Short Version: (Summary)
My education shows my career choices, as I started in Cinema and Multimedia and I am now studying Character Animation, passing through 3D generalist and Designer.
With skills in a large number of areas, my goal is to start low in the industry (I would love to have placement at an animation studio), and then make my way up. I haven't still decided where I will focus my career: FIlm, Games, Commercial or other. My long-term goal is to start my own Animation Film Studio.
With skills in a large number of areas, my goal is to start low in the industry (I would love to have placement at an animation studio), and then make my way up. I haven't still decided where I will focus my career: FIlm, Games, Commercial or other. My long-term goal is to start my own Animation Film Studio.
I would say my best skill is my creativity and imagination. I'm currently specializing in Character Animation.
Long Version: (Biography)
Born 20th July 1989, Lisbon, Portugal, I was created in a family where jokes, comedy and humor was always present. As a result, I grew up being the funny kid of the class, all the way from Kindergarden to University. Some times my playful character made everyone laugh, other times my over sized imagination made everyone think I'm crazy.
My poor parents received letters from teachers for more than a decade, saying my concentration levels were the lowest in class, as a result of my constant drawing. When I was 11 I started my own comics, called "Xugo", which I continued until I was 17. Every single edition (if you can call a couple of grid paper sheets a edition) was drown in class. Some friends joined me over the years and we made various editions together. In the last year of school, my Geometry professor, Hugo Nave, who is also a man of the arts, demonstrated interest in my work and introduced me to Toon Boom Studio, a 2D animation software. Two days a week, we would meet in the Digital Arts room and make rough animations of my cartoons. This sessions aroused my interest in animation, and somehow, defined my next years.
I was always an artistic student, and like every other student of this type I wasn't sure of what course to join when I finished school, in 2007. After deciding that Architecture wasn't my thing, I joined the course "Cinema, Video e Comunicação Multimédia" degree at "Universidade Lusófona", Lisbon. I was enjoying my degree, and my favorite subject was editing as I was able to use Adobe After Effects. Creative writing and Visual Effects were the only two things I really liked to do in the degree. I also took a professional course on Web Design during the first university year.
But it wasn't until the second year when I fell in love with a class: Animation, where we were taught the basics of 3Ds Max. The final project was a simple walk cycle with a jump in the end, using a downloaded character. I took it to the next level and made a scenario, made my own character, and made him run and do a backflip over a car that was going to hit him. the result wasn't great as my knowledge was low, but I truly enjoyed working on it. From that day on I started messing with 3Ds Max for kicks.
Decided to follow my new love, In my 3rd university year, 2009/10, I went to England as an Erasmus student. My destination was University of Salford, in Manchester. In this year I made the full local 2nd year, and successfully transfered to this University, being able to finish the degree in 2010/11.
In Salford I was finally studying what I really wanted and what I was made to do: 3D Animation. I changed my software to Autodesk Maya, and continued working with After Effects. I felt like I was in student's heaven when I was in my first class: "Character Modelling". The final year project (to create an animated short film) made me reach creative student's Nirvana, as I created my first art piece where I could use my creativity without boundaries. I obviously chose to do something related to my school comics, with it's characteristic non-sense humor (you can call it the "stupid type of humor"). As great references of this kind of humor, the world famous "Monty Python" (Brittish) and famous in a national level "Gato Fedorento" (Portuguese) are my idols, although neither of them is animated.
The result was the creation of "Alien vs Robot", my first personal project I intend to continue as an animated web series.
My next step is Animation Mentor, where I intend to learn the Art of animating characters, being a Digital Actor!
