The Destroyed Room + The Blackjaw + Ulises Lima

The new year has been here for only 10 days but it somehow feels we've been in it forever.

It's not that I have nostalgia for 2010 (I usually have it even for 4 hours ago), but I still have a lot of things from last year I want to post about. It's just am not a very good blogger.

I'll start with the poster I did during Christmas for The Destroyed Room who are soon touring Spain and wanted something for their next gig in Madrid. I was inspired from a picture I took many years ago of a demolished house in the Les Corts district in Barcelona. It's quite amazing the contrast between the high rise office buildings in Diagonal and the single story house bits in the streets behind. I believe they could be refurbished into great studios but instead they're being knocked down. Easy and cheap. Some are are a hundred years old...

Oblivion

This post is to resume blog activity again after a couple of hectic months, I've got a few things I've been waiting to show around – not intentionally – so I'm glad to do it now finally.

First, the project I was working on this summer, an animated music video for The Heavenly Spheres who kindly offered me to pick up one of the songs of their upcoming album and get all creative with it. Oblivion was the chosen one.

For me this was a perfect excuse to get back to animating and trying out a few ideas I was playing with since the times I was doing traditional animation. That is doing something simple, a feasible one man job that wouldn't end up in countless days drawing 30 full animation seconds, considering that the track is more than 4 minutes long.

The idea was to do something atmospheric so more than basing on the lyrics I spent a few days focusing on the melody and tone and came up with the idea of the tree changing back in time through the seasons, making it dreamy like the song. The hand drawn animated bits were produced during my days in Formentera and then put it all together with After Effects once back in London. It was a great chance for me to getting into this software, it's truly truly easy to understand and use so thanks to those who designed it.

For now the only way you can watch the video is downloading it HERE at least until the band uploads it on you tube when the album hits out. Be patient and you'll enjoy a hi-res version of it. Hope you like it.

PS. Was lucky enough to enjoy The National play last night in the Brixton Academy. Really enjoyed it, thanks to my friends Josep and Marta who kindly invited me.

http://www.nme.com/news/the-national--5/54060

The Eastern Winds - Sketches

I thought would be a shame not to publish some of the (I insist) almost 50 sketches I did for The Eastern Winds EP. Even though most of them are just little more than scribbles it takes a while to think of something worth making those loose lines.

The first ideas to play with at the very beginning were roads and relationships; deriving, at some moment, to rain, woods, time machines (when I took quite literal) and finally pencil sharpeners.

It's interesting to see how behind this apparently random brainstorming something was slowly taking shape. I'm happy to see we finally came up with the right covers.

The Eastern Winds

Just two weeks after Gomez passed away we already have a new golden retriever puppy, this time slightly whiter which is good to differentiate him. Haven't decided his name yet but we're considering something related to The Addams Family.

Back on the Market Estate days I was also working on The Destroyed Room's new EP album cover. With few themes such as rain, roads, or a red pencil sharpener I almost did 50 sketches (one of them even with a DeLorean time machine). Finally the band decided The Eastern Winds should have two different covers so this is the final result.

Next July they'll be supporting band the The Get Up Kids gig in Barcelona. Congratulations!
http://www.myspace.com/thedestroyedroom