touet

Working on VisDev

2012-01-24T19:16:00.001+01:00

I'm working non stop on a project's visual development and I had to stop today and post something due to my new policy about keeping my blog active. It has past almost two weeks since the last one and although I don't have anything exciting to show I thought it would be good to post some clips and write about my progress so far.

As I said on an other post I've started working on a redux of my portfolio. I'm on the VisDev state and I have to say that has been quite daunting to get a sense of control over the nDynimacs properties of Maya 2012. I want to add some FX and nDynamics it's a great tool for that.

However, It has take me more than I thought to figure out how it works and what to do to make it behave in a sort of predictable way. It a very powerful tool and it has lots of potential but it crashes quite easily.

I don't know if you'll make a lot of sense of these clips but those are some of the experiments I've been doing for the last two weeks.

I think I'm finally getting somewhere I like and it's becoming time to board everything and move to production.

Some days rock, others feel way beyond redemption and in between I keep rowing to Itaca.

Pascal Campion on sharing your art

2012-01-13T15:00:00.000+01:00

I recently stumble upon this video about Pascal Campion through the Character Design blog. He's a great artist who is truly passionate and dedicated to his art. He posts from Monday through Friday an sketch of the day on his blog. Although after sometime I personally feel a sense of repetitiveness to his posts I deeply admire his commitment and found the thoughts he shares on this video truly inspiring.

Inspirational Artists: Pascal Campion from Onyx Cinema, Inc. on Vimeo.

Modeling with Maya

2012-01-06T17:47:00.000+01:00

I've started working on my first project of this year. It's a redux of a clip I did last year, this time on 3D (no glasses needed). :)

I want to try my new skills on confortable ground first. So I thought of taking an old projects in wich I had lots of fun and see if can I give it a new swing. Nothing too ambitious.

I'm posting the image planes I'm using to model with some expressions to get on the mood and to remind myself it's a character with personality and not a doll, plus a screencap of my process so far.

Have a good one!

New year, new look!

2011-12-30T18:34:00.000+01:00

I finally finished designing my new logo!

As you can see I have updated the look of the blog already and, although is not yet online, I have also updated my web's design.

The general idea for the new design came to me during last summer and I had left it aside until last weeks when I couldn't study anymore and needed to do something more creative than just follow tutorials and manuals.

I wanted to give a burst to the whole aspect and create something more towards lineal and mathematical design than freehand traditional look. However, I have left some sense of hand made with the paper cutout look. I think it produces a good vibe more close to where my path as an artist is leading me.

It may not be as clear or strong as something more simple and direct but I like it that way. I feel it right. That's the most important feeling a design can give me: it feels right.

I also finished my studies and I'm ready to start building my new portfolio. I'm very excited about that. I have a feeling that 2012 is going to be a great year for me in many aspects so I'm eager for it to begin.

Here some explorations I did before deciding for the one you see.

Ah! and... Happy New Years to everyone!

Review: The Art and Science of Digital Compositing

2011-12-23T15:00:00.000+01:00

If I had to name one book as a cornerstone for my compositing studies that would be without any doubt The Art and Science of Digital Compositing.

With almost seven hundred pages of illustrated knowledge and some of the most well-known feature studio's projects discuss in detail, this book is the best start and go-to tool to learn and understand what good compositing is about.

Written by Ron Brinkmann, one of the founding employees of Sony Pictures Imageworks, visual effects/animator supervisor on a variety of big-budget projects, product designer for Shake and advisor to The Foundry on their compositing software Nuke, this book walks you throug the A to Z of digital compositing.

For someone like me, who didn't have any previous knowledge of digital compositing, was in some parts quite complex but not to the point of discouraging.

It's quite dense and has many examples, printed as well as on an accompanying DVD, giving a complete overview of the technical and artistic aspects of digital compositing.

I'm sure there are many books out there about this topic, but I highly recommend buying this book for anyone wanting to get serious about digital compositing.

Here's the first chapter of this book, in case you're interested:

First chapter PDF

Happy holidays!

A new Logo

2011-12-16T15:00:00.000+01:00

I'm designing a new logo and image for my website and blog.

To design a logo is one of the most difficult tasks I think exist on graphic design. It's hard to find a symbol that will reflect your style and professional imprint and at the same time will inspire prospect clients to hire you.

I'm a restless person. I profoundly admire artists who are capable of dedicating their careers to one specific aspect of their field and spend their life mastering it. Perhaps, it's because I'm not able to do it myself that I admire them.

In my career I always feel under construction.I like that feeling. I'm always evolving. I always get bored of things I already know and start pursuing new fonts of inspiration and plotting out new endeavors.

That makes harder to find a logo that sums up that spirit while still being clear, simple and direct. The way a logo needs to be.

I believe I've found it. It still needs some refinement, but I'm quite happy with it.

A soon as I'm done I'll update the design of this blog.

Autodidacticism

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000+01:00

The last post is still lingering in my mind...

I share the idea that artists need to stick to their paths even if that path leads you into the unknown or unexpected things happen along the way. However, after dedicating almost ten years to school, I have a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts and a Diploma in Commercial Animation and still my path is not that clear to me.

Perhaps, it's because I'm very keen to explore the unknown and to get myself involved in new endeavors. I thinks that's also valid. That passion for learning and the soul of a traveler has taken me to live in several cities and countries, to meet people and share experiences and finally to take me back home to rest and start over again.

That's maybe my path: to get new knowledge and excitement from the projects that come into my mind as I learn new tools. In the last months I have studied several books and tutorials that have helped me a lot in understanding and learning a bunch of 3D tools and compositing techniques, something in what I'm a beginner.

I have the belief that every single artist needs to be an autodidact in some degree. Patience, perseverance, problem solving and a positive attitude towards our own 'mistakes' are all qualities that are needed to succed.

I spent my time trying to live to that statement. :)

In future post I'll share some thoughts about the books I've studied lately.

Have a good one!

Helsinki Bus Station Theory

2011-12-02T14:39:00.001+01:00

It's been a very long time since my last post and many things have happened since then.

Basically, I left Vancouver BC and came back to Spain in search of inspiration, new challenges and why not a warmer and sunnier weather. :)

The last months I've been learning 3D and compositing software on my purse of a career as a freelancer animator. I'm really happy with all I have learned so far and very excited with the projects yet to come.

I've been really focused on learning new tools and unfortunately that has take the time to practice the old ones and that's the reason for the lack of posts. However, today I friend of mine post an article on Facebook that I felt the need of sharing.

It is an article by Arno Rafael Minkkinen about finding your own vision in Photography, but I feel it can easily apply for any other art form. It has definitely inspired me to write my first post in almost 9 months. :)

I hope it also resonates in you...

http://www.fotocommunity.com/info/Helsinki_Bus_Station_Theory

Figures: They speak for Themselves

2011-03-10T20:03:00.000+01:00

Great article about character design and composition by Dresden Codak at Indistinguishable from Magic

Cooking colours

2011-02-28T23:20:00.001+01:00

Lately, I've been working on some illustration concepts for recipes' cards. I'm a big cooking aficionado myself so it has been a pretty fun gig.

Those are the four I like the most so far. I also played with the typography to try to mach the illustration's mood.

I'm quite happy with it, they are just concepts so I'm still playing with compositions and designs.

Cheers!

Thank you Parka!!

2011-02-27T08:14:00.000+01:00

It's snowing in Vancouver and decided to stay home and watch Public Enemies by Michael Mann because I saw some sketches by the very talented artist Zar Galstian about Marion Cotillard's hair in that movie.

As I usually do, I ran into Wikipedia to learn more about the story I just watched when I found out by checking my blog visitors that Parka from Parka Blogs had picked my work for their Art blogs of Note.

Wow! I'm so happy and so honored! Thank you so much Parka!! I feel really humble to see my work on the same list of such talented artists.

I've always admired your passion and wish I could read as many art books as you do. Keep reviewing them for us, please!!

Thank you again!!

Marc Anthony and the stork

2011-02-21T18:00:00.000+01:00

The other day I was visiting some of the blogs where I go to get a fix on good juicy art when I run into another post about Chuck Jones. This time at Chuck Redux.

It's a short clip with insights on the creative process behind animating Marc Anthony. It's delightful to know a little more about his approach to the craft and the energy that everyone needs to nurture in the pursue of this beautiful art of animating pictures.

Enjoy it!

Never Stop Milk

2011-02-17T18:00:00.000+01:00

A couple months ago I had the chance to do some freelancing for a Vancouver BC based company. It was a short gig but I had a blast.

I had to clean up and color the animation at the end of three commercials. As I said before it's pretty short and it's at the end, but a really fun gig nonetheless.

Hope you like it!

You can visit their campaign website here

Animation Is A Gift Word

2011-02-14T22:18:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog, there was an article written by Chuck Jones on the summer of 1977. As I was reading it, it was quite hard to believe that an article about the animation industry of more than 30 years old was still so current. I've chosen a couple paragraphs that I really liked:

A young man was once sent fresh from Columbia University with a mutual friend’s introduction to Robert Frost. Frost scanned the young man’s writings, then looking quizzically up through his craggy white brows he asked, “What do you do, son?” The young man drew himself up proudly; he was, after all, one with the great Frost. “I am a poet,” he said. Frost gently answered, “The term ‘poet’ is a gift word, son; you cannot give it to yourself.”

Some of the best work being done in animation, both in the United States and throughout the world, is in the field of animated commercials. Some are brilliant, nearly all are exquisitely timed and cut. This field may be the best training ground available for animators, directors, writers and designers. The disciplines are implicit in the United States: the film is one minute or less, it must tell a story, display a product, make a sales point, have a beginning, middle and an end, be unique yet comprehensible and bear constant repetition.

Animation is a chorus of drawings working in tandem, each contributing a part to the whole of a time/space idea. If a single drawing, as a drawing, dominates the action, it is probably bad animation, even though it may be good drawing.

So many of the greatest animators were and are men who became masters of their craft without once having to resort to cleaning up a single drawing. They simply didn’t think that way. Norm Ferguson, the great "Fergie" of Pluto fame who worked in a kind of fluid shorthand, catching the elements of motion in dazzling simplicity, was probably the outstanding example of the animator in his purest form. But Ham Hamilton, Ben Clopton, Ken Harris and many, many others could not draw and found no need to draw, in the conventional sense, which in no way diminishes their artistry; it simply identifies the form.

Full article here.

Creamers

2011-02-10T19:06:00.000+01:00

Yellow!

The great animator director and talented artist Hilary Moses has posted on her blog some of the work we did together at Fantastic Cat Productions. I colored this turnarounds under her supervision. There was a lot of trial and error but I think we ended up with some pretty cool stuff.
More insight and fun stuff about this project can be found on her blog Creamers.

Hope you like it!

Web site and Demo Reel Updated!

2011-01-30T22:46:00.000+01:00

Hi fellas!

Long time no see,eh?. Finally, I've finished my new demo reel and updated my web site!!

I've been working pretty hard improving my skills and having a lot of fun in the process with the usual frustration here and there. :)

I hope you like my site and enjoy the animations as much as I did doing them.

If you see something I could improve, don't be shy: Feel free to say so!

Happy sunny days to everyone!

Here my website: www.touet.com

Out of sight

2010-10-25T14:32:00.001+02:00

A truly beautiful and touching short film. It's so brilliant and cleaver; with such a touching story that it makes you want to live in her world of constant discovery.

Horse W.I.P

2010-09-03T19:44:00.001+02:00

I've been cleaning up and improving an old animation I made quite a time ago. It's a horse being chased by a tiger/puma/cougar/big cat. I haven't decided yet with one of them is going to be. :)

So far, I more or less finished the horse.

Have a good one and thanks for watching it.

Little girl

2010-07-28T09:01:00.000+02:00

Cheers!

MTV Bumper

2010-06-15T23:32:00.000+02:00

I did this bumper at school using TVPaint, Photoshop, Illustrator and AE. I had a lot of fun doing it and it ended up being the opening credits of my Demo Reel after some modifications.

Cleaning up

2010-06-05T02:13:00.001+02:00

Now, that school is over and I'm graduated, I've given myself a new computer as a graduation gift. :)
So, while I'm working on improving some old stuff and setting up my web site, I thought to put some work from the last months that has pop up moving files around.

Life Drawing Sketch

2010-02-03T04:17:00.000+01:00

I've done this drawing today. It's, roughly, a 17 by 17 inches conte drawing of a baby trying to take off his shoes.

Drawing babies is hard to me, because they can easily change from something kind of cute to something really ugly and more close to a monster than anything else.

I stopped adding more texture and playing with the light because I felt I was losing it. I may come back later and add more work to it. But for now, I leave it like that.

I hope it didn't scare you too much, :).

Oh! And he's staring nowhere, so I hope I can fix that too.

Saul Bass

2010-02-03T03:51:00.000+01:00

I've come into a Saul Bass post today at Cooked Art. It's a 2 min. clip of Saul Bass talking about money and business in art. Truly worth watching

I know many of you won't know about who Saul Bass was and what he did for the story of film making and design. So I'd like to introduce him to you.

Basically, he was one of the greatest graphic designer in the American history. He is well known for his opening movie titles works, although he was also a film maker and worked on the printed media too.

Films like Psycho, Spartacus, Vertigo, Ocean's Eleven (the original one) and much more have the openings titles orquestred by Saul Mass.

A couple years ago, some artists did, what seems to me, a nice tribute to him in the opening title credits of Catch me if you can.

I hope this little post serves as an introduction of one of the most inspiring graphic designers of the las 50 years.

Stanley Park

2010-02-01T21:59:00.000+01:00

Value sketch of a landscape in Stanley Park.

I may end up painting it digitally.

Three little birds

2010-01-29T21:23:00.000+01:00

My first attempt as a character designer. I'm pretty happy with them. I worked from shape to form, clean-up, and then did some color key schemes.

Now, that they're done, I see I should have kept in mind the attitude of the character when I was working in the concept, because they came out a little too flat.

Working on that in my new one. :)

Digital Painting

2010-01-21T03:52:00.000+01:00

I've recently begun to paint digitally.

I remember back in school how I struggled with painting. I was a total disaster as a painter. In fact, I only failed two courses during that time, one of them was Painting obviously.

I had to study during that summer and do the exam again before the fall semester started in September.

My teacher suggested I attend a little academy located in a tiny basement in the oldest part of Valencia. He said he had seen great improvement in the students who had attended its painting lessons, so I decided to give it a try.

It was the most humid place to spend summer. It had just one little window facing an interior patio and fluorescent lamps as lighting.

I don't know if you have painted with oils before, but the smell of oils and trementina impregnates everything around you, so the bigger and wider the workspace the better.

Obviously, that place had the worst conditions for painting. However, I was the only student that summer and in the two weeks I spent there I learnt more than in a whole year at school.

The teacher I had, who was also the owner, taught me a very basic and useful approach to painting, that now that I'm painting again, I keep hearing around me everywhere I go for advice and research.

Basically, he taught me the importance of a value/tone sketch for a proper lighting, different tones for different lights. From the brightest light to the darkest shadow, there's a whole scale of tone. Try to reduce it to 10 different tones and from the contrast between them, you'll be able to shape the perception of depth.

Painting is sculpting with light. Color has a in important rule but also is a trap. Value sketches are crucial for me. I know that as long as I have the right value sketch, I won't get lost with the color.

This was my first attempt to paint again. I'm really happy with it, although I would've liked to add more contrast and manage the color better.

Contrast

2010-01-17T22:07:00.000+01:00

Interesting post about how contrast can improve your drawings via Temple of the seven camels.

"The purpose of any story sketch is to tell the story clearly, and an individual sketch doesn't need to be a great piece of art - it only needs to work with all the other sketches to tell the story in the best way possible. But I like how the addition of a little contrast helps make this a great picture, even when seen all by itself."

Link here

Inspiring Stopmotion short

2010-01-17T03:02:00.000+01:00

An inspiring promotional short for the 4th Estate Publishers via Lines and Colors.

I'd like to work some day doing animated commercials. I've heard is a really stressful and fast path oriented business, but you have humongous budgets for a very short projects. Sounds good for me...hehe.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Road to El Dorado

2010-01-13T07:20:00.000+01:00

This is a rough animatic of a scene I'm working on. I chose to do the dialogue in Spanish this time, because I find myself liking much more the Spanish voice acting of this particular movie than the English one.

Moreover, they're Tulio and Miguel from Road to El Dorado. If you didn't know it they are from Spain, so it was too good to let pass the chance of doing something on my own language.

I'm really excited with this little scene. Maybe, it's because I loved the movie. Maybe, because both characters are a classic example of one of the most famous characters in the Spanish literature: "El lazarillo de Tormes". By the way, novella that was written approximately during the time the movie portraits. What a nice coincidence.

Or maybe, just because I have the opportunity to animate two friends eating together and making plans for the future.

There's something about the mediterranean cultures that I've always loved: everything is decided over the course of a lunch or a dinner.

Therefore, I took the original dialogue and with that idea in mind I set up my scene. I changed also the length of the original clip because I needed more room for my acting choices.

It's going to be a little longer than what it was expected, but with this one, those little extra seconds are going to be a pleasure to animate.

Words of Wisdom

2010-01-04T23:10:00.000+01:00

"[...]At the start of this story, a young animator is working at a new studio on a six-week animated pilot production. At the conclusion of the pilot, the studio chief tells the animator he'd like him to come back in four months to start on a two-year project. Good news indeed, but this animator took the "we want you to come back in four months," to be a firm contracted obligation. In his eyes, it was an official start date.[...]"

See how everything ends here

The Babysitter mesmerizes children. Grandfather changes their lives.

2010-01-02T00:36:00.000+01:00

An interesting essay by Matt Zoller Seitz about the Pixar's And Miyazaki's distinct approach to storytelling.

Read it here

Under Renovation

2009-12-30T10:23:00.000+01:00