Farewell!

I'm back in Porto, so I will stop updating this blog... But as soon as I have the new one (that will be used together with a portfolio site) I'll drop here the link for the ones that want to keep up with what I'm doing.

In the mean time, something for Orlando:

I'm sorry, Mr. Muffin Man said he was too afraid of being "trapped" in Budapest due to the volcano (either that or he did not have enough money and this was just a lame excuse.. anyway..) but he was kind enough to set up a meeting with his magyar cousin, Mr. Mako-Muffin-Man! (mako is poppy seed in Hungarian, which is something they use a lot for sweet food)
So here you have, the picture!



ps: if Mr.Muffin-Man asks, I have no idea where Mr Mako is... he just kind of vanished after the picture and before lunch (around that break for a snack in the middle of the morning, you know?)... maybe he went home because he was...tired? hungry? I dunno..

Good luck!

Good luck Mom and Dad! Not sure I would be very happy driving in Budapest...

Kipakolás!

This is the demo that I did for my iPhone Application class... sorry for the voice... you cannot expect too much from me at 7 a.m. and in a hurry :P
thank you for João that had the patience to put together the sound and the video!



And this is my Csizmás Kandúr book... "Puss in Boots" without any text, just images, a class project where we participated in a contest held by a hungarian publisher. I did the bookbinding of it for the presentation, and the teacher liked it so much that he asked me to keep it! I had to do another one for me :P

Open publication - Free publishing - More illustration

...

Morri para o mundo!

(no idea how to translate this, sorry!)

... the final presentation is in the 3rd of May. I am really going to die.
No updates until then, probably ;)

Another Work in Progress!

This is the meta-communication... how it is so far. I really need to finish it this week... auch.



ps: In the last semester, in Visual Mathematics,in onde of the tasks each student had to draw a set of tiles to include in an interactive wall (another class about interactivity and programming developed the wall itself)... the teacher applied to "Bridges" in Pécs (link) and our project was one of the chosen ones! So this means me and the other students will have our set of tiles in the interactive wall..but I will no longer be in Hungary, it's in July. I hope someone takes pictures or films it...

Illustration Friday: Linked

Illustration Friday is always an excuse to try out techniques...

Some iPhone fun

Experimenting with different colors.
done with sketchbook mobile and slight texture added after in Photoshop.
(I recommend a full view!)

What if...

...everybody in Europe had dinner around the same time?
(I know, I know, sunlight and bla bla bla...)
It's just that today I'm going to an "after-dinner going out thing" with my animation class, around 19h30.
And then, I have a birthday dinner at 21h...

Now I don't know if I should join the animation class for one hour before dinner, and then meet them again later, or just go there after the dinner, taking the risk of missing them because their night out may be already over, lol.

Work in Progress!

Here are my first 2 exercises in animation this semester... it's still a work in Progress, but I thought it could also be interesting to see it in an early stage. In the first part we have a morf between 3 objects, and then I connected the first exercise to the second one, a 10 second lip sync.
Enjoy!
ps: sorry for the lousy quality...

The best Sugar store!!

And it's sooooo close to my house... oh temptation, sweet temptation!





Just look at these cakes and desserts! Aren't they gorgeous? A feast for the eyes (and the mouth, I bet!)






Well, I had to have something.... Chocolate pie with forest fruits... yummy!
And it was Theresa's last day here, so after having lunch at Menza (a great looking restaurant nearby) I paid for her dessert :)



And the bathroom? Full of candies, of course! Reminds me of "Vasco da Gama" shopping, in Lisboa.





Now this is sweet rice.. I had it a few weeks after. They have like 7 different kinds of sweet rice (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, tiramisu, etc) and then several topings and combinations! I had vanilla rice with brownies and chocolate crunchy thingies :P
(a little bit too sweet, but really really tasty anyhow!)

I will definitely advise Mia and Nuno to go there :D
(oops... sorry about the diet :S There is, anyway, a nice vegetarian fast-food restaurant in front... you can have salads and "vegetarian pitta" if you want... before ;))

IllustrationFriday: Subterranean

I do like the snow (yesterday it snowed during the night) but I hope Spring will be coming soon... It's about time!

Second Part: Pécs

I really liked Pécs... it's a nice city, well preserved and interesting... I mean, it's the capital of culture for 2010 for some reason...



We had a reference for a hostel that we saw on the internet. We rang several times and nobody answered... I mean, it was really several... even because the doorbell was silly and changed the tune/music each time we rang. (Christmas, classical, country, you name it! the neighbours must have been sooo annoyed...)
So we gave up and found this one on the way, Nap Nap Hostel... really young and fresh, with great conditions! This is a picture from the staircases, full of grafitti.

After checking in, we traveled around and went up the hill.


Anja and Juliana taking pictures


well, traveling in January does have it's nice side ;)




The mosk that is now a catholic church.


The ceiling... gorgeous!


You have to agree that this mixture was quite strange to see...



St.Peter cathedral, if I am not mistaken. Although the exterior might look quite the sober, the interior was richly decorated, covered in paintings and patterns








These door handles were so cute!



Theresa and Anja in the underground chambers... again, completely covered in paintings and patterns... I could stay there forever drawing and admiring!

As soon as I have the time I'll post about our last part of the trip, Kesthely at the Lake Balaton.

Illustration Friday: Brave

Experimenting.

tiny tiny...

I'm going to ruin my eyes :S


papercutting technique!


my name, for the cover of the book I am making for Illustration... It's the Puss in Boots, just images, no words except for the cover (these were the conditions..)

Oh, it will be a loooong weekend...

MOME has a door to heaven!

... it was locked... I did try to open it :P

Do you recognize this???

It was in an exhibition about character and background concept for animation.
And I am pretty sure where the illustrator got the inspiration from...

link to the real one ;)

(oh, and these are really old pictures, from the design week, but I completely forgot about them..)

Torsten Posselt at MOME

A post about a presentation that I saw, here:

Arte Por Toda A Parte

(in portuguese)

Paper Mask

We saw this advertising in a magazine about a masquerade party in a local bar, Instant...
And since I didn't feel like wasting money, I decided to "make something quickly"...
of course, as usual, I got carried away and took 3 hours and something to complete it!
And when we arrived at the party... me and theresa (who had some cat ears made by herself and a cute cat-like-painting on the face) realized we were the only ones wearing something.
Lol, how embarrassing. Me, someone who looooves being in the spotlight...
Oh well.
At least I like it and a lot of people complimented it (including people I did not know..)
And we got free beers by the barman. We asked him if it was a masquerade party, he had no ideia... he then asked 2 other guys, they did not have a clue... checked in the poster "oh yeah, apparently it's true!". And Theresa had the nerve to ask if people in a costume had the right to a free drink. Lol.
(We spent the rest of the night hearing "meows" from guys and explaining to random curious people that "yes, we are in a costume because it was supposed to be a masquerade party here today!")
Sigh..





(yes, I know that I look serious... but you know how my cheeks and eye masks work, lol!)

The Royal Turkey

While we are still dealing with details (trying to improve it, there are a few things that may be done differently) but in the meantime... here is our animation:

The Royal Turkey

Click it to go to a private link on YouTube!
(and sorry for the lousy quality... I'm still doing some tests, trying to get a better image without the video ending up around 100MB...)

I hope you enjoy it ;)

(hugs to you all, I miss you!)

Illustration Friday: Muddy

This time, Illustration Friday was a good excuse to try a different technique...
Paper collage and acrylics on paper.

Romania

creepy "hollywood-style" Deva sign... in front of Deva's castle (not the one we visited, we visited a castle in the nearby village Hunedoara, where the Dracula was held prisoner for several years before being deported). Picture by Anja

We took the train from Hortobagy to Romania, early in the morning (because the trip takes 7 hours)... and I must say that the first impression of this country, from what we could see from the window, was not the best... quite "abandoned", with houses in ruins, a lot of factories and houses made out of anything and everything people could find. Of course, the weather also contributed to this creepy feeling, for it was cloudy and gray...




these pipes you can see at the bottom ran through the city we were passing by, exposed to the weather and full of rust... I would never trust those things...

We arrived at Deva and we just could not find the hostel! We didn't have a reservation (none of us has a credit card..) but we had the name that anja found through hostel world and a map from google that she took from a link that was there.
We were walking and walking around, people were looking at us, and two gypsy women tried to ask us something and teased us... it was not comfortable at all!
Well, I called João to try and find out if we were in the right place (poor guy, lol...) and he could not find the hostel on the website! but, if he searched on google, he could get to the page anja saw (probably it was taken down from Hostel World but the link was still up) and find the right location, which apparently was not where we were.
We asked some policemen for directions and headed to the newly indicated street...
...and again, nothing! We just could not find it!
We saw a "villa alex" nearby and we decided, ok, let's just try this one, it doesn't matter if it's more expensive or not, it's just one night and we cannot find a hostel here...
we knocked on the door.
nothing.
again...
nothing.
we started screaming "hellooooooooo! is anyone there????"
and nothing.
we found a phone number on a paper near the door, we decided to call them (anja was the victim), and someone on the other side "hello, welcome to Romania! I hope you enjoy your stay, bla bla bla..." and anja managed to explain to the lady we were at the door. But apparently, she did not understand english that well. Anja started screaming "WE ARE AT THE DOOR! DOOOOOR! HERE! DEVA! VILLA ALEX!" but apparently it was not working... and then the lady called her son because he could speak german, and literally put the cellphones (one with anja's call, the other with her son) in front of each other so that anja could speak to him! lol!
Of course, the sound was terrible and Anja was struggling to understand and be understood, but eventually (not sure how) they realized we were there and wanted to stay there for the night. Uff! The man opened us the door (finally!) and we found out we were in a really really nice house, well furnished and with big rooms.
We were able to pay in Forints...we had no Lei because the intention was to drop the bags in the hostel and go to a place to change money. The german girls pay 6 euros each time they use an ATM, and I did not want to use my card in Romania because, well, my bank could think that my card got stolen again, so we had a lot of forints to change. (ah, the lady in Debrecen's train station information office told us that in Deva we would be able to find a place to change money almost everywhere, which proved to be false).
The lady was actually kind enough to cook us dinner (it was already 22h, if I'm not mistaken?)
... of course, we later found out they took way too much money compared to the average price of the food! Oh well, not a big problem...


our exquisite bathroom!

On the next day I went to an atm and took money for all of us, because it was sunday and nothing else was open, and we needed money to pay the entrance in the castle.
Actually, we just saw a van (with ten seats, or something like that) that had a label saying "hunedoara" and we just pointed to the driver, who stopped and allowed us to get in. (definitely a weird system!).
In Hunedoara, we found a taxi and just took it (we were 4 and it cost around one euro to each one, quite cheap indeed) and finally, we were at the castle!





aaaaand...
...it was not that creepy, lol.



The weather was fine, sometimes even sunny, and I believe Romania itself, the surroundings of the castle, were far more scary that the castle itself.


view from the castle... such a chaos! I think "urban planning" hasn't arrived to Romania yet..


the entrance, over a river (like a real castle! hah!)


inside...


Theresa and Anja trying to warm up in the sun... they were so cute, trying to fit into that sun frame!


picture by Anja, while she was in the "warming-up spot"


view from the castle.




detail of the painting covering the main tower.




the sun was almost setting when we decided to have lunch... (a picture by Juliana)


picture by Anja. They had these "pops" of color everywhere... it's strange, you would see old, ruined gray/muddy houses, next to colorful (and I mean reaaaally colorful) facades, popping out from the gloomy atmosphere.


another colorful house, picture by me

After lunch, we decided to walk all the way down to Hunedoara... and on the way there was this cute animation for the people crossing the street, and Juliana filmed it.




...and an ice-cream house. (picture by Juliana)

We then bought some food in a supermarket for the night, and took the bus back to Deva, grabbed our bags from Villa Alex and headed to the bus terminal... we were going to take the "Orange Ways bus", that would take us the whole night from Deva to Budapest... we were searching for the terminal, and searching, and searching... the only thing that said on our ticket was that it was next do mac donalds, but the whole bus terminal was next to it! we asked a guy, that sent us to a building... but the lady in there sent us back to the place near mac donalds... we were getting a little bit desperate when we finally realized that a big orange bus had just stopped next to it, on the street!
Uff!
It was time to go back to Budapest, to rest for 3 days before our second part of the trip...