Landscape Concept

Larger view on DA.

I don’t know how long it took to shade this. But it was LONG. Did not felt that long, however. Probably because it was nice shading it. Very tedious and meticulous work.

A medieval concept based in England, during the Romanesque era, whereby the architecture had more of an inclination towards curved and rounded arches, adopted from the Romans. Why Romanesque? Because many fairy tale castles are based on the Romanesque period. Plus, it would be a living hell constructing Gothic styles.

I wanted to emphasize more on the domestic lifestyle of people, where you can see lot of activity going on, domestic living and culture, bla bla bla. And my thumbnails were so tiny and detailed. So I eat my words and make sure the outcome looks good. The only problem is the dock is way to small. But it’s fine, if no one notice 2 boats are on different distance but same size.

Class Project. Landscape design. Imagination + Reference + Light + Shadow + Value study.

By far my most detailed piece of construction drawing ever! I love details? I think. Hope you like it too!

Goodbye so soon

The only famous director in Malaysia I’d ever remembered was Yasmin Ahmad. To imagine the awkwardness of passing by the mosque at my area this morning, crowded and jammed with cars, knowing her decease is just within 200 meters away from me, thinking about how many tear-jerked ads she made, made me ponder so much about how a well respected person has shaped and unite the minds and hearts of Malaysians in her lifetime. I don’t know much about any other directors or film makers in Malaysia. But she is the one and only few that makes Malaysian advertising look good.

Now she’s gone I wonder what sort of advertisements would pop out the TV? That lame old I-need-something-refreshing-so-my-wife-gives-me-tea-and-do-that-stupid-laugh-at-the-end-of-the-advertisement kinda ad? Or the same old shampoo ad where a girl start flicking her hair showing the silky softness which some of us know is photoshoped and edited? I remembered how many times I had to run to the toilet crying after watching her ad. It’s half irritating, but brings out so much meaning to your life within 3 minutes.

I would give her my most sincere respect. She had to go so soon when we still want so much from her. TQ Yasmin Ahmad, for touching each and everyone of us with your ads, your films, and your belief in humanity.

Some of my favourites:

Fast Foward Pleaze

Yes, the countdown has begun.

26 days till the Sem break starts. It is really fast. And sadly, yea sadly, I don’t feel any form of stress since the new term started.

This is weird.

But yet, I wish I could hit the fast forward button now. It’s not nice to meticulously rub off and do tons of clean up work on your animation. Neither is that nice to meticulously plant in high amount details on your construction. But the results are always far more satisfying. I actually want to kick start on a Star Wars novel reading marathon. I got tons and tons of ebooks in my com. Not only read, but jolt down the names of the worlds, characters, creatures, description of places. Got something on my mind which I would like to do one day.

There’s so many things to do. But after one and a half years here I learn that you can only do so much in one day. And of course, as artist wannabees, we always wish to have instant beautiful portraits, instant awesome creations popping out in front of our eyes. Perhaps doing animation has curb down my impatience. Actually, many things had thought me to curb my impatience. Like sometimes you want to go so fast then someone up there just told you to wait.

Wait? I hate waiting!!

You’re running a marathon, not a 100 meters track race!! Can you be the least bit more patient??

Yea, patient to finish your work so you can finally enjoy the satisfaction to do whatever you want without the feeling of guilt.

Yes, patience, after all is a virtue.

Back to work.

Pumpkin Final

Larger view on DA.

Argh!! My pumpkin looks so graphic. I took so long just to get the glow right… but I messed it up because I didn’t duplicated a the picture layer when editing it in photoshop….

Jason was right to place the leaves on the floor one by one. I taught he was nuts! He just look at me and say, “yalah, you gotta do like that! Innot why would people hire you next time?..But well yea, I listened to him. You do not exactly model leaf by leaf..oh no, or not you’ll start crying in the middle of the night. You just mask each plane and do some shadow correction in photoshop. Should have add more leaves though.

My occulsion looks pretty stupid, haha! Forgotten to take out the glow.Look at all the papers on the ground!! The modelling of the logs is actually pretty terrible just to get the rough look. But texturing is really really important and eats up your time just to get it to look right.

Anyways, can’t be bothered to make anymore changes. As now we’re approaching final projects, it’s getting heavier and heavier.

Coraline

was outstandingly captivating, alluring, magical, crafty, and unique and simple one of the best stop motion + CG animation I had ever seen in my life, other than The Corpse Bride.

There’s so much to talk about in a movie. I wanted to write reviews for the Shindler’s List, La Vie En Rose, Transformers 2, The curious case of Benjamin Button, etc etc…but can’t seem to find the push to do it. But Coraline is simply superb. One of the best animated story I’ve seen, based on the novel written by Neil Gaiman, from their creative camera angles, subtle twigs in it’s realistic animation, believable places and concepts.. could even send your heart pumping at the precise moment, the right time, at the most unsuspected.

I spend a lot of my Fridays or my in-between times watching any short animation I can find on youtube or where ever. Half the time I would be literally bored at each story, half the time I wonder which area that taps into animation and storytelling at its best. Coraline could be those rare films which I would say is absolutely polish that there’s nothing to criticize.

I wish I could write a really long review but I prefer yapping to someone about it whom has watched it.

Directed by Henry Selick, whom also directed Nightmare before Christmas. I’ll be keeping a good watch on him.

Pumpkin Draft

Yea, pumpkin!

This was a pretty easy one? Cause I’m cheating my way not to model anything to complicated by showing some composition and realistic texturing.

cheating or being smart? Hmm…

Overall picture need a stronger tint of blue in to light up the shadow area. BG needs a bit more lighting. Trying to make my metal not look like plastic. And the leaves on the floor dont look real at all.There’s no light in the lamp.. haha…

I’ll correct it tommorow.

The Dog Angel

You can’t fake how you feel about things. Personally, I felt I was wasting every bit of minute spending my day in between time slots doing marker render.
In the nutshell, I hate marker rendering. It isn’t a complain. It’s a feeling. It’s eats up your time, pronto.

The good thing about the day is that I had a 45 minute conversation my neighbour, Mr Yap.

For some reason, I like conversing with old people. People around 40 to 50. I used to like talking to kids particularly to my cousins when I was young but I guess when they hit their teenage years of puberty, animated talks seems to drift off. But yea, having a close friend way older or way younger than you widens your horizon of how people think as they share their experiences in life.

Mr Yap, is the” Dog Angel”. He goes around the neighbourhood nearly every evening to bless every dog with treats. That’s how we got to know him. He likes Rocky the best. I don’t have a picture of him but he has one of the most authentic smile I’ve ever seen in my life. His laughter could be felt straight from the heart. I actually like to catch glimpses of him laughing, watching the wrinkles crinkle and his eyes sparkle with life everytime he lets out a laugh. He would be absolutely perfect for a photography subject.

We talk about life, work, college, future, past, present. Listening to him sometimes feels like I’m walking on a road back to my father’s past. Where they were both in Victoria Institution once. They’ve built themselves with solid  education and character development, and love their school because of the care given there. VI was one of the reasons that my dad managed to work his way out of poverty. Perhaps if he had not been there he would still be living in the flats, unable to fund for any of our education.

I don’t know about other people, but I never like to take what I have for granted, especially since I came to One Academy. My personal experience and testimonies of what I’ve been through and what I learn is so much that I remain a partially open book. Yesterday, for some reason, bits and pieces of events being part of the CF popped out of my mind. A flashback I guess, from easter and Subang Rallies, toilet cleaning? Even sweeping the floors in the classroom when no one else would do it just popped out. I began to realize that a jigsaw puzzle of my past experiences seem to connect. God was building my character at the end of it. Everything was not done by accident. Every part of a situation thought me to lead, to follow, to serve, to do paper and administrative work, to plan, to persuade, to involve, to be part of, to learn humility, to even became a slave. Even negativity and doubt of how I thought that situations would not work seems to turn and become possible in what I see. I miss those days a lot. Because for a year and a half to now, I still do not have a personal sense of belonging to a church or a community.

But imagine if you realize what God has done with you in the past, then imagine what God will do to you in the future! Everyday I seem to have instant realization of something, hopefully is a gateway to greater understanding of what God intends for me to do.

One light conversation

sometimes, can get you excited and inspired again.

Thank you, Syed.

I cannot keep pushing aside my ideas and thoughts doubting that I can’t execute things as I imagined.
It’s such that an idiotic unfulfilled feeling that you have that vision and idea that keeps circulating in your head again and again and you keep asking yourself, “when?”
You need that kick of believe that things are achievable if you set a clear discipline for yourself to do it.

So when?

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Little slots of short Updates:

- I’m beginning my countdown to complete my projects as fast as I can. This sem is really relax. We have assignments but get plenty of sleep.  The days that I din’t get enough sleep was because I was watching  movies. Haha. So yea. But I feel a tinge of urge in me to discover something or learn something new. Even within a week of norms, each week was different and I experience something different. I really don’t want to one by one explain what I watch or seen or whatever but it’s in my own head that the excitement begans. The ideas that I only share with my sister.

- Sorry for the delay, Malacca Trip photos are finally uploaded on my ancient facebook.

- I got some of the lip sync videos from Syed. The ones he showed us last Sem. Anyone who needs  a copy can get it from me.

- Prayer meeting is finally ON!! On Mondays (8.30am), Wed & Fridays (9.00am). We’ll  work on encouraging people to join us. Working towards sustaining and keeping up the effort to make a difference. Please please please let there be a revo campus here in TOA….don’t want to come to a regret in not fulfilling God’s purpose for us.