cristiano seixas art

Happyyear 2011

2010-12-30T08:18:00.000-08:00

nextMEDIA Toronto 2010

2010-11-18T19:34:00.000-08:00

It's confirmed! I'm really excited to be a guest speaker at Next Media Toronto!

Seems that Transmedia Storytelling and Character Branding are topics people wanna hear a word or two about. For me, it's more than an honor, it's an opportunity to share the lessons I've learned working with animation, comic books, video, mobile and creating characters for more than a decade. I really hope I can keep doing this for decades to come : ) http://www.nextmediaevents.com/toronto/2010-speakers.php

EVENT AFTER ANOTHER

2010-11-04T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's being pretty hard to update this year. Twitter and Facebook keeps the blog on backstage. Big Jack Studios is really busy lately, and I'm the one going around representing the studio. After going to Mobile Fest in Sao Paulo and Rio Film Festival, I went to Long Beach Comic Con. Right now I'm at American Film Market, promoting Big Jack Studios services and IP's. Hope to see any of you around here.

BANFF NEXT MEDIA CANADA

2010-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Having a great time on Banff, hope to post really good news about this really soon!
http://www.banff2010.com/

MIPTV 2010 - No time for resting

2010-04-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Big Jack Studios presence with Brazilian TV Producers have been a blast! First day went by with good meetings, good ideas and dozens of people getting to know Big Jack IPs.
Brazilian main web site news about advertising just listed us within the Brazilian mission to MIPTV on France: http://www.mmonline.com.br/noticias.mm?url=Brazilian_TV_Producers_vai_ao_MIPTV_2010
I just hope all the week went by like this.

More about MIPTV at:
http://www.mipworld.com/en/miptv/

Big Jack Costume Party 2010 First Batch of clicks

2010-03-09T04:52:00.000-08:00

The party was insane and amazingly fun ;)
Here are the first batch of awesome pictures done by professional photographer Weber Pádua and Jean Paulo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47358227@N07/sets/

Random Oldies

2010-03-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

I've posted some random stuff from my portfolio from a couple of years ago @ Flickr and @ IdeaFixa
in case you guys want to take a look:
http://www.ideafixa.com/my/user/cristianoseixas/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47358227@N07/?saved=1

Big Jack Studios Costume Party next Saturday!

2010-02-28T16:26:00.001-08:00

For those who would like to visit my hometown, that's the best chance EVER: we are throwing a kick ass costume party on March 6th. Djs, band and a lot of crazy artists on weird costumes.
Get your credit card, buy the cheapest plane ticket you can get your hands on and come!

Sketchbook

2010-02-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

I know, I know...no posts for a long time. But I've been sketching, at least. Anyway, here is a link for some old sketches I've gathered: www.flickr.com/photos/47358227@N07/
New stuff soon, I promise.
And keep me posted what you guys have been drawing out there!

Bat pastels

2008-11-23T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hey, Batman is turning 70 next year.Some folks in my hometown is looking for an exhibition about him. This is a pastel study I did last week. I'm looking forward to improve on the city.

Two Shots low res render

2008-10-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

I hope these two scenes, some steps before the final render (even the spray can label changed) can get you guys excited about the short itself. The audio is also not the final one I used.

Story board for the short

2008-10-01T11:36:00.001-07:00

This is the main images I used as a guideline to animate my short in 3D. I always like to compare the animatics and final animation in Feature Film, I will post my animation asap as well, go figure someone wants to do the same for my piece.

Pic from AI Exhibition

2008-09-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I like something in this pic. I took it when some of my work was being show at the Gallery of the Art Institute of California - San Francisco, a while back

Homage

2008-08-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

My friend and great graphic designer Felipe Hauck saw the short and did this really nice sketch of his view of a cockroach!

Making of book

2008-06-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Guys, I'm pretty happy with the copy of The Making Of book of the short. This is a double page spread after the cover (the cover is the same image of the poster and the DVD cover ;-) ). The book is just 36 pages but, if I knew the print quality would be soooo good, I would have increased the page numbers...
I will post the PDF for you guys to let me know if you like the book or not.

PREMIERE OF THE SHORT THIS FRIDAY

2008-05-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Yep, I can't believe the short's "premiere" is this Friday, May 30th already.
Here's a bit of the Festival's info (hope to see you there - it's free):

FILMS FROM SAN FRAN STUDENTS.

Art Institute of California - Second Annual Animation Festival

San Francisco, California, USA

May 30, 2008

The Art Institute of California -- San Francisco announces the Second Annual Animation Festival, scheduled for Friday, May 30, 2008 from 7-8 p.m. at the Herbst Theater located at 401 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, California, USA. This entertaining hour-long program will showcase The Art Institute's best animated works by students, alumni and faculty. The festival is open to the public and there is no charge to attend. Information: www.artinstitutes.edu.

The festival will feature independent student animated productions in a variety of genres, including 2D animation, 3D animation, motion graphics, stop motion animation and mixed media. This year's festival will premiere short films by the first graduating class of the Master of Fine Arts in Computer Animation program. The thesis films include PECK SUPPORT by Aron J. Shay, IS THAT ALL THERE IS? by Cristiano Seixas and MIDNIGHT SNACK by Jacqualine Adelmeyer.

Animated short IS THAT ALL THERE IS? tells the tale of two cockroach buddies who survive a catastrophic explosion. One experiences an existentialist crisis, while the other tries to find a way out of their destroyed world. Seixas moved to San Francisco from Brazil to further his studies in computer animation. In Brazil, he worked for more than 15 years in the animation, graphic design and comic book fields, and also taught visual storytelling at Brazilian universities. He is currently the creative director of Big Jack Studios with offices in Brazil and San Francisco, while simultaneously completing his M.F.A degree in Computer Animation.

For more information about the festival contact Valerie Mih, Animation

Festival Coordinator, at 510-219-1584 or valmih@gmail.com.

Guys, there's way more cool stuff not listed here, ok?
It's almost 20 shorts being screened this Friday!

THE POSTER

2008-05-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

This is the poster/DVD cover of the short. That's it. The short is done! A lot of things could be different in it but some stuff ended up better than I previously planed, so, I'm kind of happy with it :-)

Final look

2008-05-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

That's it guys, That's the final look of the main character in the short. I hope you like it. Let me know.

Matte painting

2008-04-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well, coming back with a matte painting that I'm doing for one of the shots. This gotta be done this weekend. 99% photoshop and tablet. Let me know what you guys think. (this is one quarter of the image, it's a quite large piece)

First shot!

2008-03-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

The shortest shot of this short (sorry for this...) is done! Finally I wrapped up one. I just need to do a high res render (I just have this resolution you see right now. But I can move to all the other shots :-)

Now I'm feeling Zombified

2008-03-09T20:58:00.001-07:00

This is actually the piece I like the most from the last couple of months. I got this idea from a picture David Charles took from me and my friend Hauck. David called it "zombiefied" and I HAD to do something about it. Then I got my color pastels and did a huge drawing over a black color plus paper.

Job Done Now Chill

2008-03-09T20:39:00.001-07:00

"Job done, now chill" was done in a couple of hours, at my friend's house, here in San Francisco. I used black and white pastels/charcoal on a gray color plus paper. I like the mood I got in the final piece.

Almost there for the first render!

2008-03-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

Hi friends. I'm kind of celebrating the end of my lighting and texturing set up for the first scene. yep, ready or not, here I go. The animation is getting there and I got to move on to all the next shots. So, now I just need to set-up everything right to render my first shot! Hehehe, God knows how long this will take. I will keep you guys posted :-)

Wonder Con 2008

2008-03-03T22:39:00.000-08:00

This is graphic designer/illustrator Hauck, me and Gumby working hard @ San Francisco's Wonder Con 2008. Three nice days in the Moscone Center. While San Diego Comic Con is crazy and crowded, Wonder Con is smooth and nice to walk around and talk with artists and other professionals from Comic Books/Illustration/Graphic arts field.

Acrylics

2008-02-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

As I said, I will post some drawings and paintings I did while not working on Maya. Well, after looong years, this was my first attempt back to acrylics on canvas. I changed the face of my friend, as we were imagining Fidel taken some time off around San Francisco.

Having fun

2008-02-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

I have to admit: I had a lot of FUN trying these renders. So much that I did this shot of both cockroaches flying around, like buddies hanging around and chatting. It's a shame there's no scene where both of the characters fly. So, this is just for the fun of it :-)

Different angles and some retouching

2008-02-01T22:17:00.000-08:00

For Karin, our Texturing and Lighting instructor, we have to deliver 8 renders that get the closest possible of the final image we want for our shorts. Well, that was a great opportunity to improve on the main shots. I'm pretty happy with what I got on this scene. These are the two renders I like the most so far. I hope I can move to texturing and lighting the other shots really soon.

I know I know

2008-02-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

I know I know, this is just some XRay effect that I got from Maya and then just color balanced it on Photoshop. Yep, pretty much. But I still think it's a cool image of the character ;-)

Finally a frame

2008-01-30T08:03:00.000-08:00

After more than a month without any posts, now I'm ready to post new material. Actually there's some illustrations and sketches I really want to post. Let's see when. Anyway, this is the latest test render I did for the main scene of the short. Can you guys let me know what do you think?

KIND OF TEASER IMAGE

2007-12-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Now that the animation part had finally started, I got excited about trying to test the characters in a lot of different poses. One of them I really liked the angle, I rendered it and, with the render, I tried some textures and color balance, looking for the final look for the short. I came up with this image. So, I couldn't help myself and do something else with it, like this "teaser postcard" kind of image, I hope you guys like it because I'm heading this way :-)

some drawings

2007-12-05T18:40:00.001-08:00

I know that the updates about my short should come first.
Anyway, I did some drawings and paintings this quarter (hey, I've been far away from any canvas for more than a decade!) so, it was about time to move my a%^ and get back to the drawing board (or canvas, if you will...). So, I took a crap picture of these two drawings but I will take good pictures of the paintings in a few days. The first drawing was done with brush and ink, these "bad guys" are some of my best friends in town, getting ready to watcfh some Wrestling. The other one, a traditional self-portrait study in pencils, have a cameo of my felow friend that will be by my side at least another half an year.

...and also the second cockroach

2007-11-14T16:42:00.001-08:00

I've started the blend shapes of the second cockroach as well.
This is the start point for the facial expressions I will built for him.

Back to blogging

2007-11-14T16:38:00.000-08:00

after a long break of updates, let's get this rolling again. Now that most of the models are ready for unwrapping and texturing, I've started to rig the main characters. The main cockroach is almost done, of course, still some bugs with the rig to fix and a lot of facial expressions to be built...

A book for the break

2007-09-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Hey, now that I will have a week break.
It's time for books ;-)

Oh yeah, a render to make my day

2007-09-13T20:02:00.001-07:00

Today was really full of tests and renders. Andrew Klein's class today was good enough to lead the shading network of my main character'face and eyes to the point I'm happy with. Some minor adjustments will be made in the future. But now I'm moving to the rest of his body, let's see what lies ahead on that!

Evil cockroach

2007-09-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Dozens of render tests also end up with some cool stuff as well.
This character doesn't act like a bad boy anytime in the short, so, I don't think you guys will see this facial expression anytime in future.
(besides having lipstick on...ops)

Enough of eyes (for now)

2007-09-13T19:57:00.001-07:00

I know, I know, you guys can't stand anymore these Cockroach's eyes posts. But this is what I've got so far, and I'm moving on to the body now.

Color key in pastels

2007-09-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

I'm finally having the opportunity to play with some oil pastels, PIXAR artists do that all the time for pre production and creating color keys, you can see in their "making of" books all the time. I was dying to try some of it. Billy Burger is giving me some tips (and lending me some pastels as well :-) ) and these are the first two try-outs. One for the first shot and the second for the main shot of the short.

Aerosol can

2007-09-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Now I also have the aerosol can (the "bug killer") coming along. Thanks again for Andrew and Cris Bolson for helping me making this really works.

Better eyes

2007-09-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

After some advices from Andrew, I hope I'd made some improvement in the eyes.
More next week!

global illumination, hdri and other tests

2007-09-07T18:20:00.001-07:00

This week we had the opportunity to try some new render techniques at Andrew Klein's class. I'm still having fun trying some different settings and rendering frames just to see which one comes closer to what I think about the short animation looks. It looks like Image Based Lighting (HDRI) it's the way to go! All these 4 images are rendered with this technique, some of them with directional light in it as well.

The eyes! The eyes! Don't look into the eyes!

2007-09-06T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well, here it goes my attempt to have the eyes within the eyes. I'm very happy to see it going to the right direction. What about you guys?

Sardine Can

2007-08-30T17:24:00.001-07:00

This is the sardine can so far, I hope I can test the models together in a pre viz of the first scene in a few weeks.

Just for the fun of it

2007-08-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

The main cockroach now is on the rigging and texturing stage (finally!). Now that I'm putting the pipes in the rigth place, we also have the sardine can unwrapped and on the texturing stage (no rigging on this one ;-) ). Next step is the insecticide aerosol can (see reference picture below). These renders are posted here just for the fun of it and they are worthless. Check the wood roach or the "deep of the sea for too long" sardine can.

Pipes

2007-08-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Me and Jackie found the perfect "model" for the pipes underneath a sink (the main setting of my short). We were walking at Pacific Beach in San Diego when I saw it. This reference is the basis for the modeling above. More news about that coming soon.

Unwrapping starts

2007-08-23T18:40:00.001-07:00

Finally I've started to unwrap the UVs of the first Cockroach. Now that I got how this part works (kind of....) things will speed up on that front.

Comparing Sizes!

2007-08-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

Guys, can you let me know which size you like more between the cockroach and the fishbone?
It's because I want the cockroach to be a little cartoony too, and I think a little bigger will be better.
What do you think?

Fishbone!!!!!

2007-08-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

I would never thought that extruding and extruding and extruding to make my new fishbone would take that much work. Again many thanks to my friend Cris Bolson, almost a new teacher I have now :-) , he also showed me how Silo 3D is a really cool modeling software.

New Head!!!

2007-08-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

Finally the head is starting to suit the project! After Andrew Klein's class, some modifications still have to be made, but it's 90% there.

New sequence for the animatic

2007-08-01T21:16:00.001-07:00

I did a new sequence for the animatic to a presentation we had to do today, I kind of liked it, that's why they are, obviously, here. I studying this big shift of emotion that happens in this part of the short.

2007-08-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

First ever

2007-07-26T15:42:00.001-07:00

Before it's too late...I'm posting the first character concept I inked for this project. Although the idea has evolved a lot, I'm still pursuing this high contrast for the final look of the animation. I think it's going to be fun to compare the final renders with these first images.

the front view

2007-07-26T15:24:00.001-07:00

Although we didn't follow this drawing by heart, this is the basis for the new take I did on the main character. A more realistic body but still a pretty cartoony face.

completely new cockroach

2007-07-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

A totally new model is here. My friend Cris Bolson showed me a little of Silo software and helped me out to make an all quad model. It's so much better and closer to what I want. Let's hope that this is the one that I will rigg!

Phil Tippett and his studio

2007-07-21T20:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend, the animator Glenn, and some of his Animation Mentor friends, I could tag along with them and visit Tippett studio. It was a wonderful afternoon and I got surprised at how the studio is way bigger than I've thought. Actually, if you check Phil Tippett on iMdb, you can see how long and bulk his work for movies is.

2007-07-21T20:07:00.001-07:00

Besides the implosion site, I "visited" two building basements and took some pictures as well. Now I have a great number of visual references to help me out not only modeling the environment, but also to give the mood of it.

references

2007-07-21T20:01:00.001-07:00

This week I was very fortunate. One of the things: I had the opportunity to see a building implosion site. It's just on Market St., a few blocks before the Art Institute. I took lots of pictures to help as visual reference for my short. I also started to learn how to use ZBrush and went to visit Tippett Studio, more about that in another post!

pipeline for modeling and texturing this quarter

2007-07-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

if I accomplish that at Andrew Klein's class, I will be in heaven:

Week 2 – start the new cockroach models

Week 3 – Refine new model body and start the head

Week 4 – Prepare new textures, bumps, replacement maps

Week 5 – Siggraph and continue applying the textures

Week 6 – Re-check the final model and all the layered shaders

Week 7 – Character faces built and refinements with Z-Brush

Week 8 – Both Final characters finished

Week 9 – Start re-modeling the main environment and objects

Week 10 – Refining environment Refining objects and apply specific shaders

Week 11 – Putting all I have so far in place and apply environment lighting

Render passes tests for final project

Volt with charcoal

2007-07-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

talking about charcoal...I've got so excited at the charcoal classes with models that I've started to draw quick skecthes of my other characters, like this " High Voltage", he is a character I've created like 11 years ago and still LOVE to draw him whenever I can.

Charcoal for a change

2007-07-10T12:08:00.001-07:00

This is a study I did at Prof. Catherine Fippo's class. The model stroke a pose and I transformed him in a cockroach. Charcoal rules (at least when you don't need all that detail anyway)!

the rigth colors made all the difference in the world

2007-07-10T12:04:00.001-07:00

This illustration I did a couple of months ago to give myself a better idea of what I wanted for the short. Actually, it's pretty close to the kind of color, mood and composition I want. The thing now is translate that to the 3D world!

wacom on photoshop over and over

2007-07-10T12:00:00.001-07:00

This is a quick color key sample I did for the first scene, thinking about flat space and contrast between cool and warm colors, although I don't want the short to look that saturated.

Flat and limited space

2007-07-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Other thing I'm looking for is using everything I've learned from Prof. Valerie Mih and Richard Walsh about Visual Story. So, I'm looking for the camera angles that tells the story best. For the first scene I will look forward to use a lot of "flat space" and some "limited space" as well. That's why I've rendered this frame like this.

2007-07-10T11:47:00.001-07:00

Talking about Neil Miller, finally I've got my hands on "the ball" and did some HDRI test with my classmates in front of the school building. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Caricature using just the mouse

2007-07-10T11:45:00.001-07:00

I hope Neil Miller doesn't mind to post his caricature on my blog...
(for those who don't know, he is a great lighting and texturing teacher here at Art Institute)

Warm lights as well...

2007-07-10T11:42:00.001-07:00

I've applied some warm lights to this part of the scene, creating more focus to the main character. But I still have a way to go, from the fish modelling, to the bump maps to shadows...

Cool ligths

2007-07-10T11:40:00.001-07:00

Now it's getting closer to what I want, I'm starting to get happy with the lights. the cigarette at the back it's the model I'm happy the most so far.

2007-07-10T11:37:00.001-07:00

Finally I did all the main models for the short, applied basic texture and started to get the felling on how this is developing for the first scene. Anyway, now I have to refine everything, from modelling to texturing, and apply good lights.

color key collage

2007-07-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

this is a collage I did to start getting the idea of the kind of color and mood I want for the short, let's see how it develops...

First 3D model

2007-05-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

I know that our first 3D model we should keep to ourselves, but this Big Jack Toy I really want to improve it more sometime in the future. It would amazing to have the studio logo as a kind of funky doll somewhere in the future.

3D first model

2007-05-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is my first try on modeling the main cockroach for the Thesis project.
Although I liked some of it, I know it won't work...
I need a better way to show facial expressions and the head should be even less realistic than that.

first sketch

2007-05-02T16:46:00.000-07:00

This was the first sketch I did for the main character of my Thesis short. As you guys will notice, this will change a lot ;-)

starting it

2007-05-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Well, after some years delaying this step, my Masters teacher, Diane Shapiro motivated the class to start a blog. So, this is my first post. The idea is to post the development of my thesis until its completion and I really hope it works. More than that, I will post some of my personal work from time to time. I hope that I can meet some new motivated people at the art and entertainment industry besides some cool people I know from Deviantart or MySpace or from some other links.
Exchanging ideas and experience is never enough.