Lean, Mean, Popsickle Machine!

Dipper

Manic Monday

Poetic transitions

Ze Dragonfly

I drew this robo after watching a dragonfly fluttering around in my room the other day. I thought to myself, "What would it be like if I twisted it down from the torso?"...Anyways, not sure about the results, but I've realized that I've taking quite a liking towards drawing techy stuff. I didn't like the coloured version much.

Revoltingly loud

Bouncy Betta gets hooked to the vintage cushions after the Trevor sisters unearth a hidden lobby in their ancestral mansion. I decided to settle in for a different treatment...alas...I resorted to pre-school immaturity and went crazy with my sketch pens.

Mzunaki

Underbrush

An experminent with photo inks, pencil colours and charcoal.

Mush black

An attempt at using the dry brush technique.

La Dolce Vita

Mechanical birds-a collection

My penfriending days

This is my friend Angie Spicer from Illinois, USA, whom I had corresponded with over the course of seven years. We had a lot in common, the strongest being the love for writing. The last photograph on the right was published in a newspaper in 2003, when one of her books won a Carby's National Literature Award in the category for young fiction.

The hobby that I have pursued most in my life is writing and I mean it, literally. I have written more letters than war veterans writing home to their girlfriends. I am looking at my desk right now, staring at the beefy folder exploding with letters, postcards and photographs of all my 65 penfriends. There were few things that brought me more joy than a thick stack of mail awaiting in my letterbox, from friends all across Brazil, Switzerland, Greece, Canada, Romania, Libya among many others. I would open each letter hungrily, and each such letter would countain a fixed itenary of things.

1. Letter- (of course)
2. A FB or a Friendship book
3. Address card
4. Postcards/phonecards/stamps/photographs etc (optional)

I can't believe how many days and nights I used to spend poring over those letters, absorbing every detail (and at times trying hard to decipher broken english) and planning about the little package that I would have to deliver back to the person. One of my German pen friends called Steffanie Rothmier had once sent me a tape of popular german songs and I remember getting into a tizzy regarding what to send her! I sent her a packet of ready-to-cook gulabjamun!!! Hhahahaha! Then there was a certain phenomennon called the 'Friendship book' that would be a small booklet adorned with shiny stickers and splattered with glittering ink that would contain a string of adresses of people of whomsoever had recieved that particular friendship book and it would pass on and on, almost like a chain letter but way cooler!! I once recieved one that had 200 addresses on it! I remember printing and designing letterheads to write on, and making a list of my favourite celebrity crushes, and of course like any teenager, I practicised my signature..like...about...a billion times! I had a business card at the age of 9! Sometimes I used to send them portaits of what they probably looked like in my mind before formally exchanging photographs with them. These memories are sugar-coated and nestled in a part of my mind that shall probably always remain alive and writing.

From the archives...

An aspiring fashion illustrator's last creation

Crayola sisters summon the bimbles

Photoshop fun translated differently with a poor camera and the lack of a scanner.

Howl's so impressive

I watched Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle yesterday and although this particular feature is not as scintillating compared to the likes of Spirited Away and Princess Monoke, Howl's Moving castle has edged it's way up to the very top of my list of Miyazaki's fave's because of it's namesake-HOWL! Just when you thought the world had enough of Don Juan's unleashing an army of swooning female fans, Howl's personality is a potential manga powerplayer and perhaps better than any other!

You're creative when you're hungry!!!

Tarka and Meenakshi weren't surprised when I came up with an alternative way of combating hunger in a restaurant full of tantalising aromas and hungry faces digging into platefulls of food. As soon as the attendant brought in the pickles and salad, we dug in, and just when I thought I'd had my share of onions and mint chutney, I made this porky-thig or a piggathingthing out of these two ingredients. I really like the expression on its face! :)

Blissfully home!!

I made this illustration last night under the the reading lamp in my bedroom, lavishing at the prospect of spending another fortnight at home. Nothing like waking up with soft beams of light dancing across the face instead of the alarm on the cell phone. I am at peace with myself. Finally.Although this particular piece serves as a distinctive irony!

An all time favourite afterthought

"The sea's only gifts are harsh blows, and occasionally the chance to feel strong. Now I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head."

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.

'When you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines upon you.'

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greather joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

The Bathroom bully

This is one frame from my final visual scripting storyboard. It was a very tedious course specially since it called for rendering every one of those 125 frames!!! Phew! Three nights of pure brainletting- if that's a word!! At the very best, its good to end the semester with one of these tough cookies...you learn to appreciate the possibility of simply stretching around at home with nothing to do at all. Boy, that feeling is so comforting to think of!! I'll be home on the 30th and I just can wait to jump into my bed and cuddle my two labradors!!!

A Riot of colours

Some more glimpses into Buttercup's sweet slumber, specially at a time when I'm not getting any!! :) I really can't wait to get into my bed back home!!!

Animals at NID

Rebekah

I experimented a lot with this particular illustration before uploading it. I began by pencil shading the character and moved on to using black charcoal to add more depth to the treatment. Still unsatisfied, I uploaded it on photoshop and tried a combination of photo filters. And yet...the end product that you see here is worked on in illustrator, resorted to good ol 'vectorization' of the image. Phew! Now that's a lotta work!! 

The Siblings

I was really missing my brother today while going through some photographs of our childhood together. I could recollect the times we would go fishing together when the deep gulleys near our old bungalow would fill up with water in the monsoons. Catching worms for bait was not something that I used to look forward to in those times. Also my brother was and still is pretty much obsessed with fish, alive as well as cooked. So this is for my intelligent and charming brother Bunny. I'm so proud of you. :)

Psst...in case you're wondering what the cat is doing in this illustration...its the brother's back-up bait!! :P

A solemn rendezvous

I just happenned to be sitting with my laptop in Tanima's room when suddenly a brown butterfly just landed on my left arm. You'd be saddenned by how this whole episode ended but it was such a pleasure to see it perched on my arm for half an hour without twitching even once. I just wished it would continue to accompany me because its presence made me feel very placid and calm. The tragic part came when I couldn't control my thirst anymore and started walking towards the water cooler. The butterfly had grown accustomed to my movements so I knew it would not hesitate. Contrary to my expectations, it flew away as soon as I entered the dark corridor and made a beeline towards the big white tubelight on the ceiling. And like most stereotypical situations, it was ambushed and eaten by a fat, fiesty lizard. I've never been so angry on a lizard before this night. Actually I quite like em...but this was really really sad.....:(

Mandarin blues

This illustration came to my mind soon after witnessing the miracle of Jamie Hewlett's work for 'Monkey: Journey to the West'. And like his previous stint with the Gorillaz, Hewlett has not dissappointed me at all. His characters are cynical and edgy with a kind of manic energy that makes them so attractive and refreshing. You guys must really check out this link www.mokeyjourneytothewest.com to know what this lad's been up to. 

Sign out Android

I'm just  little bored of the human form these days so I decided to go in for some robo stuff, and boy it was very refreshing...:) :). This illustration took me the whole day as I followed it up old style, the traditional use of the polygonal and magnetic lasso to colour each and every fragment of it. I'm just glas its over. :)
 

The mysticism of orange

I just felt like exploring a little more in photoshop. I've never really used gradients before, so it was kinda fun trying out different colour schemes.

When Buttercup resembles a cow

Buttercup resembles a cow when you try to wake her up in the morning. You try to lure her out of her slumber by tugging at her cheeks and upturn both her ears. She'll grunt and blow a gust of breath from her nose and twitch her paws. A total dose of canine bliss. Even when you bring a camera a few inches away from her nose, she wouldn't bother. A few dancing chickens wouldn't wake her. Alas, in such moments what you can really do is stare at that droopy face and melting eyes and wonder, "I wish I too could be a Buttercup...". 

Starry-eyed surprise

This is another proposed cover illustration for HAIRFREAK, although this brings out the celeb in Minerva more than her ditsy-ness and absurdity. I went a little bonkers with the side profile, particularly with the face. But this illustration reminds me of something that I should have done a long time back. Download brushes. Yep, I desperately need to do that. Enough with those stars. I can barely imagine how she would walk in a dress like that. Its a good thing I don't have to animate that! :P 

Looptootle's back

I guess its a little healthy to stray out of everyday concerns and just indulge in those arbid 'photoshop moments'. For someone in the field of design, its like a breath of fresh air. So today I went back to the Minerva Looptootle's section on HAIRFREAK that I had been working on last month, and just touched it up a little. I wasn't very satisfied with the cover I came up with the last time, I guess colour's an essential important and an undeniable element. Can't wait to finish it!   

The Grammia Virgo

Just the other day I was leafing through this mamoth book on moths entitled 'Night visions'. I was seemingly lost and hopeful at the time I picked up the tattered remains of this particular volume. Needless to say, I'm not particularly fascinated by the species, but something about those large glossy photographs drew me into this wild labyrinth (literally, I mean) and got my creative juices flowing! The next minute I just HAD to grab a sketchbook, HAD to scrounge my depleting source of colour pencils and HAD to sketch!!! I drew inspiration from a specific species of moth called the 'GRAMMIA VIRGO' and came up with another creature. 

Hair! Hair! Hair!

I'm trying  to get a hand around this whole 'working with vectors' fad. I downloaded a few illustrator tutorials to understand the techniques..but ehh..turns out, I was totally not in the mood of following an online jargon. Fetched my rusty rotering pen and a couple of pencils and started pitching my theme. Its entitled 'HAIRfreak: Minnerva Looptootle's miraculous guide to hair'. I've just about started an have a long way to go, but I'm liking this nonsensical 'keeda'. Its pretty amusing. :)

Finally! A new theme surfaces!

I've just been entagled in too many obigations to think straight!! I really don't know how long its been since I settled down to sketch on my own, so I decided to use this extra week to come up with a new concept. Edward Scissorhands meets Sweeny Todd. That's all I'm gonna reveal for now. Lets hope the sketches keep rolling