Artist Creates Incredible Animal Paper Cut-outs

Patrick Cabral is a freelance art director based in Manila, Philippines. He has been doing a variety of art since childhood. He got interested in calligraphy when he was 11 but as he got older, he became drawn to the digital world and worked as a web programmer and animator. Today, he’s combining his love for calligraphy with the structure inherent in the digital design.

His work includes paper cut-outs portraits of animals beautified with delicate lace motifs stacked in layers to create a 3D effect. Last year, he created a series to raise awareness of endangered animals from all over the world. The intricate and abstract facial patterns of these animals serve as a reminder about their vulnerability. Cabral donated half of all his sold portraits at the art auction site called Acts of Kindness, to the World Wide Fund for Nature in the Philippines.

Check out his latest work below, and this time he’s taking his art into the next level by putting some colors on it.

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Whale, take 2. Forgot to properly crop it 🙂

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Spent my birthday working on this design. We have an empty space right in front of my table at the studio. I want a reminder to always stay young at heart and I want to pay homage to one of my most favorite animation. I'm still deciding which color to use, but I think I'm leaning more towards the bright one because it looks more modern. I didn't really like basketball because a lot of the adults in my household always prefer to watch it instead of cartoon, and the good ones has the same time slot with basketball. My brother who is only a year younger would prefer to watch anime instead of live action movie until now. Voltes V was actually banned in the Philippines during Martial Law because of it's underlying themes of rebellion. Animation and movies has always been my source of inspiration. It was Voltes V that really jumpstart my love for craft. I remember there's always construction going around our neighborhood and I would always gather wood scraps and make robots out of it. I remember how badly I want to grow up before because Then I could use hammer and nail to stick pieces of my toys together. Back then I was only using rubber band and those threads that I collected from discarded bag of cements. I didn't really grow up having a lot of toys or game console. I think my brother Ian and I get by through playing with scraps and mud. It was a really strong foundation because we both grew up making grown up toys. My brother works as a marine engineer, and until now he still makes things. When I got hooked with doing skull rings before, he and my dad also started making their own skull rings using grinders. This is one of the reason why I am always thankful that I get paid to do what I do, because I'm sure, I'm not the only one who wants to do this within my family but I am among of the lucky ones who is not burdened by responsibility. Here's to one more year of making art and toys. Cheers!

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So this is the only good photo that I managed to take of my new work. We didn't have time to take good photo after I finished working on it because it was expected to arrive in Hong Kong today. This is the hardest job that I ever pulled off to date. It was physically exhausting. Thank god for @origamidreamer for assisting me throughout the whole process. This is one of the 2 sculptures that I am making. This was commissioned by Maxims Hong Kong for their new brand. Maxims is Hong Kong's largest restaurant group. I'm not sure how they found me and wasn't even aware of them until a local patron who is a brand manager for the largest restaurant group here in Manila gave me a background 🙂 I hope this would lead to more work like this. I thought it would be simple enough given that this was cut with laser, and boy was I wrong. Plywood requires a lot of work if you want to make it look really professional. My entire body is sore. I was also given a very short amount of time to do this. There are a lot of unknown variables. We didn't expect that it was going to be really hard to paint it. I felt bad for @origamidreamer because I had to make adjustments with the colors after she apply it. Some colors get really dark once it'cures. Camy was the one applying colors because for some reason she is better at it than me. She make really clean output. It was hard to do, but was also extremely fun 🙂 I'm thinking of creating a new series of work with this style. Thank you Benedict Bueno for helping me get this work to the client. You are a great Help. Thank you to Alvin Ong of Loft Design for accomodating laser-cutting needs on a very short notice. And most of all, Thank you @origamidreamer for the patience and all the help :). I know I can be such a poopy pants in time of great stress 🙂

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