Meet the Rotor Team: Patricia Beja

Meet Patricia Beja. Illustrator, Animator and Digital Artist here at Rotor.

Hello! My name is Patricia and I am an Illustrator and Animator here at Rotor. As Rotor Creators, we work to create dynamic and interesting visuals for Rotor’s library.

I come from a life drawing/traditional illustration background, but ever since I fell in love with the digital world, it's rare to see me drawing without my iPad. You’ll find me using both video and illustration softwares such as AfterEffects, Premiere Pro, Procreate, Illustrator and Photoshop to create my content. 

I get inspired by my surroundings and my everyday life - like going to museums, listening to music, creatives around me, going to live gigs/concerts and seeing what my favourite artists are doing on social media - and I think you can see that in my art. During these last two years where we couldn’t go outside nor attend life events, I took refuge in music and that was reflected in my creations.

Grime Collection: Rotor

The first collection I made with Rotor was inspired by Grime - a genre of electronic music that emerged in London in the early 2000s influenced by jungle, techno and UK garage music. I researched the genre during the pandemic and educated myself about its history and musicians that brought Grime to life. By the time I created the Grime collection for our content library I was aware of how I would like it to look. For example how many beats per minute it was - showing me how fast the person should be rapping.

Movement Collection: Rotor

My latest collection 'Movement' was also inspired by the music genres that I have been listening to lately - a lot of Afrobeats and West African pop music. I believe that through dance you can feel empowered and express your feelings in a different way but since I can't dance (eyes) - I animate it.

Most of my collections show my likes and views on life and they can be quite broad in terms of style but some things are for sure: I love to play around with blocks of colour and mix frame-by-frame animation with motion graphics. Most of my animations are rotoscoped.

Rotoscoping is an animation technique that allows animators to trace over footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Although rotoscoping is a laborious, delicate and time-consuming process, it is still my favourite method as it allows me to be more creative and think about the fluidity of the motion.

Once I am happy with my frame-by-frame animation, I put it into a compositing software - like AfterEffects - and start to manipulate and play with the animation. I usually like to distort and displace different elements of my creations. Although hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation is time-consuming and requires attention to detail, it is very rewarding as an artist to work on a project and slowly see it come to life.

Nayr Faquirá x Valete - Não Penses Nisso: Lyric Video Creation

It's hard to specify one project that I am proud of as I have the privilege to work freely in terms of creativity and topic - every artists’ dream. If I had to choose one it would probably be my first lyric video for two portuguese artists named Valete and Nayr Faquirá.

I finished this project over a year ago and I still have a lot of people that find me on social media because of it. It was my first freelance project since I graduated from the University of the Arts London and it taught me a lot - in terms of scheduling, time management, thinking about the different screens and planning all the frame-by-frame animations.

I believe this project was a turning point in my career as it opened a lot of doors for me to work closely with the music industry - something that I never thought I would do, but now feels very natural and organic to me.

The Elizabeth Line: Transport for London

Another project I worked on was for the Elizabeth line competition in 2018. Transport for London created a competition to allow creatives from London to get their work displayed in the new Elizabeth line.

The brief consisted in creating imagery that would reflect the next generation of trains in London: faster, new design, running more regularly, affordable, air-conditioned and more spacious. The winning entries could be found in trains and station posters.  

That was my first time entering a competition and being selected alongside other amazing artists was amazing.  I initially designed the illustration almost five years ago and it has only just been released out into the world. But as it normal for artists to grow, I feel like it no longer reflects my practice as I’ve moved more towards animation and moving image.

You realise that each project can be a learning curve and before you know it, you can find yourself in a space where you have moved through various mediums, using those new skills to produce new and unique work.

I am so proud of my progression through the years and my development - not just with learning the software but also how I create my work as a digital artist. Who knows what will come next.

*You can check our Patricia's work on Instagram. @beja_design