I recently started having fun coming up with character designs based on existing (past and present) people. Intro Manolete, Spains most legendary bullfighter. Even Heminway only had praisings for him in the novel Death in the Afternoon.

Last Sunday Isaac Galvez, madison World Champion 2006, died in a horrible accident during the Gent Sixdays in Belgium. Condolescene to his family and his lovely wife he married only 3 weeks ago. What a tragedy.

In the wake of this event I questioned safety measures during track events, especially the steel railing around the banking (a design common on most tracks) in a forum thread on fixedgearfever. Erin Hartwell, (former Olympic Silver Medalist) then pointed me to a youtube clip showing the crash which shattered my left shoulder 6 years ago at the World Cup event in Mexico City.
This is the first time I actually see this and brings up a lot of memories.

(I’m the guy in 4th as I just wanted to rev up for my attack when it happened)

Still don’t know where that’s from (I would really like to know the director), but it’s definitely viral marketing at it’s best… Absurd humour combined with great editing, fun acting and that seventies explotation movies flair - plain genius!

One of the funnest things to do as an animator is taking video reference of yourself. (You know, for those really hard to get right moves…) The results are most of the times worth a good laugh: