almuredondo

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Some more Concept Art I work on for Wolfwalkers

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WOLFWALKERS - Concept Art and Color Script Worked with directors Tomm More and Ross Stewart as Scene Illustration Artist, Location Designer, Color Script Artist and Background Painter for their feature film "Wolfwalkers" from the 5 times Oscar's Academy nominated studio Cartoon Saloon. ------ Some years ago I packed my brushes and headed to the green rolling hills of Ireland to join an incredible team of people to work in this precious gem. At first I joined the Scene Illustration, o Concept team, where I helped define the look of the forest and design the locations inside of it, as well as help define the style, and traditional pencil and watercolor technique with the team lead by Tomm and Ross. Later in production I designed Sequence Colour Scripts and Key Colour Backgrounds to establish the look and the methodology for the Background Colour Team. Here you can see a selection of some of the concepts I developed. ------ ROBYN RUNNING - Inspired by the Dark Hedges from a trip to the north of Ireland, we were still trying to define the look of the forest, the graphic light and autumny colors while keeping the green wet feeling of Ireland. (which proved to be a challenge for all of us!) We were also exploring the characters in action and how to strike a graphic look moving in 3d space and this pose helped with that. I just loved drawing Robyn, inspired by the character poses of Sandra and the character team concepts. ------ WATERFALL. Helping define the look of the waterfall was one of my favourite things in the film. Working with Maria and Ross from a physical maquette Ross had built, we dove to define the looser, wilder and more organic section of the film, the Wolfwalkers waterfall den, where watercolors are at their rawest and washes of color blend. Was a very iterative process where I let the watercolor do what it wanted, blending colors and shapes in beautiful ways that I would later on use on the final image. In this concept I also explored the characters and proposed the final wolf look for Robyn which made it into the film, as before she had a slightly different look. The whole film was a greatly collaborative effort where we were all exploring and proposing ideas! ------ LOCATION DESIGN RAVINE - First sketches I did when I joined the Wolfwalkers concept team, or scene illustration. I set out to explore the forest as Robyn gets deeper into it. Her feelings and the scenery change and develop as we go further from the farmlands forest tamed by humans. I was trying to figure out how to make the forest feel older and more secret as you get deeper into it, as the areas untouched by humans were wilder, stronger and purer, with more and more ancient ruins from old wolfwalkers civilizations that had not been seen for centuries! ------ Some tree trunks and branches studies I did to define the lush and magical aspect of the ravine. Inspired by a plein air painting trip to Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor ------ TRIPTYCH - At this time we were trying to find a graphic light to balance the very simple characters and BGs, with a very simple lighting on them, just enough to tell the story we needed in each shot. This image was conceived as a triptych illustration, established in a great storyboard panel by Iker Maidagan and Ariel Ries , with characters by Tomm More and some help from Ross Stewart. I often used small value studies like these to figure out the lighting structure to tell the story, in this case using the Hitchcock bar of light on them to have the girls “see without being seen���. I also did a concept close up to define the look of the magic ivy wall, exploring the FX look and progression and lighting. ------ LOCATION DESIGN - Nearing production we settled to make some specific location designs for the Ravine, the innermost secret den of the Wolfwalker people. We tried to find landmarks that we could repeat in different scenes to get a feel of the evolution of the story. Ludo Gavillet and I designed maps, did sketches and color roughs and had a blast dreaming camera possibilities to craft the otherworldly and mystical side of these people, inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy. (I discovered this artist with the best family name ever thanks to Ross during production, don't miss the documentary about his art and life!). ------ SEQUENCE COLOR SCRIPTS - Later in production, I helped out with some sequence color scripts to flesh out, from the rough color keys from Alice and Lily, the final approach the BGs will have in a specific sequence. ------ All artwork copyright by Cartoon Saloon & Melusine Productions.

[almuredondo]

ANNIE AWARDS NOMINATION // Best Production Design - Feature Film. Over the moon to share that last month we woke up to an #AnnieAwards nomination for production design for #Belle! Our contribution was very little in the film where we created with Mamoru Hosoda a little dream section of his story. Huge thanks and heads up to Mamoru Hosoda for calling us, the whole team at Chizu for the incredible work they did in the film and to our team at the Saloon, Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Maria Pareja, Alice Dieudonne!

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#AnnieAwards #AnnieAwards2022 #MamoruHosoda #cartoonsaloon #studiochizu #anime #belle #studiochizu #productiondesign #animatedfilm #animation #film #conceptart #drawing #design #watercolor #traditionalmedia #pencil #dessin #2danimation #handdrawnanimation #竜とそばかすの姫 #細田守 #スタジオ地図 @studio_chizu #whereisbelle #dragonandthefreckledprincess #virtualworld #u

[almuredondo]

A little article about the work we do at Axis and Art Directing for Riot Games Trailers and Tales of Runeterra Cinematics! #axisstudios #riotgames #talesofruneterra #internationalwomansmonth #artdirecting #theruinedking #leagueoflegends 

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“Together”

ASOIAF

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Personal piece that I never posted. Inspired by traditional nord-east european folk tales and the incredible work of Ivan Bilibin or Boris Zvorykine, I created a set of illustrations based on the books ASOIAF, before season 08 started. This is one of them. Hope you like it! Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/D5yAyy

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Brace yourselves as the Yordles are coming! Last Trailer that I had the pleasure to art direct for @riotgames with the stellar team at @axisstudiosgroup for the @talesofruneterra and Wild Rift cinematics. We worked with Riot's director Dustin Wicke to shape this wild adventure. The team broke all the charts on that one and the result really shines on the screen, from the matte paintings, the FX, the lighting and animation... Incredible work from everyone. #Artofleagueoflegends #ArtofLegends #LeagueOfLegends#artdirection #conceptart #conceptdesign #productiondesign #riotgames #wildrift #yordles #fantasyart #game #trailer #cinematicshort #Corki #Lulu #Tristana #Graves #TwistedFate #Teemo #Rock #Souldevouringseaworm https://www.instagram.com/p/CLumDz8jaFj/?igshid=1ugf78v6g4q61

[almuredondo]

Get your hand on one of the The art of #Wolfwalkers books. Is stunning!!!! Full of unique and gorgeous hand-drawn & painted art, with a deep insight into the process we followed to create this film. Growing up inspired by these art books, is quite wild to be part of one of them with some of my concepts and my background paintings featured. Is funny how the perspective changes and now when I open the book I see my friends and the faces of the beautiful people that created this film, a treasure trove of experiences and all the time we spent together in Ireland. Also has a great intro from James Baxter!  ________________________________________ You can see a more in depth review in #PARKA BOOKS. Hope you enjoy it! https://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-review-art-of-wolfwalkers ________________________________________  #wolfwalkers #cartoonsaloon #ireland #irishanimation #animatedfeaturefilm #artbook #concept #instaart #artistsofinstagram #artoftheday #art #makingoff #watercolorpainting #pencil #dessin #artskecth #dibujos #dibujosalapiz (at Kilkenny, Ireland) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ5WDE6DMf2/?igshid=11uk6nbh2xqk5

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"His hair smelled of blood and smoke and horse. " ASOIAF

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Arepo’s god. 

Someone on Tumblr posted this writing prompt for people to continue the story and this heartwarming tale about a selfless farmer inspired me to paint his main character, Arepo.

 As I read it, I remembered how a few years ago, when visiting the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces I did an 8 hour trekking from Ping'an Zhuang Village to Dazhai village. On the way amidst the rice terraces it started raining and as we stopped under a tree, there he was, Arepo. Merry and content, welcoming eyes, smoking his pipe. 

So, I decided to paint the character in this story inspired by the gracious man we met in China. The Tumblr story starts like this: 

Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.

Link to the story:

https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/172811507450/threefeline-corancoranthemagicalman/embed

[almuredondo]

Brushes down as last week was my last day helping design Nora Towney's next feature, My Father’s Dragon. Had the privilege to work with the genius team at @CartoonSaloon in Kilkenny in this beautiful film. Coming to @netflix  soon!

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These lands are made for roaming!!! Some of the 1 hour sketches I did in our road trip through the wilderness of California, Nevada and Arizona. For 10 days we did Yosemite, Sequoia park, Death Valley, Zion National Park, Antelope Canyon, Grand Canyon, countless hours of driving, a lot of Doritos, a lot of good music and lots of pain in the side or our ribs!  #roadtrip #pleinairpainting #gouache #watercolor #california #arizona #nevada #sanfrancisco #yosemite #mirrolake #antelopecanyon #navajonation #grandcanyon #art

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Worked closely with the first art director Jean Michel Boesch and director, Gilly Fogg at the very beginning of the project when the team and the studio were just starting, to define the final style of the backgrounds and light and colour for the show. Before the team of background colour began I was in charge of producing final concepts, style guide and background colour tutorials to help train the team on background painting. ​

Further in the production I moved to storyboard where I helped define the camera use, staging and acting of our characters and the world of these little bugs. The goal was to infuse a sense of wonder in this miniature world with the camera use and establish clearly the interaction between the real and the bug world.

It was a really exciting team and project to work on and it has shaped as a very lovely show. Available on Amazon Prime Video.

All images are © Amazon Prime

[almuredondo]

Wilderness immersion plain air painting days in #wistmanswood #Dartmoor #Devonshire with my adventure pal @adventure.tones #pleinairpainting #oilpainting #watercolor #pencil #notebook #sketchbook #illustration #fairies #gnomes #artoninstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/BzCIhJzAItK/?igshid=19h94jatu4kve

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They made an article about my talk at Siggraph in the Chilean newspaper “El Mercurio”. Thanks again to everyone!!! :D

[almuredondo]

Some snapshots from last year's #siggraphsantiago 2018 in Chile and Valparaíso. Thanks again to the incredible organisation team, all the people that came and Cristian Freire and Carolina for inviting me to do a keynote on concept art and illustration. It was an amazing week with the awesome @sergiopaezart@pablovazquez.art @dianaloren1313@baby.in.the.backpack @gregberridge#lirontopaz #bilbythemovie. Valparaíso pictures credit #lirontopaz. Until next time!!! #siggraph2018 #keynote #workshop#storyboard #conceptart #animation #vfx#santiago #valparaiso #chile #university

[almuredondo]

Hi guys!!! Earlier this summer, I painted one afternoon the views from my balcony, trying to get the quick change of light and hot atmosphere of the time. A huge challenge that had me starting a new painting every 20 minutes for 5 hours! An exercise that I totally recommend! I hope you like it!!!!