Alberto Mielgo is a Spanish animator, director, concept artist and painter. He came to my attention because of two recent major mainstream projects he was involved in: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (2018), and the episode “The Witness” in the Netflix adult animation anthology Love Death + Robots (March 2019).
Mielgo started out as a 2D animator at 18, but turned to oil painting when he found studios wanted CGI/3D. His oils are mostly personal, erotic portraits; he also digitally paints graphic, vibrant environments. Thus he has a strong painting base, which shows in his style.
He is credited in Spider-verse as a Visual Consultant for his work in the visual development process, and was originally Production Designer / Art Director. He did explorations of the film’s iconic comic-book aesthetic, including integrating text (which he’d done in earlier work), and produced a tone/mood animation test. Though he was taken off the project, I think his contribution and influence can be clearly seen in the final film. More work he made for Spider-verse here.
I find his work very intriguing because of his strong design sense, and his ability to abstract shapes and light in highly descriptive, convincing ways. Which makes his style so fitting for animation. His animations draw from aesthetics and themes more used in fine art. In his own words, “I love animation over any art, because it has every art on it.” [Grammar mistake is his.]
His socials and websites:
https://www.instagram.com/albertomielgo/
http://www.albertomielgo.com
http://pinkman.tv (his brand/studio)
I hope you guys found something interesting in his work!
ANIM223 - HISTORY OF ANIMATION - FALL 2019 