The team here at Ambient Design would like to congratulate Ricardo Piologo on his win in Wacom's recent Power of the Pens contest with his entry 'Mr. Donizildo'. Ricardo got in touch with us to share some of his comments on ArtRage, the contest, and his submission.

Hi!

My name is Ricardo and I am the creator of the digital painting “Mr. Donizildo”. I found out about the “POWER OF THE PENS” contest when I registered my Tablet Wacom Bamboo that I had just bought in a trip to Canadá. As I wanted to test my new Tablet, I saw the contest as a great opportunity.

Art Rage 2.5 was the software chosen, and I had just installed it so I also wanted to do something really cool with it. That was my first work using the program, and I chose it because it is user friendly and has excellent tools. And it gives you the feeling that you are actually painting it with real material.

I’m one of the owners and animator of the website www.mundocanibal.com.br and I chose “Mr. Donizildo” to create my digital work because he has a very interesting desing and he is one of our most popular characters.

I used several photografic references to make the digital work. That is one of the very cool functions of Art Rage, being able to leave your references together with your work while you are painting it, as if it were attached with pins.

These references were used because I wanted to do a cartoon with a little bit of reality. And I really like the results!

Working with Art Rage has no secrets. It’s like painting on canvas. So you can just start painting!

Surely there is an advantage here, which is using the layers. And I used one for each part of the face (eyes, skin, hair, etc), so I had more control and it made it easier to make the necessary changes.

It took me about nine hours to finish it all. When I sent it to the “Power of the pens” I noticed that the competition would be hard because there were great paintings there, so I decided to promote mine in our website to help with the voting. Then I just waited for the results.

On january 9th I received an e-mail from a fan congratulating me on the victory, and I asked myself: “Did I win?” Then I went to the website and there it was: I win!

I am really happy and I just want to thank “Power of the pens” and specially the fans of our website that certainly were the main reason of my victory. Now I’ll just wait for the wonderful prize: A Cintiq 12WX, that will be very welcome and used in our future animations.

Thank you all very much and see you around!

Tablet Wacom Bamboo Fun
PC Intel Corel 2 Duo 2.20 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT
2 GB RAM
160 HD
2 LCD Monitors LG L1750s

Ricardo had a dream of being an animator since his childhood, so he had his first adventure in the virtual world 10 years ago, through his friend Márcio Roger Ferrari, when he tried for the first time the animation software 3D studio 2.0 and Animator 1 still in the old sistem MS.DOS.

Since then, his knowledge came from selfstudy and he improved more and more, untill he was awarded in 1999, with his 3D vídeo “Hot-Head” as the “Best Brazilian Grafic Desing” in the Animamundi Festival, one of the most respected festivals in the world.

As one of the owners of “Mediate Propaganda”, he had to learn how to work with Flash. As soon as the internet boom started he created his first websites, and he noticed that the HTML codes wouldn’t be enough to put his ideas into actions. He realized very soon that the software (version 3 at the time) had a lot more to offer then he expected with his first idea of creating interactive content. So it was time for him to conquer another dream that he shared with his brother: The creation of cartoons.

Right after that, they were starting their first animation website. Even with free server, were in every click a ad pop-up would open, they were convinced that it was the right way to show all their wonderful characters in a shot period of time. Then the partnership with Fabrica de Quadrinhos and all the great artists of comics that were there at the time starded, and Mundo Canibal was created.

From that time on, a lot of good things happened, are still happening and will happen! So all we’ve got to do is wait and see what surprises this crazy guy, that has also put his brother into this craziness, will be able to create.