a lovely cat and my first proper contact with one of these wonderful creatures, it was a pleasure knowing him and he made me want to draw cats, so in a twisted sort of way he may be one of the reasons why I got interested in drawing! Go figure...

By the way, the cat in the picture is called Pantufa, she's going to be 13 in March. She's lovely but in a very different way from Abdul, to be honest I don't compare them...

carnaval pole

So you ask yourself... "what the hell is carnaval?!?!"
Well, if you come from a catholic country you should be well aware of it, if not I will take a couple of minutes to explain it.
It is like Halloween but, with a religious connotation, it used to mark the beginning of the fasting before easter and just like easter its celebration date moves around every year... It is sort of moment of insanity before all of the Lent restrictions!
Last year I started to do a little statistic about what costumes were more popular (it was a ferocious fight between noddy and spiderman), but this year I decide it to turn it up a notch and make it more official!!

So, here are the results and conclusions of my investigation accompanied by pictures of the costumes (just click on the name to see the photos).
Out of 128 kids in costume that I saw:

12 were dressed as clowns (for some reason parents still dress their offspring as clowns even though it scares the crap out of most kids)
9 as fairies, princesses and witches (oh yes, the girly choice, yawn)
7 represented the bug world by dressing as ladybugs (all toddlers, must be because they cannot fight back)
5 as spidermen (one of last year's big winners, one this year's sore losers) and maiden
4 as cannibals (what's with this old and tired costume? Why does it keep on coming back like a haunted boomerang?) and zorros
3 as lions, Chinese (again with the crummy racist stereotypes), nazarenas (Portuguese tradional costume from Nazaré, a kind of fishmonger's wife), punks (sweet irony, even little kids dress as punks now), dogs, devils (as always Satan is well represented) and little red riding hoods.
2 as minhotas (another Portuguese traditional costume, this time from the north of the country), Pippi Longstockings, cowboys, American Indians (ok... so it carries on, I'm not even going to comment this one), pirates, mariachis (I'm not blaming the parents for these ones... they were grown up), Robin Hoods and bears.
1 as bee, Arab (please... who dressed a child as an Arab and finds it funny?), samba dancer (just ask a Brazilian person), Batman (I was very surprised, usually there are more of them around, maybe they were hiding in the bat-cave), Snow White, Sea Captain (?!?!), knight, mad scientist (I actually felt bad for this kid... his mum's heart wasn't really in it), rabbit, French maid (now this was interesting to look for on the internet, guess why?), Egyptian queen, skeleton, nun (why was a grown woman dress as a nun in a shopping center?! In a mini skirt?! another interesting one to look for a picture on the internet), cat, mickey and minnie mouse (unfortunately not together, sparking those age old rumors that mickey is actually gay), musketeer, noddy (bastard!! there was still one of them!!), belly dancer (why oh why does a mother dress her daughter like this?), duck, prince, roman soldier (or Hercules, we couldn't decide), flamenco dancer and finally a bullfighter (my heart bleeds for this particular kid).

What was my conclusion, apart from the fact that I might suffer from a mild case of dementia?
There weren't as many kids dressed up on the street as there used to be when I was little, maybe its because it was cold, or parents couldn't afford costumes this year, or I was just going in the wrong direction!! Or maybe there just aren't as many kids on the streets strutting their stuff in smelly old rented costumes, as they are all staying inside having theire brains collectively numbified by the tv and games consoles.

Carnaval just isn't what it used to be!

P.S: I want to thank my lovely bear for helping me on this quest! you're the best, babe!!