Hell yeah! Sick and Twisted

From the Sketchbook

I opened a new section in my site "From the Sketchbook". Just drawings took directly from my personal sketchbook. Check out the section here!
The quality isn't very good, I have to get a scanner. I'll try to keep it updated!

Bogotá Vignettes #3

[3]

Bogotá Vignettes #2

[2]

Him: With that dress you look like a whore
Her: Sorry, I didn't know that, I take it off right now
Him: I didn't say take it off

New postcard

New postcard artwork from www.miguelotalora.com!

Bogotá Vignettes

New comic vignettes about little chats.

And my attempt of translation above:
Him: And there she was, seductive as only a whore can be...
Her: So you like whores
Him: I didn't say that...
Her: You'd like me to be a whore
Him: I didn't say that either
Her: One day, I'll be a whore
Him: Then, that day, I'll love you
Her: That day you'll have no money to pay me
Him: And that's why I'll love you

Santa Claus is comin' to town

He's making a list and checking it twice. Hell yeah, Santa is comin' to town! New artwork for my website's x-mas postcard (the postcard is available to purchase, send me a message if you like what you see).

Nest at man

For the Guard Dog Global Animation Jam (Oscar winner Bill Plymton's Guard Dog), I got the scene 29: "nest at (yelling) man". Here, the art of my scene. The full jam will be available very soon.

I ♥ hot dog

 New artwork as homage to one of the best invents ever. Simple and terrific!

O-ink #3

The third illustration for the series O-ink.

A lil' Patrón portrait!

A little self-portrait that I made for the credits of the Guard Dog - Global Animation Jam.

The Bet won the SHORTSNONSTOP Jury Prize

And the bullet is going around, this time it has hit Canada. The Bet got the Jury Prize at the Canadian Film Centre’s worldwide short film festival SHORTSNONSTOP, presented by TELUS.
Check it out!

CORTO+MOSCA (Best Animation) - The Bet

And the bullet went to the beautiful city of Manizalez to the Short Film Festival of Manizales and got the first prize in the category: Best National Animation (the award: corto+mosca national animation).
Check it out on the official festival website!

/////cinco

A new line in my bio-filmograhy and kinda second part of Bogotá Bang Bang, /////cinco (/////five) is my one minute try to learn a bit about film-making and my very first live-action short film. /////cinco is a POV story about the criminal behavior.
The extreme low bugdet film was shot in the fourth floor of my friend's house (Klara Forero), a space full of pieces of Bogotá.

Director: Miguel Otálora
Assistant director: Nazly López
Camera: Javier Hernández
Sound: Andrés Montaña
With the collaboration of: Natalia Chinchilla, Diego Peñuela, Nicolas Cardenas and Oscar González
Special thanks to: Klara Forero and her family, Imaginaton 2010 and Congofilms.

I also rehearsed the only character. The film isn't available online right now, but if you are interested in take a look of it, write me an e-mail and I'll send you a private link. Thank you! I'll keep trying!

New artwork for FANTASY ★ LIFE

For the new documentary of the great director Nazly Lopez: FANTASY ★ LIFE, I had the pleasure to make the poster and the graphic design of the film. The documentary tells the story of Dainier, a young magician who survives with his magic in the mystical Cuba.

News!

It has been a long time without news.
Well:

The Bet: 
Winner Best Animation - UFRAME International Academic Video Festival, Spain
Top 10 Finalist - SHORTSNONSTOP, Canada (winner is gonna be announced soon)
Top 5 Finalist - CIUDAD LUNA Independent Film Festival, Colombia
Official Selection - FIA'01 International Festival of Animation, Uruguay

Also, our bullet was in an short film expo at the beautiful city of Cartagena (Colombia) in the Short Film Festival LUMIÈRE 2010.

Histoires du Sacré-Coeur:
Official Selection - EXPOTOONS 2010

100 Carteles (100 Posters)

Going back a little bit, I found the expo 100 Carteles (100 Posters), a collection of hundred cultural posters in Bogotá (1986 - 2006). The expo took place the last year and two of my posters got in. Also, there are five of my posters through the full research (it counts with over 400 posters).

The Bet in the BANG-AWARDS

The International BANG-AWARDS is a film animation contest in Portugal. BANG has a disclosure and a display of deep relevance in the world and The Bet is in it. Right now, BANG is in online voting time until december 1st.
Here, the official video player from the BANG website.

An interview with Miguel Otálora

The site www.animadorescolombianos.com posted an interview with me. A little of this and that.
The interview is available here!

The Bet. 2nd Place PIGZAR Animation Contest

And my bullet got the 2nd place (professional category) in the Pigzar Animation Contest made in Colombia (www.pigzar.com). Thanks to the friends from Pigzar. This is the first achievement that The Bet got in home.

The Bet in Spike and Mike's New Sick and Twisted Animation Festival

Now it is official, the bullet of The Bet is around the globe in the Spike and Mike's New Sick and Twsited Animation Festival. Check it out the site if you want to know the upcoming shows: http://spikeandmike.com/sitepages/festival.php

The Bet on Aniboom's Youtube channel

I was lucky that the site Aniboom posted The Bet on its Youtube Channel.
Check it out!

The Bet in Animacursed (Brazil)

The Bet: Official Selection Animacursed - International Festival of Horror Animation

Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
2010, September 8 to 12 (September 7 is the festival openning)
CCJF - Centro Cultural Justiça Federal

São Paulo - Brazil
2010, September 17 to 23
Reserva Cultural

www.animaldicoados.com

Repulsive

Officially: THE BET > extremely repulsive...
Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation® presents:
REPULSIVE ::: New uncesored collection DVD (18+) with the most repulsive animation, introducing THE BET by Miguel Otálora.
DVD available to purchase on: San Diego Comic Con 2010 (booth #1536) or Spike and Mike's online store (www.spikeandmike.com).

 

 

Immer die Ionna - Best direction / best sound design

I´m happy to let you know that the documentary Immer die Ionna (where I had the pleasure to participate as animator beside my friend Juan Arenas) got the best direction and the best sound awards in the Festival El Espejo, an international short film festival from Colombia.
Congratulations to Nazly and all her crew.

Onehugeeye

The Bet this week on onehugeeye, a meeting point for inspiring character animation.
Check it out!

animadorescolombianos.com

This week, The Bet got posted on animadorescolombianos.com, a blog and website with animation news from Colombia. Check it out!

TBCB

New illustration for the Fan Club of the colombian rock band The Black Cat Bone.

 

Bogotá Bang Bang

Robotsoda ::: Otálora

Good luck Paula!
Original (right): Juan Arenas A.K.A. Robotsoda
Version (left): Miguel Otálora

The Bet on curiousbrain.com

The Bet got posted on www.thecuriousbrain.com, one of the most important blogs about art, animation and design. The blog is also ranked in the list of the top250 blogs.
Here!, the link to the post.

Animation demo reel

Here you have it, my animation demo reel!

Big Put*s

Some new character sketches.

And the house was in flames...

New artwork while the house is in flames!

Mr. M

This was the very first version of the character that I used for my cut-out animation series Histoires du Sacré-Cœur. The first four episodes will be officially released on May 15th.

The Bet

Finally, The Bet. Enjoy it!



An out of control bullet is the result of a bet in a small dive bar. The Bet is an absurd journey of blood and black humor that will end in the same place where it shouldn't have started.

Direction, animation and digital color paint: Miguel Otálora
Presented by: Vancouver Film School
Original soundtrack: Solo Etra 
Sound design: Jacob Kinch

Check it out on the Vimeo channel here!

Histoires du Sacré-Cœur

My first flash short film Histoires du Sacré-Cœur. A puppet cut-out animation to be realeased officially on May 15th.

From Colombia with love

Courtesy of my good friend Clara from Colombia, I got this picture of a sculpture of my design. It is located in the International Centre in Bogotá. Thank you K!

YJ King

New very rough character design called YJ King, a Colombian dude who manages the Salsa band Borojo.

o-ink #2

A new o-ink artwork.

Madame Alexander

Once I was walking trough China Town (Vancouver) when I found a creepy McDonald's toy wearing a Mickey Mouse costume. Later on, I found that Alexander (as the back of the toy says) is part of a big collection of Alexanders known as Madame Alexander Dolls (www.madamealexander.com). This illustration is my personal version of the Madame Alexander.

And as well, one image that I took of Alexander, just for you can figure out how creepy is this guy.

 

Huevos n' Niche

Those characters were the very first sketch of the ones included in my most recent 2D film The Bet. At the end, I used a very different vesion of them. The Bet will be released officially and showing online on May 1st, 2010.

Politically incorrect

I've been working on a couple of characters like the one above. This is one of the sketches in color. I'm thinking in animate them in a sorth film with this kind of  look.

o-ink #1

This is an illustration from the my new series o-ink. I'll post more of those ones pretty soon!

Don Puerco

Don Puerco, a bad-ass southamerican wrestler!

Vimeo channel

Recently I got a Vimeo channel to upload the videos that I've made. Check it out in this link!

El patrón

This is an illustration that I made for myself. It is a kind of personal mark and I love it so much. Soon, I'll be selling t-shirts with this chubby friend!

Jangala

This poster was for a party in Bogotá made in 2009. I just took cutouts from old magazines and mixed them to create this character. It is different from the rest of my poster designs and it had to be done really rush, but I had a lot of fun doing it, so, I decided to post it. By the way, I'll post the full collection of my posters very soon, so, come take a look from time to time. Regards!

FITB 2010

For the festival I also made 3 short films.
Illustration and design by Me; animation by Juan Arenas; music by Solo Etra.

If you want to see the other 2 short films, you can visit my vimeo channel as well.

FITB 2010

This is my most recent poster. I made it for the Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá 2010. This was inspired for Fanny Mickey, the founder of this teather festival that died in 2009. She was a very representative character of colombian culture and for the festival, the organization released a design contest in hommage to Fanny that I won (yeah!). My design is now the image of the festival and it is around all around Bogotá (Colombia), everywhere. Here, the link to the festival, and of course: my design!.

Guerrilleros

This poster design made in 2008 is for the documentary Guerrilleros. It is about the travel for all Sierra Maestra (Cuba) of a family of artist involved in the circus. The journey is a confrontation against their own ideals.
Production by Carlos Rodríguez; direction by Nazly López; poster by Me.

El deseo

This poster made in 2006 is for the documentary El deseo. The story is developed in Santa Cruz del Norte (Cuba), where the bureaucracy coexists besides the desires of the stylist from the small salon El Jardín.
Production by Anne Katrine Nibroe-Nielsen; direction by Nazly López; poster by Me.

Oriente

This poster design is for the documentary Oriente. The documentary is a portrait of Cuba, trough the story of the characters of the clown company Guerrilleros. Their performance is a ritual playing straight to the east (english translation for the spanish word Oriente), place where the sun rises.

Production by Guasavita Films; direction by Nazly López; poster by Me.

Immer die Ionna

Animation short made in 2009 and included in the documentary Immer die Ionna, a story about a waitress caught between Germany and Greece.
Production by Nazly López, Greda Sieber and Filmakademie; animation short: illustration and direction by Me, animation by Juan Arenas; poster by Me.
The full documentary is now playing in different festivals and it'll be soon online.

Pucha

This poster design that I made in 2007 is for the documentary Pucha. Rogelia, also known as Pucha, is a revolutionary old woman that built her small wooden rustic house in the heart of the Sierra Maestra (Cuba). Her legacy didn't reach her next generation when her daughter and her granddaughter left Cuba and started a life in Miami.
Direction by Nazly López; poster by Me.

 The documentary is available online at this link.

Life drawing sessions

Here it is my first post. I'm gonna start with the basics: a little of life drawing!