By my calculations, we hadn't met for over four years, so we spent a lot of time hanging out. We even did a nostalgic trip back to the same Japanese restaurant where we regularly met while Fudebakudo was being finished. It's all changed now (well, actually it hasn't much, but they don't do the freebies they used to), and there's no plaque up commemorating the completion of the project. Way back in 2003 I had taken a folder with all the final artwork in it and — long story short — René accidentally<\/em> constructed a syphon out of bent drinking straws which started pumping iced coffee over everything. Those were the days.<\/p>\n Sonidos de Otoño<\/a> now available on YouTube<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anyway, from back around that time René and his brother Raúl did a little film that went on to feature in several animation festivals. It's called Sonidos de Otoño<\/a> (that's "Sounds of Autumn") and is now on YouTube. <\/p>\n Incidentally, René and Raúl worked on the Fudebakudo samurai<\/a> flick-man animation together. Raúl now works as an animator in Vancouver. If you play Company of Heroes<\/a> and think the motion capture is well done, well, you're wrong: it's not motion capture, it's Raúl's team's skilfull animation. <\/p>\n René and I stood in an IT mall in Bangkok watching a tournament match of Company of Heroes. They probably thought we were in awe of their super-fragging gameplay. In fact we were marvelling at how the soldiers run out of step with each other and how the smoke works. Cartoonists, eh? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I've just got back from a fairly long trip to Bangkok. There was a lot of training with my aikido friends and teachers over there, as well as meeting old and special friends off the mat. In particular I also caught up with René. René is the super-talented cartoonist who did the Fudebakudo animations. He's … <\/p>\n![\"Sounds](\"\/graphics\/blog\/rene_sounds_of_autumn.jpg\" "\\"Sounds")
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