ABOUT PEDBRA (story)

This is me

People also call me Yorgos, or Yorgos des Ténèbres, El Señor de los Bosques, or recently… Bosquis.

When I graduated from high school my idea was to study Philosophy, Psychology, or Industrial Design, and at the very last minute someone made me realize there was actually a major that leaded you to the animation world and it felt like a good idea. To be completely honest with you I’ve never really known what to do with my life but, well, here I am, writing this after years of studying and practicing.

Since I still like the processes of the mind I’ve read some philosophy and taken a couple of psychology courses. Nothing too big, just to gain knowledge. I’m not much of a reader or too big into studying, so knowledge can become a very slow procedure.

First I was kind of more inclined towards 3D but really wanted to get into 2D and Traditional Animation, now I’m more inclined towards 2D but want to get a bit back into 3D and more into Traditional Animation.

My main goal was to do film or videogames but sometimes life just has different plans for you; that’s when I switched from doing mostly 3D animation/modeling to 2D animation, and found a job. Although I’d still want to get in the Gaming World.

I got into the 3D World via Maya; I’ve never really been fond of it, its weird bugs make me angry, yet it’s depthy and it’s what I use. I really want to get into C4D because it’s a really cool software and every time I check more companies are asking for it. Yet… Blender… I’ve really really wanted to get into it because it’s like the best and most complete freeware out there; and is growing potentially. So, unless I get to work somewhere that uses C4D, I’ll keep learning Blender.

I used to complain a lot about knowledge but before graduating I realized it’s a balance between what you learn at a desk and what you learn at home.

Photography was presented to me at a very early stage of my conscient life, via my mother who likes it. She never really taught but would lend me her camera from time to time. Then thanks to my major I was able to fully get into it artistic and technically. I don’t really think that I have a style (maybe attempting analog-looking photos?) but capturing depth, textures, and shapes really makes me feel good. Timelapses are also something I extremely enjoy; preparing the shot, setting up the camera, and waiting behind the camera.

I used to be a Canon User for most of my life, and when it was time to upgrade I decided to change brands. So now I’m rocking a Fujifilm X-T3 which is lovely. It’s a great hybrid camera (60% for video and 40% for photo, in my opinion). I don’t see myself getting out of Fuji now, and them only having APSC and Medium Format cameras will slow down the future moment of me getting a very expensive camera.

What is a good video without good music? thankfully I, in my humble opinion, have an incredible music taste and also believe that I was born with some kind of sync perk because the majority of videos I musicalize burst with awesomeness. Although when it comes to corporate videos… It takes a little longer.

I’ve been listening to music since 1998, but it was until the year 2001 that I became an active and deep listener with the release of Gorillaz’ “Gorillaz [UK]” and Daft Punk’s “Discovery”, and consequently Audioslave’s “Audioslave”. Those are my official root bands for what I am today, that’s basically why I’m so proud of sharing my Spotify account; my playlists are lit AF. Gorillaz helped me get into weirder genres, hip-hop, and basically alternative music. Daft Punk drove me through the whole French House Music Movement and helped me discover a wide variety of electronic music genres, not to forget the whole Sampling World which includes a huge amount of g-oldies. And Audioslave got me into rock, then grunge, thrash, punk, metal, indie, etc. It’s been a wild and awesome trip.

My mother got me into sports when I was a toddler, something I deeply appreciate because that made me keen to not being lazy; I may love just laying back and play videogames or watch movies for hours, yet I really like to move and stand up and take the stairs and walk for 30 minutes to reach the mall and so on. Thanks to this I’m quite proficient when it comes to motor skills and muscle memory.

It all began with swimming lessons, then tennis, then tennis and football (the round ball that gets kicked), then karate while footballing, then boxing while footballing, then gymnastics and mountaineering, then gymnastics, mountaineering and swimming, then athletics (I really really wanted to throw the javelin but the coach was like “you’re a fast creep, so you’ll be running” so throwing the javelin became a… Dream) and mountaineering, and since we’re at the part of my life where I was doing my major I’d really believe that time was such an expensive luxury and there was none to me. Ever since I’ve gone back and forth from swimming, gymnastics, weights, mtb, running, and boxing, but have never stopped mountaineering. Although I don’t do it as often as I used to. Nowadays what I do the most is cycling (because that’s how I commute) and a ‘maintenance workout’.

One of the reasons I enjoy mountaineering and trekking so much is because The Lord of the Rings is my favourite thing, later The Secret Life of Walter Mitty also became something really important in my life.

I really like watching movies, but my “taste” is kind of boring (I think). If you saw my bluray collection you’d understand. Movies and videogames are the things that take the most pressure off my mind and help me relax. I’m really into Action RPGs and Adventure games, and am a side-quest addict. I just can’t play through a campaign if there are a bunch of side-quests, and that’s the beauty of RPGs. My favourite games are The Legend of Zelda series (TP, OoT, and WW), the Dark Souls series (DeS and DaS1), the Monster Hunter series (MHF and MHW), and Shadow of the Colossus.

I’ve always loved castles and dragons and forests and vikings and battles and weapons and armours and all those middle-age ancient things, and it happened when I was 9yo that my father returned from a business trip, from Spain, with my very first sword, Tizona del Cid. Since then I began collecting swords and daggers. They also worked as a great mental shield against aliens because according to my younger-self they were trying to abduct me, so sleeping with a dagger under my pillow was the way to go. It’d make them think twice before crossing me you know.

Something I’ve wished lately was to think green earlier. It was until I was 26 when the green feelings began to flourish inside me, and they keep getting stronger. I’ve always been a person of the forest and really really want to get involved, somehow, in helping the planet. Specially if it’s related to forestation/reforestation. Most of what I’ve done so far is be part of reforestation groups and try to be as Zero Waste as possible (it’s quite difficult given the lifestyle I have, but I try my best).

Being a jack of all trades sounds really ace, but not related to animation. I’m thinking about a more “spiritual” approach, because for a long time I’ve had the idea of being a wise man and helping people through pure wisdom. The thing is that to get there I need to experience quite a bunch of things, and it’ll take some time to get there. I also NEED to settle down and discover my role. Obtaining the almighty power of sovereignty is a must in my life.

Moving out and living in a variety of places is also something I crave for, deeply, and I’ve been slowly achieving it.

As of mid-late 2019 I quit my job at a Marketing Agency to prepare for actually moving out of México and into Spain; I was going on an adventure with whatever money I had by the time and just try my best to start a new life over there, and with my dad’s help we made up a new side business to help me get more money. While doing that I had several very interesting job interviews while still in México and unfortunately times were getting hard and I couldn’t land any of those jobs and freelancing had turned out very scarce and difficult.

In September 2020 I joined musicto as a music curator for genres like ambient, IDM, and experimental music and a few months later I was offered to join the team and have been taking care of the Operations and Back End Management ever since.
We recently migrated the site from Squarespace to Wordpress and it’s been quite a ride getting everything up and running again, and applying the new changes.

Then, less than a month before moving out, the evil COVID curse struck the world and my plans were put on hold, yet a few months later I managed to fly out to Barcelona and live there for less that a year before finding a job at Valencia where I’m currently at doing a variety of things at a Hyperloop research and development startup called Zeleros. It’s been quite an aventure so far.

Right now, as of 2024, I’ve embarked in an adventure to join the videogames industry by becoming a Technical Artist, the first step will be to learn Unreal Engine and develop my Environment Design skills, then… We’ll see.

Someday, perhaps, I may actually become a Wizard.