ILLUSTRATION

SKETCH BOOK IDEAS ( memories of China )

Here follows some sketches I made while working in China for a period of one
year and a half. They document my personal impressions of a booming growth
of massive proportions in concrete and scale, as well as a social dynamics that
has a very unique way to perceive balance between order and chaos.
The dominant use of black and white has as a meaningful connection with contrasts,
and contradictions a western like me so commonly finds in the Chinese culture.
A strong collective desire to erase the past and to move forward in straight
collision with immutable values that deny the free expression of will.
These sketches are part of a wider set of experiments I want to conduct in canvas.
I hope to post some results in a near future.

USINA

Usina is a concept art project inspired by references like Tetsuo, the cinetic sculptures 

of Tinguely, the landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich, and the monochromatic expres -

sionism of the early age of the cinema.This story was conceived to be a concept art project. 

CHATXUMELA ( character design project )

The main objective of this project was to consolidate my experience as an illustrator and
concept artist focusing on generalist skills like 3D modeling, texturing, rigg, as well as
camera posing. I always felt interested in creating some kind of graphic novel most like a
comic book or push myself further in the direction of concept art for games, but I never felt
 comfortable to draw constrained by repetition or to apply to a game company confined to
diabolic requirements or even to be a compulsive player which I am not.
While I am still struggling with doubts about the direction my work should follow, I try to
have my creative switch on, and enjoy the process of creating visual narratives.
The inspiration for this project came about in my Animation Master at Bournemouth University
The story in simplistic terms goes around two blind gypsies separated at birth that find
each other under mysterious circumstances in a morgue in the same day they are supposed to
be dead or about to die.

The impulse to create the characters and portray this theme, came from my sketch book drawings
and the passion I have to draw quirky characters much like freaks for their ludicrous nature.

From a small amount of drawings made to determine a potential male character, I choose a sample
 that I felt closer to some sort of frog mixed with a regular bad ass in a sport suit. I messed around
a bit with his features a bit with emphasis on the overall shape and not so much on detail. I was
more keen to move on fast to the 3D modeling stage. 

Mikelina was an easier character to find, since I already had a drawing that inspired me in my sketch -
book. This was in fact the drawing that triggered the whole concept for this project. It  resembled me
a character like those easily found in the Burning Man Festival. A mixture between a baby and old a
woman. A freak influenced by old mithologies, classic and animation movies.

I conducted some more studies in order to expand my thoughts. At this point I was sure I wanted
to keep some basic features like a massive hair with a hat on top,  diapers, and funny slippers.
I also pictured out  a pathetic personality for comical purposes.

I sketched a basic model sheet to follow the same 3D modelling scheme I used for Lucio character.

 

I did not worry too much about her hair...My purpose was to have a final result post -produced
in photoshop.

I gave her some more tweaks in Zbrush.

After having both models finalized with basic sculpt , both rigs working well and posed for the final
shots, the next step was to achieve a visual result. I textured all the objects in a very simple way giving
a first layer of colour in Zbrush and a second in Photoshop. I  lighted  the scenes with spot ligths and
separate the render in 3 basic passes;  Occlusion, Shadow pass, and Beauty pass. The final composite
was made on Photoshop playing with layers and colour correction tools.

For the background objects in the different illustrations I used an erractic process. For the tunnel
scene with both characters running away from Nosferatu, I did not make many studies but relied
only on a few images found in the web. For the other two images in the desert I made some draw-
ings and collages to explore a more interesting architectural shape that could contrast with the cha-
racter curves.

This one was the collage study made on photoshop that I picked as reference to model the
backgroung ruins for the desert shots.

Besides the main assignment of this project, my involment in a story with wider contours made me
draw some more characters.

I was keen to draw post apocaliptic gypsis,mercenaires, and all sorts of weird creatures to populate
Lucio and Mikelina's ambiguous world.The one below is a hermafrodite, a mixture between a man
and a woman, a ciborg that carries her own leg bone as a weapon.

My story talked about the gipsy exodus mixed with some sort of post apocaliptic and allucinated 

world of mirages, something to do with the passage of a comet around the Earth that changed 

the shape and form of nature and human perception of reality. The character below called Matias, 

is a freak of nature caught by the effect of the strange phenoma called Chat Xumela. 

He is half tree half man.

This one as the profile of a killer, a faceless cybor gipsy. 

This one is a xerife:)

The xerife´s deputy is a kid inside!

ONE NIGHT ON HEARTH
Series of illustration works I showed as part of a collective exhibition with the same title, comissioned by the artist Pedro Zamith, at Pedro Serrenho Art Gallery in Lisbon.

PORTUGUESE TRADITIONAL TALES

" DON’T CUT MY HAIR, MY FATHER COMBED ME!"

Once upon a time there was a man and his wife, and they also had a daughter
 

 


One day the man and his wife went to mass and the mother told her daughter:
 -“  Stay home and watch the fig-tree. Don’t  let the birds eat the figs!”

The daughter went to the garden and watched the figs, but she let the birds eat one and a half figs.

When the mother came, the poor girl was crying. She asked:
- “ How many figs did the birds eat?”
- “ One and a half!”
- “ Stupid girl! You will pay for that!”

The mother opened a hole in the earth and told her daughter to step into the hole, because she
wanted to plant a potato-field of the same size.

 The girl stepped into the hole and the mother covered the hole with earth.

The father came and asked:
- “ Where is Maria?”
- “ She went to school!”  The mother answered.
On the following day, the father asked:
- “ Where is Maria?”
- “ She went shopping.”

One day the father told one of his servants to go to the garden and cut some grass for the horses.
The servant went and began to cut the grass, but while he was doing it, he heard a voice coming
from the earth:
- “ Don’t cut my hair
     My father combed me;
     My mother called me
     And threw me into this hole,
     Just because of a little bird!”

 

The servant ran into the house and told his master what he had heard. His master asked him 

to dig there, where he had heard the voice. His daughter appeared. The father asked her, who 

had put her in there. She told him the truth and he had the mother tied to a horse’s tail , and 

the father  himself rode the horse through hills and valleys .

And that’s how the tale ends!

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DO GOOD FOR YOUR OWN SAKE!

Once upon a time there was a very rich man who refused to go to table, if a poor man didn’t join him.

One day no poor man appeared and when the rich man was about to lose hope, the lame devil
of the hell knocked at the door and asked for alms. The rich man , ignoring who he was, told him:
-“ Poor you! Come in! You ‘ve arrived just in time!”

 
























A servant came as usual and washed the poor man’s feet, but this time, to his great surprise, he saw

the man had round feet and warned his master:
-“ Master, take care! You shouldn’t sit this poor man at your table, because he has no feet,but hoofs!”
-“ Don’t worry! Do good for your own sake!”

The poor man came, ate with great appetite and when he finished, he said:
-“ It was very kind of you. If you ever need me, cry out the lame devil of the hell!”

It was a time of wars and one day the rich man was arrested and put into jail.  There he stayed for long
years and when he feared that he would spend the rest of his days in jail, the strange lame devil of the
hell came to his mind.

He cried out his name and the devil appeared at once:
-“ Why haven’t you called me before? Get up on my back and keep saying: go on! I will take you out
of this jail!”
And so it happened!

 A story never loses in the telling!

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The cock

Once upon a time a little cock was scratching on a field and found a purse full of money. He started
thinking , to whom he would give that money, in order to receive a good reward, and decided that
he would take it to the king. He made his way to the palace with the purse around his neck.

He met a fox and the fox asked him:

-“ Where are you going, little cock?”

-“ I’m going to the palace to give this purse full of money to the king.” The cock said.

-“ I’d like to go with you.”

-“ No problem! Get into my body! ” And so did the fox.

Farther on his way the cock found a heap of stones, which asked him:

-“ Where are you going, little cock?”

-“ I’m going to take this purse full of money to the king”

-“ Can we join you?”

-“ Alright! Get into my bum !” 

Then he found a stream (and farther on a swarm of bees and they asked him to take them with him
and the cock answered the same way.

When he got to the palace , he asked permission to see the king. He offered the king his purse and as
reward the king had him put into the poultry-yard. The cock got furious, because he didn’t expect such
a disregard! And decided to take revenge upon the king . 

He let the fox get out of his body. The fox ate all the chickens on the poultry-yard. 

The cock went to the very top of the poultry-yard and began singing:

-“ Qui-quiri-qui, come and see!”

The servants came and saw no chickens.

Then the king told his servants to put the cock into a pot.

But when the cock was inside the pot, he let the stones come out and they broke the pot. And he
started singing again:

-“ Qui-quiri-qui, come and see!”

When the king knew about that, he told his servants to put the cock into a very hot oven. But when
the little cock was in the oven, he let the stream flow and it extinguished the fire. The little cock
jumped up to the roof and started singing:

-“ Qui quiri-qui, come and see!”

In despair , the king said:

-“ Bring me that naughty cock! I want to defecate on him.” 

But as soon as  the king put off his clothes, the cock let the swarm of bees get out , and the bees
stung the king in such a way, that he bled all over his body and had to be carried to his room half
dead. The cock won his purse back, under the condition , he must leave the palace at once for
being so bad!

When the cock arrived at his birthplace, he distributed the money to the poor, who deserved it
much more than the king.

The mills of God grind slowly,

     Yet they grind exceedingly small!

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