Humans and Dinosaurs from the Grounds;

I made this little animation loop for the monthly LOOPDELOOP contest, with the theme of CHILDHOOD; 
this time one of their screening events will be hosted by Nickelodeon (I'd say a huge part of my childhood aswell), so it was a big motivation to put some extra work.

NOW ON NEWGROUNDS

(That's actually my loop number 16 for the site, never expected to keep going for so long!)

Also, the people who joined and the overall quality of the animations has been MAGNANIMOUS so far, just give a watch to some of them; they DO NOT disappoint.

In other news: 

I'm reuploading some of my NATA submissions with slight improvements in my Vimeo account (I'm keeping the originals here, for the sake of checking the state of the works for the competition); 
'Save The Sock' now has sound effects and animation tweaks, and Sprouting Frog Waves and Emergency Breakfast have subtle animation improvements aswell; just some of the things that were actually on the 'list of things to do' but couldn't afford making them during the contest.
I'll probably have an 'improved' versions of my last 2 shorts too; it's nice to see them 'completed' as (relatively) intended; while I think about what to do next.

Chilean Pokédex

On a completely unrelated note: if you're interested on Pokémon illustration proyects like the most reknown Pokémon Battle Royale; (or Pokémon in general for that matter) THEN I present you "The Official Chilean Pokédex Proyect"

While I'm not as involved in illustration (as in animation) I was able to enter for the first batch of 151 creatures (curiously enough I had to make Pikachu, which I uploaded to the Art Portal a while ago).

There's plenty of different proposals in terms of style, and if you're into illustration it may also be interesting 
to have some sort of panoramic view of the kind of works/styles that are being produced here in Chile.

ENJOY

Hello, humans from Newgrounds;

I'll take this newspost to share some sort of "recap" on the end of this year's NATA tournament;

Turns out this brainmelting tournament was finally won by StejkRobot;

The theme was to "Animate in the style of your Opponent"; and I must say he made a pretty memorable 'impression'.

He went to levels of production that I don't think I have achieved yet with my works, and it was cool to see those relatively "familiar" creatures on their own trippy atmosphere; despite being something I can still call different.

How do I explain it; it's like when you play a fighting game with a more experienced friend, and he chooses to play with your 'main' character (the one you use the most) and starts doing new and insane tricks with it.

'Chicken Castle'

On the other hand, taking Stejk's works as reference was a huge challenge aswell;

The original idea was to make something darker and heavier on atmosphere; but as I went experimenting with characters and backgrounds; I was getting to the point where I wasn't making much progress and wasn't going to get that much time to properly (learn to) develop them all.

At the end; I decided to reflect Stejk's works in a higher level of detail, more action-based scenes (than my previous works), and, for the most part, the design of the protagonist (a human being!), and for the sake of contrast (and fun) make that character endure in a very "butzbo-ish" scenario. It's a bit ironic because it's in a way a 'battle' between both sides.

(the pic at the right is a REALLY early sketch of the characters, the stylization is pretty different too).

Animating a human was a pretty difficult task, and this may sound redundant because it's a regular thing for animators to begin with (most NATA submissions had human characters after all!). Humans with human noses, mouths, hair, ears, and hands, all of them moving at certain points.Compare that (and the most detailed characters in general) to most of my "protagonists" from the earlier rounds, which are as simple (and rounded-deformed) as possible to be able to animate them properly in the really short deadlines, and you'll see why this was a new thing.

Since I wasn't so glad with the animation of my last short, I wanted to deliver as much as possible in that aspect; which led me to not taking that many "risks" with style decissions.

Despite ending up second, the overall response of the judges was pretty good and open-minded to this different take on the theme. While there's no point trying to tell if one "style" was "easier/harder" than the other one, since it's a pretty relative term (it was definitively a challenge for both); I needed to improve a lot in terms of overall skills in an attempt at refferencing Stejk's work, so it was a pretty 'educational' process in that sense.

At least to the point where the animation is done, I guess it's probably my most 'elaborated' animation to date (animation was made through 6-7 days each day busier than the last). And luckily I had enough time on the last hours to make a functional sound mix!

So; it was a fantastic tournament after all; Through these last months, we had to find a missing sock ; traveled through an enormous eye ;  threw our heads off in despair; went to a bizarre cereal dimension and rescued a helpless worm.

I think I'll take a break from making shorts for a while; On the other hand I would like to tackle some 'darker' themes that I hoped to try on last round, but couldn't elaborate in the given time.

I actually have a few ideas for games; I think (as some reviewers have commented aswell) that many of my NATA animations could evolve into games of some sort.

With that said; thanks for taking the time to read up to this point, and for watching all of those animated meltdowns, I hope you had enjoyed the tournament, as an animator, spectator, organizer, judge, replicant or human being!

Well that was long; any comment, question, suggestion, paranormal breakfast experience, whatever, feel free to share!

Now here's your reward:

Hello Newgrounders,

A while ago I actually missed the chance to mention my latest animated shorts for NATA'14 here.
So In case you're interested in some small notes on the process I'll use this text to elaborate a bit:

'Emergency Breakfast'
This was my short for Intermediate round; animated in 4 days: It was pretty fun to make (robotic characters were surprisingly fun to animate in Frame-by-frame animation, somehow mixing "organic" and "mechanic" movements). I'm not sure if it was because of the 'robot' theme (or the thumbnail pic); but it had A LOT more reach than my other latest shorts (also it could stick in frontpage a bit more within robot day :) ).

The "story" could've been a bit more elaborated, but I was pretty glad with the results (and it also helped to try some new things for a short,like frame by frame "3d" rotations). 

At the end my opponent didn't upload anything, so I passed freely to the Pro round (it could've been a nice opportunity to make a stick fight or something).

'Dimensional Flakes' (a short about cereal; curiously another "breakfast" related animation)

Made for the Pro round: a bizarre and (really small) oddyssey into an unpredictable cereal-distorted dimension.

The process for this one was actually pretty insane; I could (barely) finish the animation, although at the same time, it's probably the most 'elaborated' thing I've made within just 3 days of animation.

Right: Three days; doing almost nothing else during the whole process (except for eating and sleeping a bit, so it's really not something I would actually recommend that much).

One of the few things that helped to finish in time was to keep the main character as simple as possible to avoid loosing too much time on his animations (in this case, one of the most time-consuming parts).

On the process I was expecting to improve here on A LOT of things from my latest sumbissions (specially on the fbf animation, experiment with visual effects, sound and transitions) 
but I couldn't give it that much time; mostly because I had just finished design school last week (Hooray!) so I needed to stop making things for a brief moment). Also, it came with a 'creative block' in between which took a couple of days to get through and finally decide on what to make.

At the end I wasn't really satisfied with the results, while the idea was fun to execute and after all it was a "watchable" animation; it needed AT LEAST 2 or even more busy days of work to tweak everything properly and be an animation a worthy of the 'Pro-Round'. I'd say it needs a lot more work than all my previous Nata submissions so far.

Considering that, it was REALLY hard to know my chances on this round, specially considering the competition (which was pretty close (specially to Brewster's) on the final scores!).
At the end, while I still consider it an 'incomplete' work, it got a pretty nice response after all.

And, now: I'm at the Final Round against Stejk-Robot (who has made some pretty sick/amazing things on the last rounds) with the theme of : 

* Animate in the Style of Your Opponent *

Which is a surprisingly unexpecting and "chip-changing" theme; so, I guess the results are going to be pretty unusual/odd/hilarious for both cases.

AND that's it for today!
Tune in around Agoust 20 to see the outcome of this experimental final round! (hopefully I'll be able to step out of the comfort zone for a while)

(I hadn't realized how cool it's to write post with this new layout design)

Here's my submission for the "Novice" round of NATA, it contains yoyos, experimental noise and plenty of melting creatures : 'Sprouting Frog Waves'

I'd say the process was pretty unusual here; instead of doing one "step" at a time; I would jump from drawing a background, to animate a character from the middle, to color something else, to get back and rearrange part of the storyboard and organizate takes, somehow it worked through the 6-7 days I put into it.

IN OTHER NEWS : I'm looking for a team for Power of Four!, (a musician and a programmer) (UPDATE : Now we just need a programmer!)

I've been around NG for a while making animations and I'm pretty motivated to get into making games. In fact I've thought about many possible "game-adaptations" from animated shorts I've made in the past (From a Jelly Shooting game based on "Day of the Jelly Spill" to a point-and-click dungeon-adventure adaptation from "The Fish Tower", just to throw a few ideas).

Right now I'm finishing my final project of Design School, which is also a videogame, so I've been gathering experience on the topic (in both game design and art/animation for games).

NOW; there's one "catch". I am in the last month of my final Design School project, (and also, still participating on NATA) which means I won't have much time right now. I could start with creative/concept work, but regarding the actual creation of final art and animation, I won't have enough time until I'm (relatively) done with both things, so I could only begin working properly by the end of July ( so there would still be about 2 months left ).

SO, If you're interested (and can wait a bit for the most elaborated work), send me a PM, I'll be glad to form a team.

Krweck.

Dinosaurs and racoons from Newgrounds:
At last I submitted something for NATA 2014 -> 'Save the Sock'

It was made with really few time. I couldn't get a 'good' idea to fit the theme until the final week.
At the end, I made the whole animation in a melting time bucket of 3 days, (with classes inbetween and barely any sleep) BUT, it was worthwile to get back with a new non-loop (and a bit more surreal) animation.

AND...after years of uploading animated slug brains, I finally got a DAILY FIRST!! (whoo-)

There's something interesting (and relatively 'adrenalynic') on making a short with so few time, It really forces you to think fast and choose the minimum amount of things to do to make the short actually "work". This time I did the whole character animation before doing any of the additional things like backgrounds, 'effects' and sound (which maybe took the smallest bit of time, probably the final 3-4 hours). Although next time I expect to put some more attention to detail.

If I manage to enter next round, you may expect some new animated lobster burritos (same thing if I don't, hopefully).

WHHOOOSHHHH!

Hello Newgroundewrs!

I'm back once again with more recent animated mashed potatoes : HERE is one of the loops I've been making for the bi-monthly Loopdeloop challenge.

This time with the theme of "LIGHT", so it was fun to experiment with (sort-of) lightning effects in flash. This loop 'contests' are also a really cool way to get some animation practice, so I really recommend it just to try new things.

In other news (while I'm at the FINAL year of design school, which means, demanding times) I still hope to participate in NATA'14, last year's tournament was a great motivation to make more shorts (and make use of all the loop-practice :O).

Also, here's (BELOW) another loop I made for the theme of TWIST (maybe a bit more on the 'screensaver' side of animated loops) You can see more of these in GIF form in my 'Antenna Cheese' Tumblr!

QWERK!

HEY THERE Newgrounds humans, here's some micro-cosmic updates!

> A while ago I submitted the second installment of the 'Antenna Cheese Icon Pack', it came with some of the suggestions I got after the first one. For more FREE customization-ness.

> I just submited a small update to 'The Fish Tower' with some improvements on audio and animations, mostly to spread it a little more.
(Just in case, you can still watch the original version at the NATA's youtube channel)
I was hoping to "improve" a bit of the other NATA13 shorts aswell, but It may be more motivating to move on to another project.

>Also, expect a new LoopdeLoop this weekend!

IN OTHER NEWS, it turns out that a little while ago (last wednesday!) was the...SEVENTH year 'anniversary' of...actually the first flash 'short' I EVER submitted to the Flash Portal!

SOLAR BURN!!! (2006)

It's been a long time since that first flash; it may be fun (or horryfying) to watch just because of its quality, to compare with actual works and check its "voice-acting".
It would be surprising to see if someone who watched it back then is still around.

I rarely went back to work with those two little characters again, but I still think they have potential, so in the meantime, have a small conmemorative GIF (DOWN!).

I can definitively add that it's been a pretty productive cycle of animation improvement over these years. And a relevant part of that definitively comes from the GREAT feedback from the community that I certainly couldn't get from anywhere else.

SO have this small gif(t) as a microscopic THANKS for watching!
NOW go watch Solar burn again!
(Probably not)

Here's my last LOOP for the Loopdeloop's bi-monthly contest, this time the theme was FRUSTRATION, and this was probably frustrating enough.
(Once again with the wonders of "8bit" sound effects)

You can watch them all (and VOTE) HERE .

ALSO; I made some Desktop Icons! (Actually a while ago, they even got front-paged!, so here again is the -> ; [DOWNLOAD LINK]).
They were pretty well recieved so I'm on the process of making some more for a second batch!

Here's a 'chicken' :

Hello humans (and robots!) from Newgrounds, time for some updates and...well what the title says.

Turns out I got beaten by the impressive work of Hikarian on NATA's Pro round (still for a really close score, a difference of 3.5 points!).
I knew that I had to give atleast a couple more days to the actual animation of my last entry (Electric Brain-Spaghetti) than with my second short ( 'The Fish Tower' ) to get a better chance at this round, which is something I couldn't properly accomplish with so many exam-filled burritos, but at least it was enough to finish it.
I actually wasn't too satisfied with the short when I uploaded it; I had to cut plenty of takes that otherwise could have helped to work with the short's consistency. But surprisingly it still had a really good response from the viewers at NG and the NATA judges!
So, considering the giant coffee cups, and all the multi-tasking madness involved in the making of my 3 entries, It was a blast entering NATA this year. For the most part It was a great 'excuse' to (finally) get back to make actual 'short animations' (last year I only made loops, which was an awesome practice, but they rarely had any kind of 'plot'), and it was also great getting to know the works and styles of so many animators on the site that I hadn't seen before.

---'CHEESE FROM THE FUTURE'---

SO, now that I don't have to make more deadline-squashed animations for a while, I can get (back) to some other projects!
I'm considering taking the time to 'properly finish' some NATA entries which (due to deadline difficulties) I never left to the level of completion I hoped. Just to have a 'finished version' I don't plan to "re-launch" them, though, since it's mostly animation tweaks and post-production. I'll begin with 'The Fish Tower' and see how it goes.

I've been making loops for the monthly (now bi-monthly) loop challenge at LoopdeLoop (the last one, with the theme of FOOD, that you can see right here, so you can expect more of these)

In other news, I uploaded a (oddly shaped) micro-sequence of watercolor-paintings for Robot Day.

And because why not, here's the (slowly updated but not forgotten) TUMBLR account!
ALSO, I'll upload a microscopic 'coolibert' thing as soon as I can make another news post!

HEY, LOOK!, here's my third animation for NATA 2013 ; Electric Brain-Spaghetti
I can tell it went A LOT more experimental than the last one; I wanted to use a different visual style in some bits that I had not used since my older short 'The Cosmic Fork', and also take a different approach with the sound (courtesy of a fantastic piece of software called Bfxr).

This one got really hard to finish due to plenty of final exams having an atomic-planetary-congregation (and having one of the final design exams on the same exact day as the deadline didn't help either).
At the end, I had an amount of time similar to the one i had with 'The Fish Tower', which at least was enough to finish it to an upload-able level.

-----

Other than that, I'm finally getting closer to winter vacations, which means some BONUS time to finish and upload many... unfinished and not-uploaded things. HUH.
Here's my TUMBLR for the eventual gif-update breakfast.

*Btwzzztztzzttztztzttzz!*