Trouble at 4122

On transhumanism

2011-09-03T03:29:00.000+10:00

Deus Ex Human Revolution is really (really) good.

I've been busy making robots. That explains why I've been away for awhile.

(Those aren't actually our bots, but ours do pretty much exactly what you see in that video.)

On process

2011-06-22T05:53:00.002+10:00

Game of Thrones wrapped up its first season last Sunday, and I'm not entirely sure I can wait till next year (next year!) before the next season comes out. Top Tip HBO: It's mighty impressive what you've done, but for a fantasy epic, a season needs more than 10 episodes.

Here's a sketch. It's work in progress though, so I'm posting this here because I really want to complete this one.

Update: Tweaked the pose, cleaned up the lines and generally tidied things up. There's a fair bit left to do though, and more dragons to add.

Update 2: Just got back from an unexpectedly long holiday. More dragons! Still sorting out lighting and colour values.

Update 3: Now we're getting there, colour correction, cleaned up some lines. Just got to sort out background and light sources.

4:

3:

2:

1:

And another...

2011-06-20T00:55:00.000+10:00

Work in progress.

On concept art

2011-05-24T08:25:00.003+10:00

These past few weeks, I've been watching Game of Thrones fairly religiously. It's a fantasy series based on A Song of Ice and Fire, and while the phrase 'serialised epic fantasy saga' typically sets off alarm bells for me, I think it's best described as Lord of the Rings, for TV.
And that's a very (very) good thing.

I haven't done any digital painting (or updated this blog) for awhile, so I thought I'd do a few environment sketches based on some of the locations in the series. Which are fantastic, by the way.

On certain shades of green.

2011-05-07T22:49:00.000+10:00

I don't usually post too much about new music (that's what hypem's for!) but about 5 minutes ago, I stumbled upon this little gem:

Don't panic, I know, it's a lot to take in. It's been nearly 5 years since their last album, and god knows their entire discography has been on heavy rotation ever since.

Now, fanboy-ism aside, I'm not entirely convinced that this song is quintessential Incubus. I mean, just listen to 'Neither of Us Can See' to see what I mean (with Chrissie Hynde!):

So yeah, while I'm not entirely blown away by this new track, I'm just going to hold out till June, when 'If Not Now, When' will be released.

Let's hippie out:

On Autumn

2011-05-06T18:31:00.000+10:00

There are a few more shots on my Flickr page, if you feel like browsing.

On Pandas and 404s.

2011-02-16T04:02:00.001+11:00

Grooveshark's got another Pickles-the-Panda related error404 page:

Oh pickles, Pickles.

On Sideshows

2011-02-11T02:54:00.000+11:00

I managed to catch a Stornoway sideshow last night, and while my ears continue to wage war against The Corner Hotel's acoustics, they played a sublime set.

I do apologise for the shitty quality of the photo's but I snapped these with an ancient Panasonix Lumix camera; Photoshop and Lightroom had their work cut out for them.

On Laneway 2011

2011-02-08T03:08:00.001+11:00

Laneway! A brilliant Saturday; Tired legs and tired ears.
We managed to catch Stornoway, Cloud Control, Menomena, Two Door Cinema Club, Yeasayer and Foals before the day was through. There are a few more pictures on my flickr page, if you care to browse.

Cloud Control.

Menomena (who played an absolutely mindblowing set).

Moreland Stage (With Foals playing in the distance).

Stornoway.

On Growing Up

2011-01-25T23:34:00.000+11:00

Yeah that's about right.

The whole 'back-in-my-day' sketch was a meme with webcomic authors about a year or so ago, and I am, as usual, a bit late to the party.

On one sentence stories.

2011-01-23T02:46:00.000+11:00

You remember One Sentence, don't you? I did a few sketches based on some of the posts on that site years ago (circa 2008, I think). I had a couple of hours of free time today, so I did a couple more based on Sentence 3881 and Sentence 3755.

Enjoy!

On Spring Cleaning

2011-01-22T14:44:00.001+11:00

Tidied up the blog a bit. Look how cleeeeeeean it looks!
Productivity, oh yeah.

On balcony views

2011-01-20T00:57:00.000+11:00

Y'know, it's high time I tweaked the look of this site. Probably should get working on that soon...

On choices

2011-01-12T21:48:00.000+11:00

Clearly, sexy times are to the right.

On old work

2010-11-24T19:02:00.000+11:00

An old piece of logo work that I did for a client that ultimately didn't make it past the draft stage. I quite like it though, so I thought I'd chuck it up here.

On suitable headgear

2010-11-04T05:23:00.001+11:00

I am quite a Team Fortress 2 fan, obviously.

It's that time of year when end of year finals are around the corner, and it's also mostly around this time that my creativity decides to kick itself into overdrive; not especially conducive for exam revision.

As for me, it's back to the grindstone, and with any luck, I'll be posting a bit more often as the exam workload gets heavier (An inverse relationship, go figure.)

Yarra Valley Camp

2010-09-21T01:16:00.000+10:00

Less talk, more pictures. Go.

Witch Slayer

2010-09-07T02:31:00.000+10:00

A piece of Heroes of Newerth fan art, in the style of Mike Mignola.

Hello again!

2010-09-01T03:06:00.002+10:00

It has been awhile, but don't worry, this won't turn into one of those apologetic posts where I confess that inbetween having a life and doing stuff, there just isn't enough time to update my blog.

I've been busy. Fuck it.

So here's a poster (horizontal love!) I whipped up after listening to Arcade Fire's latest. It's a great third album, and has clearly launched them to mainstream success (U.S. Billboard 200 #1, UK Albums Chart #1, Canadian Albums Chart #1, whaaat?!)

The picture used for the background is a variant of one I shot on my last Fotoholics camp I went on.

I've noticed of late that I take photos with the sole intention of using them in graphic design work later on. What this means from a practical point of view is that most of my pictures aren't aesthetically pleasing on their own; The majority are sparse, minimal, and/or bleak (to make room for typography, obviously), but I'd like to slowly evolve away from the 'stock photography' mindset.

At this point I feel obliged to include some sort of inspirational quote about good photography, but I'm going to do the right thing and ignore that urge.

See you soon(ish)!

Splendour in the grass Recap

2010-08-04T21:34:00.000+10:00

I'm fairly certain my body hates me now; My legs and ears are certainly plotting some diabolical scheme as we speak. 4 days of trooping up and down hills, weaving through crowds, dancing on mulch, eating food with the nutritional value of cardboard, and being the poster boy for Tinnitus has taken its toll on me.

That being said, my soul has never been more alive! :D

So over the duration of the Festival, we wound up going to watch The Joy Formidable, School of Seven Bells, Yeasayer, Foals, Angus and Julia Stone, LCDSoundSystem, Grizzly Bear, Jonathan Boulet, Two Door Cinema Club, The Drums, The Magic Numbers, Laura Marling, Wolfmother, Florence and the Machine, The Strokes, Boy & Bear, Cloud Control, We are Scientists, Ash, Whitley, BrokenSocial Scene, Jonsi, Passion Pit, Mumford and Sons and Empire of the Sun in more or less that order.*

And now, some pictures and videos of the festival (shot with a rather lousy phone camera).

First up, Broken Social Scene:

The Joy Formidable:

School of Seven Bells:

Foals:

The Drums:

And oh yeah, the Amphitheatre at Splendour (Oh to be clear 32,000 peeps rocked up for this festival):

And now, some videos:

Grizzly Bear!:

Mumford and sons:

Passion Pit (The crowd went mental at this gig!):

That's about all that are watchable (the rest are blurs, mostly). Still, Splendour in the Grass was mind-blowingly good. I'll try to find some other band pictures (they're still uploading from my phone).

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*(Fuck me, that's a long list eh? And it took me forever to get those myspace links hooked up.)

On Nanooks

2010-05-14T09:20:00.004+10:00

Uni these past few days has been unusually hectic (I'm getting quite good at turning nocturnal when an assignment or project comes a-knockin'). Every so often when I need a break (and boy do I need 'em), I tend to draw, paint, sketch or do anything that typically requires paper and ink.

While trawling the internet a couple of days ago, I came across the artwork of Mike Mignola. Mike was (one of) the artist(s) behind Hellboy and BPRD. (although it is predominantly his style.) I absolutely love his abundant use of hard black shadows, which is always tricky to do properly yet he pulls it off effortlessly.

I also came across a collection of stories based on Inuit mythology. (It's the Internet; Don't ask.) One that caught my attention was the tale of 'Nanook, the Master of Bears'. Long story short, 'Nanook' is, well, the master of bears and the 'spirit of hunting'; Oh and he is also able to take on the form of a human at will.
(Incidentally, 'Nanook' is inuktitut for 'Polar bear')

So ultimately, this piece is my take on Nanook's human form, in the style of Mike Mignola. I might make a couple more of these, simply because they are tons of fun to whip up, and they don't take too much of my time! Clearly then, a win-win situation.

Splendour

2010-05-09T02:55:00.000+10:00

Feck yes! Woodfordia here we come!
The two hours it took to get my tickets were pretty fucking harrowing, but I got 'em!
Man, it was worth it...

Shenanigans in the Server Room

2010-04-30T04:29:00.000+10:00

My friend Lambros recently showed me Grooveshark's maintenance page (you remember, the one with the panda?) and I was inspired to make something of it... And so, another poster.

Otways camp

2010-04-13T21:49:00.000+10:00

To say I'm knackered is an absolute understatement.
In all honesty, I'm quite pleased that I finished postprocessing this lot before the week was out.

I still have a couple of rolls of film to develop and with any luck, I'll haul myself down to the nearest photostudio and get that done... one of these days.

I have a couple of photosets on flickr right now based on this camp, which you might want to have a look through.

Abstract work and an Excursion.

2010-04-09T03:19:00.002+10:00

Just tooling around in photoshop.

So tomorrow, I'll be heading off for a photowalk around regional melbourne. It's been awhile since I've had a good opportunity to shoot landscapes so I'm very (very) psyched.

I'm also going to break out and dust off my old film camera for this trip; I hope there's some life left in it. It's as analogue as they come, though. Everything is mechanically controlled, and the shutter speed is permanently locked at 1/60s. Yup. This will be fun.

Still, what could possible go wro...

Lusine + Syntaks + Mux Mool

2010-04-03T17:55:00.000+11:00

Mux Mool's new album 'Skulltaste' is out, and it's well worth a listen.

Enter Shogun

2010-02-09T18:12:00.000+11:00

I gots me a new geetahr!
Time to go back to my roots.

\m/

New places, new faces.

2010-01-28T14:30:00.000+11:00

So a couple of my current housemates are moving into their new place just North-West of the city centre. These are a few shots of their new penthouse apartment at dusk.

Bears

2010-01-23T22:10:00.003+11:00

Some bears for your amusement. Probably worth clicking through to the high-res images on flickr. There are 3, which I'm probably going to work into a spread.

Grr.

For those so inclined,

2009-12-25T17:37:00.000+11:00

Merry Christmas!

On the Science of Sound

2009-11-30T07:30:00.000+11:00

I just realised my kid brother's been collecting some pretty wicked gear these past few months... He's a damn fine guitarist now, and most of the equipment he's rocking at the moment is pretty tricked out.

I'll be uploading more to flickr soon enough, but for the meantime these do look a lot better when blown up.

On aviatophobia

2009-11-23T21:24:00.004+11:00

A routine flight.

Overcast skies, a slight breeze, nothing to be worried about. Seven hours and thirty five minutes of tired buttocks, freshly microwaved meals and superficial smiles.
"Thank you for flying with us, come again soon."

The first bit of turbulence rocked the aircraft; Drinks were spilt; Titters of surprise from the passengers. "Ladies and gentlemen please return to your seats, and fasten your seatbelts, Toilets are not be used at this time."
An infant began to cry.

The aircraft jostled about ceaselessly in the violent air. "This is your captain speaking, uh... it seems that the turbulence was uh... worse than I had anticipated...uh we should be out of it in about twenty minutes." The plane descended; The air at thirty eight thousand feet was too unstable.

Stillness. The in-flight entertainment did a good job of calming the passengers down. Meals were about to be served when a really nasty patch of turbulence hit the plane with a sickening jolt. Passengers were thrown out of their seats. Shouts of panic filled the plane. A girl, two rows down from my seat began screaming hysterically. Stewardesses rushed to calm her down. The seatbelt sign was illuminated.

The plane descended again, escaping the angry atmosphere.
It carried on towards its destination.

This was what happened on my flight from Melbourne to Singapore. It was a rather scary flight, truth be told, and that really was what the pilot said over the intercom; So much for instilling confidence in us.

And the superficial sighs

2009-11-14T22:40:00.000+11:00

A Simon & Garfunkle reference, just in case anyone's wondering.

I shot the image for this poster on that fotoholics camp I went to some weeks ago. I think it was just after dawn, with the sun just about to peek over the clouds in the distance. Annoyingly though I framed this picture horizontally, and so I had to generate the upper half of the picture from scratch to make this poster work.

Oh yeah, you can now see most of my poster work over at flickr.

On science, progress and celestial illumination

2009-11-10T02:04:00.001+11:00

It's exam time (again) and the books beckon... and that's all I have to say.
Gotta get back to work.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that the Twitter widget (in the sidebar) is no more. It might make a reappearance later on, as a dedicated TroubleAt4122-twitter widget, but for the moment, it's dead.

Season 3 of 107. Final episode.

2009-11-03T01:09:00.000+11:00

This must be said.

A year of outrageously good times, inimitable friends, inside jokes, raucous laughter.
Paths diverge; we keep calm;
We carry on.

At least we went out with a bang. Yes.

Yes.

Oh hell yes.

Much better.

2009-10-24T00:31:00.000+11:00

Trouble has been in desperate need of a facelift, streamlining and code optimisation. Honestly in the previous ad-hoc 3 column layout, there were so many fragments of CSS and bits of broken HTML that it would have made seasoned WebDevs queasy. Yeah. That bad.

And so, without further ado, may I humbly welcome you to the new and (arguably) improved site.
A quick tour is in order I suppose.

You will notice that the 3 column layout is no more! This is a good thing because now there's less visual clutter, and there's more space to display media.

The new sidebar still retains the previous widgets except for the 'Followers' gadget. A quick trip to Google Analytics reveals that more people subscribe via RSS than through Blogger's 'follower' system, so it's rather obvious why it didn't make the cut.

There are now prominent icons where the previous 'Find me on...' section used to be, each one linking to my other online presences. I'm still working on some funky mouse-over effects for this section, but I don't think they'll be ready anytime soon, so in the meantime, Tooltips will have to suffice (just mouseover each of the icons).

Right well that's about it then..
Oh and a couple of new shots from Flickr.

Experiments with video

2009-10-20T14:19:00.002+11:00

Another video! This was shot way back at the fotoholics camp that I went for earlier this semester.
I post processed this in After Effects, tinting it and making it slightly dream-like. Surprisingly, for a measly 2 minute video, this took the better part of 4 hours to render! (Well, I left it to render overnight. AE tip: Start your HD projects late in the evening.)

Oh and the song this video is set to is 'Tell me what to swallow' by Crystal Castles.
Watch this in HD, if you can, over at vimeo.

Wild thing!

2009-10-18T18:25:00.000+11:00

Ah Karen O, you make my day!

So I got my hands on the Where The Wild Things Are soundtrack, and really, this album was everything I expected it to be. There's this inherent playfulness about the album that envelopes you, but not in a desperate 'I may look like I'm 23, but I'm really 5 years old, I promise!' kind of way.

This is a good thing. Clearly Karen O and the Kids know the subtle, yet colossal difference between being child-like and being childish.

Most of the reviews I've read about this album allude to its ability to 'take you back to your childhood'. To tell you the truth, it doesn't. It just makes you feel... happy!

This album then, is a rarity, in that it doesn't really care that at its core, it's made out of simple melodies, classroom-friendly instruments, and pretention-free lyrics; It's the cure for a lousy day, is what it is.

And now (before this post becomes a full blown album review/rant), have a listen to 'Cliffs' just below. The internet is awash with posts about 'All is love' and 'Rumpus' both of which capture the fun of this album, but 'Cliffs' on the other hand is one of those songs that comes on just when the action dies down, and everyone's having a little quiet time.

All righty, rant over. Enjoy!

On tintinnabulation

2009-10-15T04:37:00.001+11:00

Tin-tinn-a-bu-la-tion (n): The ringing or sound of bells (from the Latin tinnabulae, 'of bells').

Vocabulary +1!

This video is a snippet of the performance 'Ringing the Changes' by Strange Fruit, on the opening day of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. In hindsight, a tripod would have been quite useful.

This video was filmed with my Canon 500D, with a 14mm wideangle lens;

Bells. Lots of Bells.

2009-10-12T19:31:00.000+11:00

Melbourne's International Arts Festival kicked off this week with 2 amazing shows, both of which involved the liberal use of bells. I'll have videos up soon, but in the meantime here are a few photos from the day...

Flexing its (tiny) muscles.

2009-10-02T03:14:00.001+10:00

So I figured it's time to see what my little 500D can do in terms of video.
This isn't at all fancy; 720p video, with minimal post processing (because it was AfterEffects' time of the month for some reason).

I did get the chance to use a (wicked sick) EF-S 10-22mm lens though, and I must say it's just fantastic. See how everything appears to be moving that much faster when we walk through the maze? Yup that's Ultra-wide angle for you.

Roaming around

2009-10-01T18:11:00.001+10:00

Man am I knackered. I've done waaaaay too much post processing for one day, and I still have video to get through.
Either way, enjoy these shots!

EDIT: Oh, and yeah I decided to get on the flickr bandwagon. God knows how this is going to work out...

Of the ursine variety...

2009-09-24T19:07:00.000+10:00

That's a big bear.
Oh, and that's "Grizzly Bear" in serbian.

Images sourced from:
planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/news/exoplanet_images.cfm
www.wildanimalfightclub.com/

Nom nom nom.

On overloaded servers, and bears.

2009-09-21T15:33:00.000+10:00

I'll keep this one brief.
Grooveshark has one of the best 'site down' pages of all time (see what I did just there? Kanye would be proud). There are references to pandas, hostages, illegal activity and a fair few good puns.

Mmm, puns.

The Cat Piano

2009-09-12T14:44:00.002+10:00

If you have a couple of minutes to spare, watch this amazing animated short film by The People's Republic of Animation (In HD, please. It's worth the extra wait.)

I came across this while browsing through the interwebs; Turns out this won the Best Animation Short at the Melbourne International Film Festival '09.

http://catpianofilm.com/

Come September...

2009-09-11T02:53:00.006+10:00

A couple of things to get out of the way:
1. I'm rather embarrassed that it's been over a month since I last updated Ta4122.
2. There's not much I can do about it.

Right, now that that's taken care of, on with the show.

This drawing is taken from one of the numerous moleskine-ish doodle books I have lying around my desk.
I say moleskine-ish because to me, a moleskine notebook demands that every page be filled with lavish, intricate and wonderful works of art. I...I can't cope with that responsibility...
The notebooks I buy instead are reasonably inexpensive, yet they do the job just fine, without being judgemental.

Anyway, this drawing is a rough-drafty-sort-of-thing in the style of those fantastic retro movie posters. It's a fictitious poster, for a fictitious movie, obviously. If you read the text in the top right, you will realise that it's aiming to be a rather mediocre B-rated spy flick (Or C-rated, rather, as you can probably tell from the title.)

I'm currently working on a couple of design projects, but they probably won't be up till October. (One's a short film!) Till then, I'll probably update sporadically.

Gonna hit you nice people up with some linkage, for your enjoyment:

1. Avatar
Oooohh this looks too good. For better or worse, I find that I am one of those people who'd watch a movie solely for its visuals even if the plot, premise, and/or cast is rubbish. In this light, a quick look at Avatar's plot suggests that it's taking a stroll down Cliche Avenue, but its unbelievably photorealistic, uncanny-valley breaking visuals may well mean that I'd turn a blind eye to it.

2. Alive in Joburg
Distict 9 aficionados will know immediately what this one's about. It's the short film, directed by Neill Blomkamp, that District 9 was based on. It's worth checking out (being only 6 minutes long), especially if you've already seen D9.

3. WatchListenTell
Live music greater than Studio recordings? That's certainly what Dave Tree thinks. He's a director by profession, who records (generally indie and unsigned) bands as they perform a song live and unplugged. Each of the videos is shot in a single take (using what appears to be a 5D MkII hooked up to a lens with insane bokeh!).

Probably should (shamelessly) plug this somewhere:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/navinjayasinghe
That's the link to my 'Google Reader shared items' page. Have a browse through, and subscribe with RSS (if you're into that) if you like what you see :)

That's all, have a nice September!

On Ghostly, and keeping up with the Joneses.

2009-08-09T02:16:00.012+10:00

Haven’t picked up on the fact that I really dig Ghostly International yet? Ghostly is one of those small studios that just exude freshness, without heading down Hipster Avenue. I could wax poetic about the talent under its wing, but I’d rather you experienced it for yourself. Definitely worth 3 minutes of your time.

A small explanation about the nature of this poster: See that picture in the middle? That was shot from my balcony on a balmy Saturday afternoon. Sure I've had a field day post-processing it, but here’s the original shot anyway.

I picked up a new camera for myself recently; It’s an Eos 500D, an entry level DSLR, but it’s got enough features (and buttons. I like buttons) to keep me occupied for quite awhile. In any case, I don’t think I’d turn TroubleAt4122 into a photoblog just yet.

Say Konica!

Sleepy days

2009-07-20T16:49:00.004+10:00

RIP Michael Jackson

2009-06-28T00:41:00.002+10:00

Incubus-isms

2009-06-26T02:16:00.003+10:00

This is going to be a series, I can tell.
In fact I'll be updating this post quite often with new images as I make them.

Incubus! Love 'em or hate 'em (don't be hatin'!), they are one of the few bands in the world who have made it big, yet haven't sold out.

This post is rather sentimental I guess, in that Incubus was one of the first bands I cut my teeth (ears, rather?) on. These images are basically reinterpretations of a couple of their songs, Pistola and A Certain Shade of Green taken off A Crow Left of the Murder and S.C.I.E.N.C.E respectively.

Here's a superb acoustic version of A Certain Shade of Green. Enjoy!

It's Blitz!

2009-06-15T03:03:00.003+10:00

A Yeah yeah yeah's poster, coming your way!

It's blitz has been out for awhile now and I really quite like it. Granted, it's a shocking departure from the usual raw sound that Zinner, O and Chase cut their teeth on (Art Star, anyone?) but it's nice to actually hear Karen's voice for a change.
Prowling YouTube, I stumbled on some rather unusual YYY videos; They are short... er... films, based on each of the band members, titled The Scientist, The Philosopher and The Black Widow.
Either way, I hadn't seen them before, and that pretty much gave me the idea for this poster.

Alrighty, that's all from me. My exams finish up in a couple of days, and I'm gonna get back to them books.
Oh joy.

Coo, linkage!

Leveson Chronicles #3

2009-05-15T03:40:00.002+10:00

We just got our hands on a Rockband instrument pack... yeah 'nuff said; I'm going back to play.

I just keep churning 'em out

2009-05-12T00:50:00.003+10:00

Another 2 posters... Enjoy!

Edit(11/06/09):
Check out the artists in the 2nd poster. They are masters of ambient music.
Milosh, Deastro, Ben Benjamin.

Bomb them walls

2009-04-17T17:53:00.012+10:00

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love Graffiti. It lights up an otherwise dull wall or piece of architecture that nobody would have noticed anyway.

Sticker art, while not on the same level as full scale wall bombing, is still a brilliant alternative. I hadn’t noticed this before but all over my neighbourhood are nifty pieces of sticker art. Coincidentally, there’s a picture of a kraken (squid, rather) on our back wall! (The Kraken is our house mascot; Needless to say we are all impressed by our friendly neighbourhood bomber.)

3 unrelated posters

2009-04-17T01:50:00.004+10:00

One month later...

2009-03-23T14:51:00.003+11:00

Hello!
I'm still alive and kicking; One year older though, but still hanging in there.

A simple painting is all I have for you today.

Leveson Chronicles #2

2009-02-24T03:39:00.003+11:00

This one might do well with an explanation.

We spontaneously bought Risk yesterday afternoon and spent the rest of the day trying to achieve world domination. Emphasis on trying; It wasn't easy.

I had control of North America, and in a bid to capture South America I sent something like fifteen troops into Peru, which was being held by Andy.

In a spectacular run of bad luck (The Bay of Peru Fiasco, The Peruvian Massacre, call it what you want.) all my men were killed, nay slaughtered by three Peruvian scamps. That's right, three. Do the math, my men outnumbered them one-to-five!

I didn't even win the territory in the end; One cheeky punk refused to die, so I had to retreat to nurse the wounds of war and remove all knowledge of that event from the history books.

So very very disappointed (and I still think those dice were loaded. I'm onto you guys.)

Onto the drawing part of things, all these "Leveson Chronicles" updates are meant to be drawn in a really sketchy and fast style. Unlike the more detailed ones, these take a nice couple of hours to finish so I usually wind up completing them, and not relegating them to my 'to be continued' folder.

It should be noted that whatever goes into said folder is hardly ever heard or seen again. Don't blame me, blame my attention span.

Leveson Chronicles #1

2009-02-06T21:41:00.005+11:00

Moving out was messy, settling in wasn't.
I'm bunking with Hatim, Hakim, Andy and Amrit for the time being until a more permanent solution can be found.

Till then, Guitar hero wars are go!

On snow

2009-01-19T02:48:00.004+11:00

I don't have anything interesting to say about this one. Another speed painting, is all.

EDIT: Wow sorry RSS-feed-folk, that first image came out so horribly blurred. This one is way sharper.

Dawn over Yala

2009-01-12T01:09:00.012+11:00

There's something about half-light photography that I'm really attracted to and impressed by; Everything just looks so much better at dawn or twilight.

This is photo I took back in 2006, when some really good friends and I went to Yala for a few days. I had never been there before, yet I managed to get pictures of leopards on my first trip! Beginners luck? Yeah, probably. (For the record, I'm the newbie at this; Dhanu and Rishi have been doing this for years.)

I was using an old Canon Powershot for the job but 4 megapixels doesn't really cut it today. I had to clean up a lot of image noise in Photoshop. (High ISO and low resolution. That's not a good combo.) Apart from that adjustment, I haven't had a punt at levels, curves or any other image-enhancing method you can think of.

Clearly then, waking up at 5am and climbing to the top of a sand dune does have its merits.

I saw Gaza turn into light

2009-01-09T01:45:00.010+11:00

Wahey another speed painting in 'shop. I'm starting to time myself to finish one in an hour, and so far it seems to be working.

Gaza is going to the dogs, isn't it?

Those white streaks, they're supposed to be rockets, but I doubt anyone really stops to look at them fly by. Apparently about 3 seconds after they are spotted, an announcer blasts a warning message across loudspeakers all over town; The people of Gaza then have roughly 15 seconds to get to 'safety'. (I say safety in quotes because no one knows where exactly those rockets will land.)

A quick one...

2009-01-05T22:35:00.002+11:00

Just an hour in photoshop. Can't spend any more time because the summer semester at uni has started, and I'm so out of my comfort zone with this (weird) management subject. Got a lot of catching up to do...

That is all.

Happy new year!

2009-01-01T13:19:00.002+11:00

Melbourne puts on a pretty damn decent fireworks display every new year, as you probably gathered from the picture above...

Have an excellent 2009!

Jump - Navigation

2008-12-16T02:53:00.003+11:00

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3:

Jump!

2008-12-11T07:31:00.005+11:00

A comic has magically appeared in front of you!
Abort/Retry/Fail

This is page one of a (very) short story I hope to tell over the next few days. It's a departure from the style(s) of my more recent works, but I want to concentrate on this comic-book-ish style for awhile. In my opinion, it's the hardest to get right and requires the most effort so it's a good thing I've got 3 months of hols to spend working on it.

The results are so worth it though.

EDIT:

I probably should have mentioned this earlier; This story is about Jérey Fernweh, an Aerokrafter and inventor. You'll find out more about him very soon (like tomorrow, hopefully)

Gratuitous texturing ahoy!

2008-12-04T23:20:00.003+11:00

I did a sketch of this drawing ages ago, saved it, and completely forgot about it for 6 months.
I came across it while cleaning up my hard disk last night, and figured now would be a good time to complete it.

Here, have one...

2008-12-03T00:31:00.005+11:00

Behold! A picture! With fire! Real fire!
I will be back shortly with some new pictures.
That is all.

Dance to the sound of sirens.

2008-11-22T13:59:00.005+11:00

Early on this year I picked up tickets for Bloc Party (It was a stroke of luck actually, while trawling Ticketmaster and Ticketek for good gigs.)
I went last night, expecting a truly brilliant performance and Jesus, they definitely didn't disappoint!

We had tickets for gate 4 (at Festival Hall) and when we arrived, we were shocked to find that there were only 2 people standing outside.
Front row? Oh yes.

Van she was the opening act for the show; They were all right, I guess. Not brilliant, but not awful either. The crowd was definitely impatient for the real attraction.

Bloc opened with 'One month off' and went though crowd favourites rather quickly. It wasn't just a replay of Intimacy, thankfully. The big ones last night were 'So here we are', 'Sunday', 'Like eating glass', 'Two more years' and 'Hunting for witches'. I think they played more songs from Weekend in the City than Silent alarm.

That being said, they closed with 'Helicopter' and 'This Modern Love', in true anthem style with Kele leaving the singing to the crowd.

Good times, and a great gig. My head is still ringing (I was standing in front of a loudspeaker) and my entire body aches; Moshing is not for the weak, clearly.

[The picture above is a panorama mash up of image stills from a short video I recorded. The event staff (the dudes in orange shirts right up front) were rather sticky about recording and taking pictures, so I'm lucky I got any footage at all!]

Couldn't help myself...

2008-11-14T01:53:00.002+11:00

Nothing much, just a photo I took at dawn some months back. I found it recently in the backwaters of my hard drive.

Doesn't look half bad; I didn't realise mornings look this good!
Honestly though, that's still not enough incentive for me to get out of bed early.

Righto, back to Fluid Mechanics.

(14 days left before I'm through with my 2nd year. This is going to be the longest fortnight EVER!)

2nd year finale!

2008-10-18T03:02:00.002+11:00

Indeed, exams are around the corner (10th of November, to be exact) and there is much to be done, in so little time.

I'm going to put Ta4122 in stasis for awhile until things lighten up on the academic side of things.
I'll be back in business in December, so check back then!

Have a great summer! (Or winter, if you happen to live in a country that's not climatically-challenged.)

Poster collection +2

2008-10-11T00:55:00.007+11:00

Just want to point out again that these posters are entirely fictional, and although they are potentially infringing, bear in mind that they were done in good faith.

Man that Justice poster was tedious... I found I could work much better with the typeface when I crossed my eyes, but unfortunately a direct consequence of that was a splitting headache.

Suffer for your art?

EDIT: Wow blogger isn't really good with resizing images... these thumbnails are a mess! Click through to see them in high res.

EDIT 2: Expand your musical knowledge, if you have no idea who I'm talking about:
Justice (album)
Broken Social Scene
Emmy the Great

Retro is the new Now.

2008-10-07T21:12:00.014+11:00

I love Neophiliacs, (The little side column in Private Eye, not the social label.) and I couldn't help but start with something a little paradoxical.
Here are 2 more posters, done in a minimalist-retro style. Enjoy!

(note: That second poster isn't for an actual exhibition, just so you know.)

Edit: I just realised this is my 100th blog post. Not that thats anything great, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm pretty psyched I've stuck with it for this long.

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

2008-10-04T04:21:00.006+10:00

Did anyone happen to catch the Biden vs Palin vice presidential debate today?
I'm not going to rant about why I decided to do this piece, instead I'm going to focus on the artwork behind it.

You may recognise this piece as being extremely similar (in style) to one of Barack Obama's posters. I did Sarah Palin's likeness in this style, to pay homage to Shepard Fairey (the designer of said Obama poster).

On the technical side of things, I used Illustrator first to get a vector 'posterised' version of Palin's face, and then did the rest of the artwork, clean-up and colouring in Photoshop.

Personally, I consider this one still 'work-in-progress' because I haven't found the right font for 'FAIL'. Ideally, it would be the same as the one used in the Obama poster, but that's a licenced font so I'm still hunting around for a suitable free alternative.

Sorry for the blatant title rip off... It seemed appropriate at the time of writing this.

Sticking it to the Man.

2008-09-28T05:18:00.003+10:00

This is a controversial topic anyway, but it's rather clear which side I'm on.
Not to make this a habit or anything, but I dedicate this to Justin O over at Muxtape. Just read the write up on the site, you'll see what I mean.
Kudos for such a fantastic site, pity it will never get back on its feet.
Help save Muxtape.

September already...

2008-09-23T06:37:00.002+10:00

● Link to picture ●

I'm going to throw this one up in full glory, because it's a bit silly having such a 'tall' image as a thumbnail link.

Soz..

2008-09-16T12:04:00.002+10:00

Midsemester break is around the corner, so I'll get some updates out around then. In the meantime, here's... no wait, I've got nothing for you.

Sorry.

Instruct yourself!

2008-09-02T23:30:00.002+10:00

Heh, you would have had to have played Portal in order to get this reference, but hey if you haven't here are some links to help you out.

Who doesn't like instruction manuals?

2008-09-02T00:05:00.005+10:00

Let's get retro!

(To see this is glorious HD, well click the link)

Typography experiments

2008-08-30T01:52:00.003+10:00

I came up with this after listening to a bit of Phil Collins. That being said, Cadbury's take on it is genius.

Probably should have read that sooner...

2008-08-25T04:40:00.004+10:00

We spent the last two days analysing various devices for a rather tedious assignment. The premise was that we needed to 'distil the essence' of devices under 'real-life loading situations'.

In short, would the ruddy thing collapse on itself if you would so much as sneeze on it.

So by the end of the weekend, we had quite nicely racked up a good 25 pages or so of meticulous calculations (Not including the others we had to scrunch up and toss away because of small... um... irregularities in the sums) and about a half dozen or so of detailed diagrams.

It was roughly then that we chanced upon one nondescript sentence tucked away in the shadows of two parentheses: "Don't do the analysis".

Epithets and expletives broke the silence;
It's nice to know what primal rage feels like.

"Dance to the sound of sirens"

2008-08-22T15:36:00.002+10:00

I don't usually post about new music but I absolutely have to with Bloc Party's latest offering, 'Intimacy'.

From start (and what a start it is!) to finish, it's a stupefyingly brilliant album. I'll let you be the judge of it, but what I really want to rant about is the album cover.

Strictly speaking, this is not the final design, (since the CDs will be out only in October, as opposed to the digital version which was released yesterday) but it's well thought out: The clean minimalist approach works really well with the title, not to mention the stark light grey and black colour scheme. That, coupled with a great typeface makes for a really good... temporary cover.

A shame, really.

Viva music

2008-08-20T23:17:00.001+10:00

A World Record

2008-08-17T03:13:00.002+10:00

Those are his shoes, in case you were wondering. This video is the best I can find on YouTube right now...

Another one...

2008-08-16T03:10:00.002+10:00

I found this...

2008-08-02T01:56:00.004+10:00

...buried in my 'rough' drafts folder.

August

2008-08-01T17:19:00.004+10:00

Psh, abstracts.

Summer montage

2008-07-22T19:18:00.000+10:00

A few pictures shooped together...

Exams are over...

2008-06-27T19:58:00.001+10:00

...so I'll get back to updating this site.

(also, in approximately 5 days, I'll be back at home.)

twitch

2008-06-17T23:13:00.003+10:00

With only 4 hours left till Firefox 3 is released, I'm like a little kid at 12.01am digging around the base of the Christmas tree, looking for loot.

4 hours. So glad I bought that red-bull 4 pack.

EDIT: ...base of the Christmas tree, looking for loot, only to find that ALL OF THE FUGGING DOWNLOAD SERVERS/MIRRORS ARE DOWN!

I mean, you'd think they'd invest in higher-capacity servers at least just for this period of time. Also, making a world record on the most number of downloads for a single piece of software isn't exactly helped by 'technical difficulties'.

Fugg it, I'm going to bed.

One down,

2008-06-14T03:01:00.002+10:00

...four to go. Wahey.

I just drew this to unwind; there's really nothing behind it.
Done in Photoshop, mind you.

That's all I've got. See you in a few weeks.

Bawls!

2008-06-08T03:38:00.001+10:00

Rocks, i guess.

2008-06-04T03:20:00.003+10:00

Honestly, this was not what I set out to paint. One thing lead to another, and voilà, something not quite as good as the original.

27 days left before I go home!

Speed painting

2008-05-17T02:25:00.003+10:00

Nothing fantastic today; 15 mins on photoshop was all it took to whip up each one.

On a completely unrelated note, I've completely fallen in love with charcoal as an artistic medium. I had to do sketches today for my art workshop in charcoal, and although it can be quite messy to work with (and I mean messy; That's the last time I wear a white shirt to class!) it sure does produce beautiful tones and allows for much more atmospheric drawings.

I'll upload those sketches next week when they're done. (Although scanning them will be a flipping nightmare... I suppose that's one of the drawbacks of sketching on A2 paper.)

Early Monday update...

2008-05-12T01:19:00.010+10:00

I'll keep this quick. I just finished a sketch of Björk but I'm going to scan it, rather than take a top-down picture (like the previous one...) to upload.

I'll sort it out at uni, where they have scanners aplenty.

EDIT: Sketch is up!

Another one?

2008-05-04T03:56:00.009+10:00

Yeah, I'm surprised myself! Two updates in a row; I'm on a roll.

This piece of artwork is different from the rest in that it's done traditionally.
That means pencils, paper and hours of frustration. I've become so used to using Photoshop for drawing that I kept reaching for non-existent 'ctrl' and 'z' keys in a desperate attempt to 'undo' while sketching.

This is a portrait of Leslie Feist, (of Broken Social Scene fame). I picked her for a couple of reasons: One, I quite like her music, and two, because her face was one of the first to come up in a Google search for extra large portrait pictures. (Click this link for the original image). Heh, I'm not complaining.

Personally, I feel I haven't completely got the sketch down right, although in my defence this is the first time I've ever done portrait sketching. I think I'll probably do more of this sort of thing in the future; It's quite refreshing, actually.

Facets. Abstract. Blue.

2008-05-03T02:33:00.005+10:00

Arrrgh.

2008-04-27T17:42:00.005+10:00

Of late, updates have been sporadic and for that I apologize. Uni kills me on a daily basis, and there's really not much I can do about that.

Today's artwork is done across 3 different programs: SketchBook for the basic lineart, Adobe Flash for smoothing and vectorising said lineart, and Photoshop for colouring and touching up.

Enjoy. I'm off to hibernate.

Oh hello...

2008-04-07T23:01:00.004+10:00

Honestly, my average day now goes something like 'wake up, go to uni, come back from uni, finish uni work, sleep, repeat'
The fact that mid semester exams are hurtling towards us doesn't help one bit.

Anyway, this drawing is (arguably) commissioned artwork for Melbourne University's Photography Society. Long story short, I have to give a talk on how I draw up PhotoArt (like the pintsize playground series), so this piece along with the one just before are my exhibits.

As usual, Photoshop for everything, including the upper 1/3rd of the background. (The original photograph didn't have much of a background to work with, so I had to make my own.)

This time around, the drawing is quite 'tall' so click on it to see it in its full glory.

Pintsize playground.

2008-03-23T02:33:00.001+11:00

● Link to picture ●

Pintsize Playground gets an update! Woot!