Yesterday's disgrace

I don't know what to say. Yesterday's class was so unfortunate for me, poor thing. I'm going to get them a Photoshop makeup.

Nop. Not even Photoshop can save this. Oh well...

My first animation

I thought it would be funny to post here my first animation ever. That got me thinking when was the first time I made an animation and that took me to the high school times. 

I was in senior year and had to do this homework for the  Drawing class. It's a flipbook (a little book in which we make a drawing per sheet). This was in 2009, I never thought of scanning it and edit it in the computer to see the final result.... a disaster.

It's weird but for a first time it's not bad ...for someone who knew nothing of the matter.

Today I look back and I see that my high school time was very enriching thanks to an awesome teacher I had. I was in an Arts course and we did a bit of everything. Whatever the path that we followed, at least we were somewhat prepared for the next step. We weren't just drawing in this class. We made models, artwork, graphic works, photographs, montages, texts and even animation.
Above all , we were taught to think (I already said here that drawing is a way of thinking) and in this is where my teacher was very clever .

Every week we had a job to do in the Sketch Book that was given in a statement . This statement let us always thinking, as a riddle or puzzle. Only after solving the problem we could draw. Our answers to the teacher was the drawings. Very insightful, indeed.

Some day I'll post here some of these old Sketchbook drawings.

Today's class

"There he goes, posting more scribbled drawings that suck." 

YES I WILL! And I'll do it with opened chest, like chicken's do. And I'll also cluck. I'm amazing when I cluck.

Anyway, I have so much to improve. Mainly on making fewer scribbles.

There's someone naked in my class

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with family (me, my parents and my sister) in a brazillian restaurant. I took the Sketch Book to draw, but as usual, I din't touch it ... I filled the table's role with drawings, instead. It is a temptation for me to go to a restaurant and not draw on the table. I don't like when there's no pen. As soon as I finish eating I start to sketch on the paper. " Childrens are the ones who do that", you say . Well, for some reason I chose animation. Some people like it . The employee, who was a very fun and friendly Brazilian started talking with me saying he'd keep the drawings. It seems that they keep all the drawings that people make on the tables so one day they can decorate an entire wall with people's drawings. It's an original idea .

Seeing a drawing in my Sketch Book, my sister asked if we had a nude model. "Of course" I replied. Then, my mother got shocked, more shocked that an egg in a frying pan.
I explained that I had already taken nude classes before, since 2010 exactly. For me, it's already a natural thing which I don't even think about, so it's funny to see people's reaction (even if that people are my family, who should already know) .

So, here's some drawings of a naked women (O.O get shocked!).

A Polar Animation

I'm not very proud of this animation. Still, I will start the blog with this one (don't worry, the quality will increase in the future).


Urso Polar on Vimeo.

I worked on this when I was in the 2nd year of college.

The thing was simple. The teacher gave us a phrase: "Life in a second." We had to unravel the meaning of the phrase and develop an animation about it in 4 months (one semester). How long did it take me? One month. And the result was this poor, sad and insipid thing. Worse than Justin Bieber singing on a rainy day.

I did this throughout the month of January, 2012. I think it was the worst time I spent during college time . As I had to do it all in one month (for reasons beyond me), I was forced to work without stopping (pausing only for school, sleep and eat, of course). I was in such a rush that I worked everywhere. For example , the part in which the tablet falls into the water was all done while sitted in the train and subway (without a lightbox, I even used the train window to see through the paper sheet), there were other parts which were made during different lessons, there was one shot wich was made in a birthday lunch with lots of people and the very first shot was done during Christmas. And I got a aterrible backache. I'll explain.

This was done in traditional animation. I made drawing after drawing, that when viewed all together give the notion of movement (ok, you know how it works) . The problem was that I did not own a table for this purpose, which should be inclined for good posture, and had to use the table in the dining room that is made of glass so I was able to put a light underneath the drawings, and spent hours every day bent over the table . Today I'm an old lady, complaining all the time, thanks to it. But I'm a happy old lady.That animation took me 40 years of my life.

Each day I had to animate a shot. In the morning and afternoon I did the drawings on the table. At night scanned them all and then worked the images to set up everything. A lot of work, that's what it was.

Here's some drawings.

The images are a little weird because of the scan. And to finish it, some original drawings.

There are nice people, weird people and there's me

I can't go to Lisbon for drawing without bringing a story to tell. Here is today's.

Last week (Thursday) I went to Lisbon three hours before my class to close some business ..... an ebay like business, what did you thought? I'm no dealer. I'm currently addicted with this kind of business and nobody stops me from adding some extra euros to the pocket. I think I'll only  stop when I get our whole house sold without my parents knowing.

After closing that business I had two hours to walk by Lisbon. I went to some shops but nothing new. I decided to sit on a big square full of people drawing.
I was very quietly drawing this:

When an old man appears behind me to see my drawings. He started talking to me telling he was a painter and sculptor, a lover of art history and then gave me his card. But this man has no place in this story. Let´s forget about him.

I kept drawing when three guys appear to wonder what I was doing, like if I was a pro at drawing. They also started a conversation. They were fun. "Draw this guy here" - one of them asked me. What annoying when people ask me to draw them. It never looks-alike them. But ok, I accepted the challenge of sketching one of them quickly. And surprisingly it turned out well

I'm always judging myself but I actually liked this one. Then the guy said, "Now draw me." It had to be .... The first drawing turned out good but this one is crap:

It was horrible but the guy liked it. They were fascinated with me drawing people with just scribbles. I explained that I'm not so good and that I still have plenty to evolve. He said he would also like to know how to draw and asked if he could draw in my Sketch Book. Sure, I like people to draw in my notebook. He sat down beside me and began to draw the tall monument in the center of the square:

Then he told what he really liked was to draw anime characters and made this:

Ok, it's fine.
In the end, I asked if they wanted to keep the drawings. They refused and said they were there every day and told me to show up more often. I left for the class. End of Part One.

Today (Thursday), the same story. Went early to Lisbon to sell some VHS movies. Two hours to spend. I sat in the same place to draw this:

When this time a girl/woman with gross teeth appears. She was asking for money, of course. I tried to make the scene "I am listening to music and can´t hear anyone around me even if it's just a meter away from me." It did not work because she sat beside me. "Fine, maybe if I give her a coin she leaves." She asked me if she could write in my sketch book while I took the wallet. I gave her 50 cents and she said it was not enough beacuse she needed 5 euros to go eat  in Mc'Donalds. It may be important to say that she already had a few coins in her hand .... not a few, a lot. She had enough for probably two Big Mac's. The worst thing was that she was asking for money to go to Mc'Donalds ... that insipid thing. I just wanted to tell her "My dear, you better go eat on a healthier place, and on the way you shoul buy a Colgate toothpaste because with that teeth someday the sky will fall on you."

She wanted more money and I said I hadn't more (of course I had). "Let's see" she said while reaching out her hand into my wallet. She pulled out the wallet and started pulling it tighter while I tried to take it. Suddenly, the dudes from last week's show up in my rescue and told the ugly woman to stop bothering me. She stopped but still wanted more money. "No, I did not like your attitude" I answered.
She gave up but still wanted to write in my notebook. It was a poem:

After finishing it, she handed me the sketchbook and asked me to read it. There was a moment of silence with me trying to understand that words that seemed like a doctors font. "I can not understand this, you better read it yourself" and let her read.
Me and my colleagues already tried to decode the letter. I think it's something like this:

A friend is a brother 

A treasure that you have

They're the stars 

That guide us beyond 

They're good and bad times 

On this traveled road 

And I tell you, I would not trade Portugal 

For nothing in this life.

And under it she wrote what I think is "Sorry PS.  Schizophrenia. Aggressive Psychosis".

God! Don't tell me that she fled from some psychiatrist hospital just to go eat an hamburger at Mc'Donalds. It was not necessary to go that far to find a McDonald's ..

Anyway, she ended up leaving and I thanked the guys and started talking with them. I asked why they were in that place every day. They said they were working, doing some business. I replied that I had also gone to a business. I went to sell some VHS movies by an ebay like website (I'm laughing while writing this part). I began to talk about it and they said "Well, that's not our kind of business. We sell weed"........................................................................................................O.O

How can I gather so much ingenuity within me?
I promise anyone reading this that you get a discount voucher to give me a tightl slap in the face, next time you see me. I deserve.
"Do you buy that kind of things?" he asked. "No" I answered.
And finally, I got up and went to my comfort zone - the school building.

At least this experience made me see that even delaers are friendly. True dealers save people from evil forces. I had the idea that they were all bad and had an ugly face. It seems they are cool. But I will never again pass on that square.

Conclusions of the day: that square is a place to avoid, Drawing is a dangerous sport and if you ever have a son pray so that he doesn't grow up to become like me.

Let's get this thing started

Words are not my thing. Never were. I'm not the kind of person that talks and writes a lot.  I once tried to read an Harry Potter book and as I opened it I was immediately dizzy and nauseous with so many words coming towards me. Anyone who knows me knows that I dont speak very much.....at all.  I only speak on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the rest of the days I just make sounds except Sundays, when I only say onomatopoeias. It is a funny different kind of life...you should try it. You will begin to carefully look at everything around you. And this is what happens with me. I work better with pictures than I do with words. But I will talk about that later.

I'll start by apologizing if my writing is not at the level of those ultra fancy blogs with exquisite texts and metaphors out of this world. Here you will only find a poor and dirty writting, like those old doilies that our grandmas have on top of their TV set...the ones with horrid little spots. So let's speak by pictures.

I want to show some drawings I did in the drawing class. I could have brought some yesterday but I forgot. Tomorrow I won't forget .
I'm lucky to be a person who gets very nervous with my own nerves and last week I did not take a tranquilizer before going to class. Where is the luck? My drawings fell from the folder to the floor, every single one and all at once. So I grabbed them with a furious movement, just like Hulk (and a mix of Tarzan's mad face) and rip them all in pieces, in an act of uncontrolled rage as I slammed my fists on my chest and sang "Under Pressure" by Queen .
I'm kidding , I just grabbed them very mad and in a sudden movement kept them in my backpack .

"What is this shit?" you're probably asking. I know. They seem like they were made by a Parkinson's patient, but they were made ​​by me. This is what we do in classes. I'm paying to scratch a paper.

These are quick sketches. It's the first exercise we make in our class. We have 30 seconds to look at the model and 30 seconds to draw. Sounds easy , but it's not because we have to train our brain and not our hand, as most people think. Drawing is a process that takes most place in the brain. The hardest thing for me is to simplify. I'm like beast from Beauty and the Beast, I'm very violent and so I cover the drawing with scratches as if there were no tomorrow, leaving a maze of dirty traces in the paper. The aim is to be fast and simple.

As you can see, I still have a long road ahead. And what do you do when you have a long road ahead? You put up some headphones on and get a Walkers Crisps....the road is so long you never know when you'll get hungry.

What is This?

Yeyhhh, it's a blog. I have a blog, I'm so posh. The only thing left is a persian kitten in my lap and a cup of lemon tea with honey on my hand, and to finish it, write a lame book in a few years with the blog's posts.

If you got here by mistake , stay. Don't leave because the party will get started.  If you got here because I persuaded or dragged you against your will, serve yourself with a drink 'cause I will be offering a key to a purple Smart with yellow dots......I'm kidding, it's green.

I didn't introduced myself yet, shame on me. For those who know me, I say " hello ". For those who don't know me I say "Gross, you're wearing a striped shirt. That's so démodé!".
My name is Pipe, I'm from Portugal and I'm an animator (that sounds so wrong, because I 'm light years from knowing what animating really is. Lets say I am aspiring to be an animator)  because I love animated movies. That is the purpose of this blog . Here I want to expose and share my animation works, drawings, photographs, and also things about life...my life that is so filled with experiences just like a bucket on a summer day .

I'm 22, I have a degree in Digital Animation in Universidade Lusófona and currently I am taking Drawing classes in Lisbon.
What more can I say? I'm cool......waaaaay too cool. My entire person is full of coolness. Even when I'm throwing up I'm cool. So come here every day if you want to insert some top quality culture inside your shining brain. And comment ! I like comments.

By the way , for those who did not notice, the blog's name is a mix between Imagination and Animation (it was my dear sister who gave me the idea). We are so basic....

And last, I would like to ask you to go easy on me because, as I said, I'm portuguese, so there may be a few or many mystakes in my text. I would be very glad if you could correct me with a comment. It will help me improve my english.