In the second half of the 1970s, Darel went through a creative crisis that propelled him down new paths. He became close to a group of semi-marginalized young people from Baixada Fluminense and was fascinated by their intense reality. From this interaction, a new phase emerged, centered on the human figure. His drawings became free, vibrant, full of color and movement, oscillating between nervous lines that capture the moment and dense, almost dramatic moments that reveal, with lyricism and truth, the fragility of these young people.

In the words of Olívio Tavares de Araújo: "He does not seek to chronicle customs, much less to establish moralistic judgments about what he observes around him. One could even say, on the contrary, that he contemplates these universes, which are not his own, with sympathy, in the most Greek sense of the word: he takes pleasure alongside his characters. His ultimate goal is to make good drawings—and he does so."