Animation Portfolio

Medium: Storyboard Pro

Medium: Blender

Medium: Blender

Final Medium: Toonboom Harmony

Animatic Medium: Story Board Pro

Medium: Adobe Photoshop, Storyboard Pro

Artist Statement:

This animatic is based on memories of my childhood and the experiences I had with the treehouse my father built for my siblings and I. I wanted to show how my hispanic roots my lens of the world, so I chose to use Latin music and Spanish voice acting. 

This was the Final for my Storyboarding class at MECA&D with Adam Fisher. 02

Medium: Adobe Illustrator, Toon Boom, Adobe Premiere

"An Honorable Death: Ixtli in Yollotl" is my final project for my Research and Inquiry class about the symbolic body.

Artist Statement:

I am a Chicano artist interested in representing people of color in digital media. My body of work at MECA&D is meant to help me explore my identity. I grew up disconnected from my heritage because of the low representation of Mexicans in the United States. Being called “inauthentic” by other Hispanics made me avoid calling myself a person of color for the majority of my life until now. I desire for cultural connections as I feel isolated from my family tree as they reside in central Mexico while I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. I yearn to learn more about myself so I turn to the art of Pre-Colonial Mesoamericans. I want to appreciate and be devoted to my beliefs in the way my ancestors were. It must state however that the genocide, whitewashing, defacing, and destruction that the Europeans brought to North America leaves us with a scattered image of what Precolonial life most accurately represented. It is through the descendants and historians of the current Mayan people that can investigate and remember their ancestors.

In An honorable death: Ixtli in Yolltl, I decided to animate a scene depicting a person being sacrificed to continue the cycle of life. I choose to depict a heart sacrifice as they are the most well-known rituals that only a select group of Mesoamericans performed. I wanted to show that sacrifices were not performed because the Mayans were “violent” or “primitive” as Europeans considered them, they were, and still are, beautiful artisans who created stone reliefs, murals, and temples all in line with their core, religious beliefs. My goal is for viewers to walk away understanding that the Mayans were devoted religious people who saw death as a necessary, and important part of the cycle of life.

The Mayans believed in an afterlife that was not based on eternal happiness or eternal suffering. The cycle of life was beautiful to them, the Mayan created various symbols and myths for rebirth, reincarnation, the underworld, and the heavens. The Mayan title of my animation, An honorable death: Ixtli in Yolltl, translates to “an enlightened mind, to be human, the heart of god.” The phrase was used commonly to describe those who sacrificed themselves and currently describes those who are enlightened. Their sacrificial temples were vibrantly colored, and detailed with stone sculptures and murals of myths and battles, something that influenced my color choice in this piece. 

Several symbols for the afterlife which I reflect on in my animation come from the Mayan story of creation, the Popol Vuh. At the opening of my animation, I feature the sun god Tohil being overcome by the moon goddess. The sun's human face represents the central region where the Mayan lived as well as the heavens and earth. The god, Sovereign Plumed Serpent is mentioned in that story as the one to create humans and is the figure seen on the temple in my animation. Stone statues of this god can be found in temples associated with the cycle of life and the afterlife. The maize in my animation was an important agricultural food that Mesoamericans depended on and was also a symbol of rebirth. The temples themselves were seen as a step ladder towards the celestial world, and with additional help from fire, the smoke of bodies could travel to the sky. At the climax of my animation, I depict a sacrificed body being burned so the spirit can reach heaven. Heaven was a temporary location for the soul, soon after the spirit would leave and go back to the underworld to serve the gods all over again. 

For An honorable death: Ixtli in Yolltl and my research paper, HOW PRE-COLONIAL MAYANS PERCEIVED THEIR BODIES CHANGING AFTER DEATH, I conducted a survey at MECA&D. This survey helped identify if North Americans view death in a new or similar manner. Quotes discussing an individual's perception of “an honorable death” are placed at the end of the animation to show how we, as humans, still crave to have a purpose up past our deaths. 

Audio Credit:

Mayan Ritual Call by Marcus Viana

Ringing Sound by Hykenfreak on freesound.org

Heartbeat sound by klankbeeld on freesound.org

Rumbling sound by unfa on freesound.org

Lit match by SavReese on freesound.org

Fire sound by foleyhaven on freesound.org

Medium: Stop Motion iOS app, tiger lego kinetc toy.

This animation was my final for my 4D: Space and Temporality animation section.

Medium: Adobe Photoshop, Toon Boom Harmony

Audio Credit: John Mulaney New in Town 2012

This animation was my final for my first year animation class.Each scene was originaly composed and edited in Adobe Photoshop, each specific object was then animated within Toon Boom. This project was done to demonstrate the 12 principles of animation and show knowledge of the tools within TB.

Medium: Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop

This character animation was created to demonstrate an understanding of the tools in Adobe After Effects and how they can be used to make animated scenes that use scale, rotation, and skew manipulation. Each scene was originaly composed and edited in Adobe Photoshop, each specific object was then animated within AE. This poem was chosen for it's description of the struggle for identity in Chicano people.