By Salomon Duarte Granados
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Š 2017 Salomon Duarte Granados. All rights reserved. www.saloduarte.com 2
By Salomon Duarte Granados with the contribution of
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To my mom, for her support and love. 2
CONTENTS 4 - Foreword
51 - Creating The Worlds
7 - The Story
91 - Art Direction
15 - The Characters
94 - Acknowledgments
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Foreword
E
ver since I was a kid, I have always been interested in storytelling. I remember making up stories to entertain my mom, while I was pretending to read a book that I didn’t understand yet. As I grew older, I always liked drawing and making crafts, and recording small videos with my cousin using my mom’s 8mm old camera. It took me years to realize that animated films combined all of those passions. I came to the Academy of Art University, pursuing my MFA in Visual Development, not knowing that this journey would help me grow so much as an artist and as a person. I learnt that storytelling is about showing your own weaknesses and experiences to others, because becoming vulnerable is the first step to telling good stories. I really hope people can relate to Äyla’s story of embracing what makes her different; because it is my goal as an artist to inspire others. Even though this project has changed a lot since I started it, it was important to me to mantain that theme through every change. I started this project in September 2015, and it has been evolving ever since. One of the biggest changes came in the summer of 2016; when after Sherrie Sinclair’s guidance, I realized I needed to make a lot of changes to the story and the characters, and then found a way to unify the style of the world through shape language, color and design. This is one of the biggest projects I have done, and I am grateful for all I have learnt in the process of making it. None of this would have been possible without the support of family, friends and instructors; as well as the scholarship provided by FONCA-CONACYT.
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Introduction
“Ä
yla” follows a little girl’s journey to self-acceptance, and shows how important it is to accept diversity in a society driven by bigotry, fear and insecurities.
This is a proposal for a feature animated film directed towards kids and teenagers from 7-18 years old. I personally think, they are the perfect target audience to communicate that we should embrace what makes us different believing in ourselves, and realize that what makes this world a better place, is to understand and encourage diversity. The inspiration of the story came from a saddening article I read in the newspaper back in 2006. It talked about how albinos in Tanzania and Malawi are mutilated because their body parts are considered magical. It is unbelievable how ignorance, superstition and other beliefs impact on how people treat others based solely only on how they look. Some people think that events like that one only happen in places far away from America. However, they are all caused because of hate and ignorance, which can also lead to horrific events even in our own communities. I hope this project can help kids realize that they should be proud of being who they are, because a world of diversity lets new ideas flourish.
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1 The Story
Ä
yla is a girl born with white glowing hair, who after being exposed in a world where people are afraid of those with these characteristics, escapes into a magical island looking for approval.
The theme
The main theme of “Äyla” is to accept and love who you are: everyone is different and even the most “unexpected” person can make a change to the world if they believe in themselves. Also, that friendship and love can overcome all fears.
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Backstory
Synopsis
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long time ago, humans, magical creatures and Arsi (a magical race of humans) used to live together in peace; however, probably out of jealousy and superstition, humans started fearing magic and tried to hunt or exploit the others. Before the story of Ă„yla began, there was a big fire where humans and creatures fought against each other. There was some distruction and the humans decided to send all magical creatures to an island, making a pact that no human would ever set foot there, as long as no magical creature ever came to the town again. Years have passed; however, people have been mysteriously dying and no one knows why.
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ne day, a little girl named Ă„yla is born with white glowing hair, but her mom teaches her to hide it for her own protection. However, one day at a town celebration to honor the Spirit of Life, an accident lets everyone find out about her hair. She decides to escape to the Forbidden Island where she has heard rumors that there is another person similar to her. She meets Ciro, who reveals he is her father. He introduces her to the Queen of the Island, and teaches her how to use her own magical powers. When things seem to be perfect after she has adapted to this island, situations will make her find out why people in her town are dying, and she will do anything to stop it.
Story summary Set-up Äyla is born, she grows up hiding her hair under hats and her best friend Gaëllo tells her scary stories about Arsi, unknowingly making her feel insecure about herself. He states that there are rumors there is one last Arsi living at the Forbidden Island, where all the magical creatures and spirits live.
Turning Point 1 At the Spirit of Life town celebration, she sees a white glowing mouse spying on her, he has previously seen him and decides to approach him this time. While she is playing with the mouse, her friend sees it and tries to chase it because he knows it is an Arsi. Right after he catches it, the
mouse uses magical wind powers to escape. However, this wind caused that Äyla’s hat flew away, revealing her secret in front of everyone at the town. Her mom quarrels her for not being careful and she decides to escape to the Forbidden Island, hoping she will be accepted as she is.
Confrontation of Trials Äyla meets Ciro, who reveals he is her dad and also the mouse that has been following her all her life. He shows her the island and introduces her to Adenia, the Queen of the Forbidden Forest, and he proudly shows her that his main job at the island is to burst life orbs that make the island more colorful and alive. He teaches her how to use her magical powers; however, she isn’t able to transform into an animal because she is still not confident enough. After she learns to use her powers, she shows the Queen she can also burst one of the life orbs, creating a magical burst like never before. Adenia loves her and tells the other spirits that they can finally trust Äyla. The next day, Äyla asks one of the spirits to show her how her mom is do-
Selection of story thumbnails. As the story kept evolving and changing, hundreds of thumbnails were done to choose the best camera angles.
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ing miles from her, and she sees that she is getting very sick. She decides to rescue her from the human world, but meets Gaëllo on her way there. Äyla tells him to bring people to the Forbidden Island since they can get healthier thanks to the life orbs, but he is afraid and runs away. 
Turning Point 2
After Äyla’s parents meet and her mom is feeling better. She is happier than ever to feel accepted and have reunited her family; however, after she tells her dad that she asked her friend to bring humans to the island, he gets really angry because he doesn’t trust humans. Äyla and her mom go to bed, but the next morning her mom has disappeared. Äyla blames her dad and searches for her, eventually finding that Mikaëlla is captured inside the Queen’s mountain. She also finds that Adenia has captured the Spirit of Life and is using him to extract life from humans in order to create the Life Orbs.
Resolution When Adenia finds out that Äyla knows her secret, she tries to kill her, but Äyla finally transforms into a dove and escapes. On her way to meet her dad, she sees that humans are coming into the island and are running on their way to Ciro’s house. They are coming to get rid of the Arsi. Äyla distracts them away from her dad house by leading them to the other direction, but Adenia attacks her to get rid of her. Right when she is about to kill her, Gaëllo saves her by striking the queen with an arrow. They finally free the Spirit of Life, and humans welcome Äyla and her father, thanking her and apologizing for discriminating her.
The Humans They are extremely superstitious. Afraid of most spirits and magical creatures. They blame them for every natural disaster. Long time ago, after a big fire, they kicked all magical creatures out to an island.
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Types of Life
The Arsi
The Spirits
They look like humans, but their hair glows. They have magical powers, such as manipulating energies around them, and can transform into an animal that represents them.
They are magical creatures and each of them has powers: some control nature, some create things and others can see beyond long distances.
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Mayor
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Gaëllo
Mikaëlla
Äyla
Ciro
2 The Characters T he cast of “Äyla” includes humans, Arsi and Magical creatures, so one of the challenges was to make them look like they were part of the same world regardless of their race differences.
I also focused on creating designs that would make them recognizable through their sillhouette, color and personality. It was an interesting journey to see them evolve as the story kept changing.
Adenia
Spirit of Life
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Äyla
Ä
yla was born with white glowing hair, characteristic of a magical race that is feared by humans in the town. When she was growing up, her mom taught her to always hide her hair from others to protect herself. For that reason, Äyla has always been a very anxious and shy girl, whose only comfort is playing and collecting things with her best friend Gaëllo. After the whole town discovers that she’s an Arsi, she escapes into the Forbidden Island, hoping she can find someone like her and finally be herself. During the story, she will learn to accept herself as being different, and gather enough confidence to master her magical powers and save the town from an evil force no one suspected.
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Ă„yla hates wearing her hat, but her mom insists its for her own safety.
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Ayla’s Transformation
When Äyla is learning how to use her powers, she isn’t able to transform into an animal yet. She needs to gather confidence and determination in order to achieve it. She finally can do it for the first time after Adenia is about to kill her inside The Mountain.
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C
Ciro
iro is Äyla’s father. He was born in a time where Arsis still lived among the rest of the humans. He fell in love with Mikaëlla, but had to leave the town after people started chasing the Arsis. After the terrible fire where all the remaining Arsis and some spirits were killed, he decided to escape to the Forbidden Island in hopes of protecting Mikaëlla from the prejudice she would face if it were to be known that they were in love. However, months later he heard that Mikaëlla was expecting a baby from him, and he decided to protect her under the disguise of a mouse, the animal he could transform into. He is an eccentric character who aims to protect his daughter Äyla under all circumstances; however, he still hates humans for all the damage they have caused to his race and the Spirits of the world.
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12in maquette made with SuperSculpey. It helped me translate the graphic shapes of the design into 3D.
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Ciro’s Transformation
As Ciro moved to the island, he kept coming back to Austera to see his daughter grow up. He didn’t want to be discovered, so he took the shape of a mouse every time he went back to the town. However, one day, at the Spirit of Life Celebration, Äyla had contact with him for the first time. As Gaëllo thought he was dangerous, he tried to catch him, causing Ciro to overreact and use his powers in the middle of the celebration. Everyone blamed Äyla.
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A
Adenia denia is the self-proclaimed Queen of the Forbidden Forest. She is a nature spirit who loves all magical creatures, and wants to create the best world to protect them, especially by getting rid of humans.
Spirits are good by nature; however, when she was a little girl, she witnessed the death of her father under the hands of humans who were trying to get rid of all Spirits and Arsi from the town. She was a little girl, and her father was teaching her to use her powers when the humans struck them both and killed her father. This moment would forever change her life, and it would make it her life-time goal to get rid of humans and make the Forbidden Island into a paradise for Spirits and Arsi. She first tried to convince the Spirit of Life to stop using his powers for humans and use them for the Spirit realm; but after he refused, she had no choice but to incarcerate him and force his magic to make the Life Orbs, which would extract life from humans and bring it to the so-called Forbidden Island. At first glance, she seems like the nicest creature Ă„yla has ever met, but she is in fact rotten by anger and prejudice.
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Adenia’s character is inspired on the Adenum obsesum, which is a beautiful but poisonous flower.
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Life Orbs
denia captured the Spirit of Life and is using him to create the Life Orbs. When bursted, new plants are born, that is the reason the Forbidden Island is full of vegetation compared to the town. As these orbs are made from life powers, they can be used to heal anyone.
Previous designs
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Gaëllo
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aëllo is Äyla’s best friend and also the Mayor’s son. When he was growing up, his father told him all the legends about “evil” Spirits and “evil” Arsi, and is a clear example of a tender loving heart being raised in a system of prejudice. He met Äyla when they were both little, and their favorite hobby is to find and collect unique things such as leaves, colorful rocks and flowers, because they scarce in their town. He is a gallant boy and enjoys telling scary stories to Äyla, promising that he will protect her from evil. He has heard many legends from the Forbidden Island, including the rumour that the last Arsi on Earth lives there. His father is teaching him how to use the bow and arrow, and one early morning after practicing with it, he found and caught a firefly and took it to Äyla, and then told her the legend of the Arsi -whose hair glowed like the firefly-, and reveals that his biggest dream is to defeat one of them, scarying Äyla, who has been hiding she is one of them.
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Mikaëlla
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ikaëlla is Äyla’s mother. She is, in Äyla’s words “too over protective” but she loves her daughter more than anything in the world.
When she was a little girl, she met Ciro while playing in the woods, and became best friends and eventually lovers when they grew older. She loved him and fell into a big depression after -she thought- Ciro was killed during The Big Fire. That day, she was hoping to tell him that she was expecting a baby from him. She is a baker by trade like all the previous generations of her family, and is a well-respected and loved person in the town. She is a very strong woman, but she also has big fears about what would happen to her little girl if they found out she is an Arsi.
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The Mayor H
e became the Mayor of the town after the Big Fire, and is the one who made the pact with the Spirit of Life in order to keep humans protected. He was raised believing all magic is evil, and is teaching his son Gaëllo the same prejudice. He is the one person who started The Big Fire that happened to kill, among many, Adenia’s father; and even though he is proud of that, he also regrets that many people died because of that incident. Still, he blames the spirits and arsi for their deaths. He is really protective of humans and is really worried that the Spirit of Life hasn’t come back to visit them. When everyone discovers that Äyla is an Arsi, he blames her for the illness and starvation that has been causing damage in the town.
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Spirit of Life
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ven though he is the oldest of all spirits, he is as youthful as the youngest ones and has the purest of hearts. He is in charge of creating new life and thus, is the only spirit that humans venerate. When humans started hunting spirits, the Spirit of Life made a pact to protect them: all the Arsi and spirits would have their own land -the island-, and the humans swore to never lay foot or disturb them on their territory. After that incident, the Spirit of Life visited the humans once a year to make sure their crops were fertile and abundant, and to eradicate diseases. However, he hasn’t come back to the human town for the last three years and a lot of people have been dying from illness and starvation. At the end of the story, it will be revealed that it was Adenia the one who captured him and forced his magic to make the life orbs.
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Townspeople Everyone in Austera is afraid of magic, thus, when they find out that Ă„yla is an Arsi, they blame her for all the recent deaths in town.
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Symbolism in their design In order to help the main characters stand out, the crowds and townspeople wear different shades of brown in their clothes. However, they all have red motifs that symbolize their prejudice. Similarily, in this story, hats represent shame and discrimination. At the end of the story, when everyone accepts Ă„yla, they show her their support by taking off their hats for her.
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3 Creating the Worlds
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he story takes place in a fictional universe where magical spirits and humans once lived together. The town, called Austera, is home to a small community of people who once kicked out all of the Spirits to the Forbidden Island accross the sea. The Island can be seen from the town, and people usually tell legends and stories about what happens in there.
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The Town
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ustera, this fictional town, is inspired by European towns such as Triora (Italy), Toledo (Spain) and Georgia. I exaggerated the designs to look sharp and dangerous, to have a contrast with the soft shapes of the vegetation in the island. The buildings are generally made of timber, wattle and daub and brick. To make the sillhouettes distinctive, I added motifs inspired by pirate ships on the roofs, and carvings related to the spirits on doors and roofs.
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Äyla’s House
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his is where the story starts. Ă„yla and her mom live in an old wooden house. The design of the house is meant to reflect their fragile and vulnerable situation.
Window shapes
Roof truss options
Window opening
After the town discovers her secret, Ă„yla escapes from her window and decides to sail to the Forbidden Island.
Columns and Rafters
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he wooden columns and crooked stairs, reflect instability. The general structure seems to show the house is falling apart.
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The Spirit of Life Celebration
very year, they have a celebration to honor the Spirit of Life. Before, the Spirit used to make an appearance during the celebration, to make sure their crops were fertile and abundant, and to eradicate diseases. However, he hasn’t come back to Austera for the last three years and a lot of people have been dying from illness and starvation.
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Mikaëlla is invited to bring bread for the celebration, and it is during this event where Äyla will meet Ciro for the first time, as a mouse. After Gaëllo sees it, he tries to attack him, causing a disaster by accident, that ends up blowing away everyone’s hats and revealing Äyla’s hair.
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The Forbidden Island G
aëllo keeps telling Äyla stories about the magical spirits that once lived in Austera and were sent to the island. He also mentions that there’s a rumor that the last Arsi lives there.
It is called the “Forbidden Island” because humans and Spirits made a pact, where no Spirit would ever step on Austera, and no human would ever go to the island. The design of the island, is supposed to look scary and mysterious from far. However, once Äyla goes there, she will realize that it is more colorful and softer than her town. Äyla’s window stares into the island, so whenever she is feeling anxious, she sees the island wondering if that is where she truly belongs.
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Vegetation B
efore going to the Forbidden Island, Ă„yla had never seen such colorful vegetation. As the Life Orbs created extravagant plants, shapes, sizes and colors vary a lot.
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The Spirits
hey are magical creatures and each of them has powers: some control nature, some create things and others can see beyond long distances.They have been on Earth since the beginning of times, but most of them were exterminated by fearing humans. They are protected by Adenia and Ciro.
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The Mountain I t is located at the center of the Island, and is also where Adenia lives. After Äyla’s mother disappears, Äyla goes to the mountain looking for Adenia’s help, only to find out her biggest secret: She had trapped the Spirit of life, and was using his powers to absorb life from the human town to create the Life Orbs. For the trap, I chose to design a cacoon-like cage. I chose to make it look like a flower, to relate the design to Adenia’s.
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Positive feelings
4 Neutral
Art Direction A
big part of this project, was about making the best choices to support the mood of the story. It was interesting to explore the use of shapes, tone and color in order to communicate the story more efficiently. A big part of these decisions were made when first designing the style of the project, and after that, I put a lot of thinking in the use of symbolisms for the designs and the color script.
Negative feelings
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Characters
When designing the characters, each one of them had a different sillhouette based on a graphic shape that represented their personality. I also assigned a different color for each character, in order to make them easily recognizable. Some of them, like Mikaëlla and Ciro, share a color in their clothes, in order to relate them (they are both Äyla’s parents). Red symbolizes prejudice, and thus, Adenia and the mayor have it in their design. The color green symbolizes hope, which is what Gaëllo represents for Äyla most of the times.
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Environments
As there were two main “worlds” in this story, I wanted to make them feel completely different. For starters, the shape language in the town is always based on sharp edges and pointy motifs. I also wanted to make it feel like everything is unstable and falling apart (including Äyla’s house), and most of the compositions that show the town have many diagonals guiding the eyes of the audience. In addition to that, colors in Austera are less saturated than the colors in the island, which you can see exemplified in the Color Script on the next page. On the other hand, the Forbidden Island had a completely different shape language: the trees were soft and round because I wanted to make it feel as if they were hugging Äyla in every composition. It is in the Island where she feels comfortable being herself for the first time, and I wanted to reflect that on the designs of the vegetation and the way the pictures were framed there. I added a lot of spirals in the compositions, which also related the designs to the Life Orbs being used to create such vegetation in the Island. The only pointy detail in the Island, is the Mountain, which is where Adenia lives. It also helps the island look more intimidating and scarier to people in Austera when seen from the distance.
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Colorscript
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Thank you
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o my mom, for always believing and supporting me in pursuing my dreams. This book has been one of the biggest projects that I have ever done. Seeing this story come to life through visual development, has been a rewarding experience and it has been interesting to see how much it has evolved.
I would like to thank FONCA and CONACYT, two Mexican organizations who trusted in me with an artistic fund that was a big help for studying in San Francisco. Thanks to NicolĂĄs Villarreal because of his constant feedback and support throughout the program; to Sherrie H. Sinclair for helping me condense all my ideas into a functional story and opening my eyes about art direction and thanks to Tim Evatt for sharing all his knowledge and giving me a whole new perspective on what visual development art is. I would also like to thank all my instructors for being a great source of inspiration and knowledge! Thanks to my friends for being so supportive and inspirational: I learnt a lot from you, and your support is what pushed me forward when I was feeling tired or anxious during this project. Finally, I would like to thank my family for cheering me up every time I went back to MĂŠxico to visit, and for believing in my dreams and efforts.
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About the Artist E
ver since I was a kid, I had fun recording videos with my family’s 8mm camera, making arts and crafts and making up stories with my mom.
Years later, I started my major in Robotics Engineering in Mexico, only to realize my heart and passion had always been in storytelling. I earned my degree in Animation and Digital Art at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a Diploma in Classical Animation at Vancouver Film School, as part of an exchange program. After making 2 animated short films, I worked as a 3D character animator for AnimaArte Studios’ upcoming animated film “Heriberto y Demetrio”, and thanks to a Mexican national grant for the arts by FONCA-CONACYT, I moved to San Francisco to pursue my Master’s Degree in Visual Development at the Academy of Art University. Feel free to visit my website at www.saloduarte.com and check out other projects I’m working on.
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Š 2017 Salomon Duarte. All rights reserved. www.saloduarte.com
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Š 2017 Salomon Duarte Granados. All rights reserved. www.saloduarte.com 98