Filipin@s

Filipin@s: Gini Santos

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When viewing a video lecture for class, there was this one guest speaker that really got me inspired. I couldn’t help but have this feeling that this girl was Pinay.

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I was SO right! This is Gini Santos, animator for Pixar.

Gini grew up on Guam, but was sent by her father to go study in the Philippines. Initially hesitant, the beautiful country, culture and people of the Philippines grew on her. She went to the University of Santo Tomas and took up a Fine Arts Major in advertising. 

She got into computer animation when she was getting her Masters. She sent her reel to Pixar and well… here are some of the films she has worked on: Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille. 

Here are two Pixar shorts she’s worked on as well. She was the supervising animator for “Lifted.”

It’s nice to know that a strong Pinay like Gini is working at Pixar…

Gini Santos , at one time, was a mentor at animationmentor.com (my school). Too bad she is no longer a mentor at my school. It would have been awesome to learn from her… maybe she’ll come back… PLEASE COME BACK!!!

Filipin@s: Jac Lim

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International Working Womyn’s Day was this past Sunday March 8. I feel bad since I missed the event that happened in Seattle =(. 

7be10a0d6fb998a30887330dd2746d1a1Anyway speaking of strong womyn, I thought I would pass along this dope Filipina artist that I recently discovered about a week ago. Her name is Jac Lim, and on her deviantART page says she’s  currently residing San Pablo City. She’s a Game Developer, cosplayer, artist, comic stripper, facepainter, model, graphics designer, senior penciller, video editor. 

I’m not sure if she’s still doing her online web comic strip called “Pilya” which translates to naughty girl in tagalog.  Some of it’s really funny. Here’s two examples:

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Check out some of the other “Pilya” strips here

Love

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I hope Valentine’s Day went well for most. Everyone has posted this video to death, so I think I’ll join in as well. It makes sense for Love Day, plus Bambu is in it…

Love – Greyboy feat Nino Moschella/ dir. Patricio Ginelsa/ 2009

Hit the jump to see the video:

Continue reading →

Inang…

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scan10015It has been a little over a year since my Inang (ilokano for grandma) passed. Her passing obviously saddened me at the time, but since I was so busy with the many things happening in my life at the time, the impact of her loss didn’t hit me until a month or so later, where I almost broke down at an Arts Kollective meeting.

My Inang was responsible for raising me until I was about 4 years old and I visited her in San Diego every summer after that until I was teenager. She had a big hand in making me what I am today. Here’s the thing though and I never noticed this before until just recently, but reflecting back one year later, her passing represented a huge paradigm shift in my life. Ever since my Inang’s passing, here’s a partial list of things I have done/ accomplished

  • 222 Show
  • Had an art piece in a gallery/ exhibition space
  • Established a brand new department at the Wing Luke…Visitor Services
  • Hired 4 new staff
  • Opened a brand new museum
  • Partied in Vegas (or maybe I didn’t….shhh!)
  • Lost a couple of pounds
  • Completed 2 marathons
  • Had 2 art pieces auctioned off
  • New clothes/ New Image
  • Went back to school
  • Started a new blog…=P

Okay so back on topic (I have a hard time doing that sometimes), this is a blog on animation and cartoons and the like, what does my Inang’s passing have to do with cartoons? Well, here is the painting(s) I did for the Sarili Cycle exhibition. It was entitled “Homage to the Fallen” and it was inspired by the passing of my Inang:

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Can you see the cartoon/ animation influence?

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Rest now Inang. I may have just focused on your influence on MY life in the past couple of words, but I hope you also know that you had influence and love for many countless others as well.

I’m starting to ball, so I better end this…

Filipin@s: Floro Dery

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All Transformers geeks should recognize that a large part of the Transformers phenomenon was begun by a Filipino. 

Let me introduce everyone to Floro Dery, a Filipino, who did the original character designs of the G1 Transformers cartoon show:

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Let me not blow this out of proportion now. Floro Dery DID NOT come up with the initial Transformers G1 designs. That credit goes to Japanese illustrator, Shohei Kohara (Transformers did start in Japan after all, look at the original G1 toy boxes for Kohara’s work ). What Floro Dery DID do, was simplify the designs so that Optimus, Bumble Bee, Soundwave, Starscream, Megatron, etc…were able to move fluidly (albeit with limited animation) in the cartoon series. He also designed Hot Rod and some other Transformers from the 1986 animated classic, Transformers: the Movie.

Floro Dery has said that without his designs, Transformers wouldn’t have taken off and would have gone the way of the GoBots (ouch!).

Is that true? Hard to tell, but Transformers fans, a reason for the Transformers success is due to a Filipino!

Plus, without his designs, Megatron would always be sporting some wood…

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