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Overdriven Hello good people. I just got back from the CG Overdrive '07 at the Singapore Expo. It's a 1-week event of CG showcase and conference by people of the industry from around the world. I've never been to such function, so I must say the experience was pretty cool! Managed to meet up with Hou and Darren too.
Ooooh aaaahh nice billboard. Artwork done by none other than Stanley "Artgerm" Lau.
For an event dubbed as "Asia's largest CG conference and exhibition", the interior seems somewhat tiny to me. But then again I couldn't afford the conference so I was only able to roam around the free exhibition area. Some notable booths include Square Enix, Lucasfilm, Polygon Pictures, IdN, Emerging Entertainment, Imaginary Friends Studios, Sheridan Insitute, Wacom and many more. Oh and there was also a huge projector that played a series of animated shorts (both professional and amateur). I noticed there was one short submitted by the One Academy students. :) It's about a cow.
Of course, for an event of this calibre, it would be stupid of me if I didn't bring any of my humble works to show around. So I did. ^____^ Looks like most people seem to favor my calamari one. Does this mean I should flood my portfolio with more cute girls?
My cousin Hazmer was supposed to follow me to this expo but didn't in the end. He missed a great opportunity to take pictures with corporate executive and technical director of Square Enix, Shinji Hashimoto and Toyokata Kuroda respectively.
Waahh Darren you look like a young Hideo Kojima standing in between them.
My cousin Aidi was also supposed to follow me to this expo but didn't in the end. He missed a great opportunity to take pictures with a car.
Do you feel jealous now, Aidi? Oh I bet you do.
We got to see Stanley in action too. My god... I tell you, he is one super fast painter. Watching him paint is like watching those nature documentaries on tv where they speed everything up before your eyes. Observe the screen behind him.
It gives me incentive to train my fingers more.
Anyway, overall it was a pretty enlightening experience. Met a couple of interesting people, learned some new tricks and saw a bundle of swanky animated shorts. Well, that's about it! To wrap up the day, I bought myself an artbook, a shirt and a..... uhmm.... ahem..... a Dota art print. That is quite possibly the dorkiest thing I've ever done.
No wait. Scratch that. This is the dorkiest thing I've done:
Daimpire Strikes Back.
New Pixar movie teaser is up
Release date: 27 June 2008 Interesting note: This will be Pixar's first animated feature-length film that will have absolutely no dialogue in it. Pretty daring move on their part.
------------------------ That teaser just sent goosebumps up my spine. I managed to suppress my excitement by going to Timesquare and got myself this.
The character designs and sets are. Simply. Beautiful.
Suddenly, I was reminded back of the fond memories I had in 2006 when we visited the Pixar animation exhibition in London with Steve, Mark, Matt and Simon.
We looked stupid as hell, but in my heart, you are all Buzz Lightyears to me.
I came home with a Pixar artbook, a postcard set, some buttons and 2 prints of my 2 most favourite Pixar movies ever.
My dad thought I drew the Monsters one. Hahaha I wish.
A year prior to that, I bought some mini Incredibles figurines at Woolworths. It came from those "capsules in a gumball machine" thingy where you have to keep chugging down coins and pray you get a new toy for every ball it dispenses.
I managed to complete my set!
Simon also got me a huge Incredibles figurine set when he had a trip to Disneyworld Florida. Their sheer size really put my Woolworth ones to shame. O_O
Here's my fave of the bunch. Fatty fat Mr.Incredible. It's one of the best figurines I've ever gotten. Thanks a lot, Simon!
Lastly, a stupendous gift from my cousins Zana and Suraya, in the form of The Incredibles activity book. I think it was meant for kids, but I still had a good time flipping through it. Sorry, no picture. All my books are still in Portsmouth! But for your sake, I whipped up a quick drawing to accurately depict how much I enjoyed the book.
A big thanks to you two!
Long live Pixar. They are unstoppable.
(semi) Fresh new page Woot. Main page cleanup time. It always feels good to start anew. How to commemorate this insignificant event? Let's post a drawing that people want to see! By popular request, heeeeeeeeeere's Necro-!!! (and Effie)
And by "popular", I actually mean "one". :D I think I've done them too gummybear-like. They look so delicious that sometimes I feel like clawing them out of my screen and bite their heads off. XD
Speaking of biting heads, I recently finished watching Heroes season 1 (it's a miniseries about ordinary people having super powers). Really an enjoyable show. Fun plot, a nice bag of likeable characters, and some good twists. Plus you can't beat an ensemble cast of Malcolm McDowell, Sulu, Rocky Balboa's son, Aida's husband, some cute cheerleader girl and that cerealbox-reading kid from Lady in the Water.
Although the show is super super awesome, there was one bit that pretty much left a bitter taste in my mouth. It borrowed a huge plot device from Alan Moore's graphic novel classic "Watchmen".
For those of you who don't know, Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book series written by Alan Moore that was published during the late 80s. Unlike many other conventional superhero comics, Watchmen stages the superheroes in a very unidealistic and bleak real world. Regarded by many as the greatest and most influential comic book of all time, it was placed in Time Magazine's "100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present" in 2005 and still remain as the only graphic novel to be listed in the lot.
Regarding Heroes "borrowing" from Watchmen, I know some might argue that "nothing is original nowadays", but no one can deny they both work within the same scope (comic book heroes), so I'm certain the similarities were deliberate. So what were the writers thinking? Is this considered a ripoff? Or a tip of the hat to the 20-yeard old comic book? Whatever their reason is, one thing's for sure: This will definitely hurt the Watchmen experience come 2008 when the long-awaited movie finally hits the big screen. And the inner Alan Moore-fanboyism within me can't help but get a little disgruntled by this circumstance. I can already picture all the young kids watching the Watchmen movie and go, "OMG wtf ripoff total Lolololol-!!" Ah well, I'm glad I read the paperback first. :)
Ok enough ranting. Let's end this entry by talking about the awesomeness of Heroes again. So anyway, there was this one scene that kinda got to me. It's when the comic book artist Isaac Mendez was talking to one of his fans in his studio. At the end of their converstaion, Isaac handed him his sketchbook as a gift.
The look on the guy's face when he received the book is pretty darn cool. You can see he's so genuinely happy, his expression suddenly changed into this little kid again as if he had just won the biggest Transformers action figure ever.
Kinda makes me feel like........ man..... wouldn't it be cool if I could do something like that? To give your sketchbook to some fan who adores your work so much and to receive that kind of honest reaction. Can I experience something like that one day? I can only dream.
Problem is... I don't have a sketchbook. Or my own legion of rabid fans.
I'm a Forget about my favourite worst nightmare. Today I just had an artist's absolute worst nightmare came true. So what happened exactly? I...
!@#%$!@%!%@%$!#@%!$#@%!%$@#!%$ idiot. I'm just so pissed at myself. Hahaha. Bang bang bang.... uarghhh.
Oh well... must take note of this mistake. Like Ryu once said, "A defeat learned from is more important than an empty victory."
At least on the plus side, I don't feel the need to paint it any further. I think it looks alrite now. Thank goodness it was just a quick doodle practice. ^____^
You introduced me to my very first mistake ever, you bloody Sunday breeze. I'll never forget you.
On a somewhat amusing note, I skipped out the Pirates 3 movie with my friends to finish up this painting. I rock hahaha.
Ha.
I'm oustide your window, watching you sleep
Sweet dreams, little Saiful!
Last night, I had a nightmare...
My favourite worst nightmare, that is. :D Cheers to you, Brian!!!
Just felt like posting this up. :D
# of people who'll get this entry = 3.
New animated movie from Japan: PAPRIKA
5 reasons why you should watch this anime masterpiece
When watching a Satoshi Kon film, you don't go in with a cartoon mindset. You brace yourself for a visual roller-coaster mind****. This guy doesn't rely on boring ninja jutsus or shinigamis or flashbacks every 5 seconds explaining the protagonist's dark past to entertain the viewers. He treats animation as a tool to complement his story which seemingly feels fine and dandy at first but then as it progresses, it hits you on the head with a gargantuan sledgehammer, giving you no chance to take a quick little breath of relief and all you can mutter up is, "What the hell is happening to my life." And that's why he is, in my biased opinion, the greatest anime director of our time.
This has been a public announcement by Daim Dziauddin. Thank you for your attention!
I love calamari
But then again, don't we all? ~na-naaaaaaaaaa.... na na na na-naaa... na-naaaaa... calamari damacyyy~
New brushes ahoy I never really liked Photoshop brushes. They usually feel so digital and unconvincing. For the longest time I've been a Painter whore when dealing with CG paintings. That all changed when recently my friend Darren sent me his own custom made Wraithdt all-natural Photoshop lung brush! (I made the name up). After having a decent run-through with it, I must say that I'm seriously impressed with the brush control! It pretty much immitates a pencil, and the results look pretty genuine. Ah I'm having a blast doodling around. So with this newfound toy, I've decided to branch out my drawing style. It's not good sticking with the same old stuff all the time. Must try new things, right?
Let's have a go then! Here's my first attempt with the brush. It's supposed to be a drawing of a girl, but she miraculously got turned into a guy midway through the painting.
Maybe a bit too serious eh? Let's try something a little more cheerful and child-like.
*Heeheehee*... Chiyo-chan ni... *giggles*
Ahem... anyway, from now on you can expect more digital paintings on this site (and a regular dose of my usual flat brush ramblings). It's time I brush up my painting skills.
Ohyeah, a big thank you to Darren for the stupendous gift.
Gimme 5 years, yah? I'll dethrone you by then. :D
Hey guys, I just stumbled upon the greatest website in the history of the internet *click* It might take a while to load. But trust me, it's totally worth it.
A tribute Here's to you, Brian. Top marks for not tryin, man. Bet there's hundreds of blokes that have wept cause you've stolen their thunder. Sometimes it makes me wonder, though. Are you putting us under? It seems that people can't take their eyes off your t-shirt and ties combination.
Nevertheless, I shall see you later, innovator.
*Anticipating my favourite worst nightmare @23rd*
In case you haven't noticed... ...there's an update tab on the left side of this page. This way, I can put up new drawings in the gallery section without the hassle of having to write a new entry for the front page all the time. You can also access my past entries through the news archive. Although I can't think of any good reason why anyone would wanna venture through that, I just think it makes my website look more functionally complete okay! Okay. I'm pretty happy with this new system.
I haven't forgotten about drawing either.
Goodbye, Mr Gas Mask Illiterate guy.
March towards happiness... Wow.... what a great month March was. Had a trip down to Singapore for a little break... and to meet up with old friends... and to also check out the state of animation there (ok well the last part was just an excuse to make our holiday seem more meaningful). All in all, it was a blast! Great great fun. Well, let's highlight the good stuff. Firstly, I met up with my old college mate Hou (who's already been working in Singapore for quite some time now and was kind enough to let me bunk over at his place. Woo!) We went to a student animation screening at Nanyang Polytechnic, dubbed as FUSION 2007. Just look at the entrance they had up. I'm kidding. Their animation is pretty decent. Well actually, I'm more impressed with their illustration skills though. Quality stuff! I hope they do well in the future. (or do I?) We also had a mini college reunion, the Reunion of Lim Kok Wing University College of Creative Technology students in Animation and Multimedia Design! (phew blardee long phrase). Let's add Se Ri, Jason and Darren to the group. So there were the 5 of us, and although we did not complete the whole cast, it was still a great meet up (I haven't seen some of them in 2+ years). Introducing...
Fast forward a little. Darren and I had the privilege of visiting the Imaginary Friends Studios. It's a studio off coast which hosts a collection of multi-talented artists... and they get to do wicked illustrations all day, from concept art to cards to book covers. And guess what? Darren will soon be joining the family. :) Good job wei-!
Let's take a closer look at their logo. At first, I didn't think much of it. Took me a week later to realise how cool the design is.
Anyway, we got to meet with the creative director, Stanley (also known as Artgerm) along with the other crew, and they're all a bunch of happy-going people. Plus, they play Dota and Street Fighter III everyday which is pretty c-
..... ....wait..... hold on....
They play Dota.....
.....and Street Fighter III....
...EVERYDAY?!
Mann... that's like my 2 fave competitive games of all time. What are the odds of that? Darren you lucky bugger. Oh wait.... I just remembered he doesn't even play those 2 games. *Ahhhahahahahahaaaa....*
Ahem.... but of course, the best part about being in Singapore is to just relax and goof off. My bro and couz, Dzaid and Hazmer, aslo joined the trip to take the oxymoronic awesomolameness to a whole new level. Weeeeee~!
Lastly, let's not forget wonderful miss Janet, my Singaporean friend whom I got to know while studying in Portsmouth. By day, she's your typical average office lady. But by night, she becomes the official Singapore Happy Tour Guide! Oh and weekends too.
Speaking of Portsmouth, I want to share with you this super bizarre occurence. This might **** your mind badly so don't say I didn't warn you.
Ok enough talkin crap. All in all, it was a great experience in Singapore. I hope I will never forget the wonderful memories I had there..... I'd never trade them with anything else in the world. Well.... maybe a Cintiq.
Thanks to all involved for making it an awesome trip.
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© 2006 daimation. All original works belong to Daim Dziauddin. All characters used in fan-related works belong to the rightful owners. |
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