Stop Motion

Reading Tales

I created this animation in 2010 using recycled cardboard and books.

Storyboard for book animation

A Dawning Deliverance

This stop motion video by Mary Anne Laguerta was about the "badges" we earn from the different pieces of ourself that we discover. These "stains" on our journey build various elements of our identity. You'll see suns in many of my icons which represent my own path the Filipino American Organizations I have become a part of. Once we collect these pieces we then fly off into the would leaving a trail of our own.

The audio from this piece was taken from my recording of an Eskrima performance by a Female Filipino Youth Drill Team from Seattle, Washington.

Open Mic

This satire piece was created in 2010 using recycled materials.

Self Portraits

Multiple Portraits

The assignment for this portrait was to create a composition incorporating multiple self-portraits.

Sundry | Video Self Portrait

The following video is a self-portrait video. I wrote the script based on a questionnaire I asked members of my family to complete about many, many of whom were included in the audio recording.

Script prompts for participants to record

A Portrait of Marina

The following video is a portrait of my mother, Marina Matel. I will share my artist statement soon.

Traditional Hand-Drawn Animation

Traditional Hand-drawn Animation

In the long run, traditional hand-drawn animation did not turn out to be my forte. However, learning the science and process behind it was essential to my growth in the world of animation not mention that I grew a vast amount of respect for animators thereafter.

When I refer to traditional hand-drawn animation I’m referring to the process of drawing a sequence of movements frame by frame. Movements can become exaggerated between frames as you want to increase the speed of motion. Think about a flip book and how flipping through a set of drawings using the corner of a book can start to make a figure move. It is a very precise and tedious process to learn the science of this, but with enough practice I’m sure many of these actions and sequences are committed to an artist’s muscle memory.

Here are some of my early practice pieces.

Character Walk Cycles

Study of Transformation

Our professor introduced us to the charcoal animation work of William Kentridge which I was very inspired by since I too had an affinity for the medium.

Storyboard for One the Run Charcoal Animation

Mixed Media in Video Production

My journey with art began with fine arts studio work so it comes to no surprise that I have such a love for mixed media in video production. I love working with found objects, manipulating elements, and most of all layering. (I can hear my art teacher, Mr. Chris Buhner, emphasizing it now “layers, layers, layers are the key!” Here are a series of art pieces where you’ll see just that. The combination of various techniques and curated stories.

Opening Credits

I created an opening title scene fr a fictional movie using found footage, photographs of textures and digital hand drawn element.

I drew some images on white computer paper and scanned them. I used photoshop to try and cut out the images.

(More media to come!)

Learning 3D Sculpture

I once thought that I wanted to specialize in 3D sculpture. The first 3D object I ever made in Maya was a dragon fly using a mirror technique.

I soon began to love sculpting more realistic looking objects so much so that I going into considered medical animation and looked into the medical illustration program at Johns Hopkins University.

As an undergraduate I was awarded a grant to work on a project about blood cells. Turns out that I didn’t quite have the stomach for the potential gore of medical animations and illustrations.

I also enjoyed learning how to create environments and considered creating landscapes for video games.

Raising Planes

In this video I wanted to create geometric objects that moved to the beat of the different elements of the song.

Uprooting Animation

I created portraits of each member of my family on the surface of each planet.

(More on this soon!)