Brazilian 'Hard Haid Moe' story, originally published in Urtigão #111 (1991). © Disney.
Haroldo Guimarães Neto is a Brazilian animator, animation producer and former comic artist. Since 1989, he has been running his own HGN Produções, which can rank the Walt Disney Studios among its clientele. During the 1990s, Guimarães Neto was also an artist of Brazilian Disney comics.
Early life and career
Until 1978, Haroldo Guimarães Neto attended the Colégio Notre Dame Catholic high school in Campinas, a city in the Brazilian São Paulo State. Between 1979 and 1981, he studied Architecture and Urbanism at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas, and subsequently spent some time working at the studio of the Brazilian comics entrepreneur Mauricio De Sousa as an assistant animator on the feature film 'As Aventuras da Turma da Mônica' (1982). He later served as animator on the 1985 live-action/amimated film 'Os Trapalhões no Reino da Fantasia', starring the Brazilian comedy groupe Os Trapalhões.
On a CAPES/Fulbright scholarship, Guimarães then headed for the United States to study Character Animation at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California. Among his teachers were the Disney veterans Hal Ambro, Bob McCrea and Ray Aragon, as well as more contemporary animators such as Glen Keane, Mike Giaimo, and Dan Hansen. During this period, he worked as an assistant animator for Don Bluth on the 1986 feature film 'An American Tail'. Graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1987, Guimarães debuted in American TV animation working as an assistant animator on Brad Bird's 'Amazing Stories: Family Dog' (1987) and as a designer for 'Little Clowns of Happytown' (1987-1988) and the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' (1987). During his stay in the USA, he was additionally an assistant animator on the Disney animated feature films 'Oliver & Co' (1988) and 'The Little Mermaid' (1989), his first of many collaboration with the Walt Disney Company.
HGN Produções
Back in Brazil, Guimarães settled in São Paulo, where in March 1989 he began his own production company HGN Produções. Over the years, he has been production supervisor and animation director for TV commercials, specials and institutional videos, both in 2D and 3D, but also a great many TV series, often for the U.S. market. With his team, Guimarães produced 1990s Disney TV series like 'Adventures of the Gummi Bears', 'Bonkers', 'Goof Troop' and 'Aladdin'. In later years, HGN has produced parts of the short Disney film 'Goofy - How to Hook Up Your Home Theater' (2007), as well as the Disney feature film 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009). Among the company's other clients have been Xuxa Produções, Sesinho, Sesi, Projecto Tamar, Janssen-Cilag, ExaWorld BIZ, Topps, Johnson & Johnson, Fanta, Arcor and Allergan.
Since 1995, HGN has also been offering training courses in 2D and 3D drawing and animation, aiming to train new professionals and furhter develop the field of animation in Brazil. One of the future comic artists who has worked for Guimarães Neto's studio was Arthur Garcia da Rosa.
Italian publication of a Brazilian 'José Carioca' story, originally published in Zé Carioca #1930 (1992). © Disney.
Comics
Between 1991 and 1994, Haroldo Guimarães Neto also briefly ventured into comics, working on stories with Disney characters for the Brazilian licensee Abril. He was part of the publisher's 1990s generation of new artists, which also included Aparecido Norberto, Sérgio Morettini, Fernando Ventura and Dave Santana. During his short stint in comics, Guimarães drew stories for Margarida, Daisy Duck's Brazilian magazine, and also with the other Duck characters for O Pato Donald. For Zé Carioca magazine, he additionally drew vertical gag strips and comic stories with the Brazilian fan favorite José Carioca, the Rio parrot from the 1942 film 'Saludo Amigos'. However, the Disney character that Guimarães drew the most for the comic books was Hard Haid Moe, the non-funny animal hillbilly, known in Brazil as Urtigão.
Haroldo Guimarães Neto, working on 'The Princess and the Frog'.