Canterbury & Whitstable

It's been a long long time since my last post. Maybe because I really didn't had anything to share or because I was so busy, but the truth is that this blog has been dead for half a year, this is something that I intend to change from now on.
Last saturday I went on a day trip to the east coast of England, Canterbury to be precise. This city is know for it's amazing Cathedral and his ancient history. I was blessed with some sunny spells along the day and I could take really nice pics.
After that I moved to Whitstable by bus. This city is a traditional sailor point that in its recent days has become a second residence for many londoners who love the sea. Along the main harbour is easy to find sailors selling fresh oysters as well as any other kind of delicious sea food.
I have to admit that after a very tough and long winter this day trip showed me how beautiful England can be on a sunny day. I'm already planning my next trip, this time let's head west!

Press day at Media Molecule

Last week we held a press day at my studio, Media Molecule. Journalists from all over Europe came to learn more about our current project, Tearaway for PSVita. Some of the spanish media were actually very surprised to find a spainyard working there so they decided to interview me too :)
Hope I can post all these interviews as well as all the articles they have wrote about Tearaway very soon. Meanwhile enjoy the ¨sea shanty¨ that Kenny (our sound designer) composed specifically for this event, hilarious!

Greenwich

Greenwich is a pretty interesting zone of London. Located at the south east of the city, just by the Thames, it is a great place for visiting museums, walk around its narrow streets or simply delight yourself with impressive views of London's skyline.
Just one minute away from Greenwich DLR station you can find Cutty Sark, one of the fastest and most famous ships of the ¨Empire¨. Designed as a tea trade ship, the vessel used to cover the brave distance between Shangai and London approximately in 120 days on a round trip.
Today, Cutty Sark stands as a museum as well as a sail ship icon, right before the steam power revolution changed the game.

this is steampunk

this it's not Greenwich, but it's cool anyway

Battersea power station

Every morning, when I take the train from Waterloo to Guildford, I see a grand building around Vauxhall area. Turns out it is Battersea power station, a decommissioned coal-fired plant built in the 30's and abandoned more than thirty years ago.
The building is one of the largest brick structures in the world and I love it's Art Deco design. It reminds me a lot movies like Metropolis or the overall look of Batman's Gotham City.
The premises around the area are closed to the public so I had to jump few fences to get as close as I could without being catch :)

James Bond working place

London Calling

It´s been a while since my last post, lots of things happened! This summer I've been living in Granada, working for a feature film called ¨Justin and the knights of Valour¨. It´s gonna be released next summer 2013 and to be honest, it´s the most ambitious project I´ve ever worked for, both artistically and technically. Here you have one of the few images available:

The main producer is Antonio Banderas, and the studio is called Kandor Graphics in the southern part of Spain, Andalucia.

After this awesome experience I moved to London to work in videogames. My current company is Media Molecule and after the massive succes of it's first videogame (Little Big Planet, PS3) the company was owned by Sony Computer Entertainment.
Right now I'm working as 3D animator in Tearaway, and adventure game for PS Vita to be released next year. Here you have a small teaser:



Life in London is ok, although the miserable weather and the non existent sense of gastronomy, it's a very lively place, with lots to do along the week and the weekend. Even though is still too soon to predict the medium future I guess will stay here for a while, at least until my country is free. Cheers!!

Eleven second club April 2012 entry

Back to my hometown I had some free time and I did this animation for an animation contest.
I did a realistic approach to my animation as lately I've been doing very cartoony/stylized stuff and I wanted to proof myself who deep could I go into this. I took some video reference, spent some days blocking and some more refining and layering and this is the result.
The character is a free rig (morpheus) which is very expressive in terms of facial animation but it is quite complex. I used a simple subsurface shader for the character skin to simulate more realism.
Everything is done with maya and comp with AE.
I finished 8 out of 186 entries, which is good, but I think there are some higher score entries that shouldn't be there, what do you think? ;)

Shinjuku, a cyberpunk glimpse.

I love to take pictures on a rainy day. Despite how inconvenient is to clean every 5 seconds your lenses from water drops, I love to see light reflected everywhere, even more when we are talking about Tokyo, the city of neons.
Shinjuku one of the most lively places in Tokyo has a lot of hidden spots that I haven´t pictured yet, so last Saturday I took my camera decided to catch all of these places that look like scenes of some 80's sci-fi movie.  Think I quite succeed.