Saturday, February 11, 2012
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Comix.India Volume One! On Sale Now!
Finally! After months of getting in submissions, designing the cover and inner pages, and compiling everything together, the magazine is out, on sale, on Pothi.com!
13 stories by 16 contributors, in 268 glorious black & white pages!
the front cover + back cover preview
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
A Day At The Monster Movie Set
I think my last sub to Threadless was over 4 months back, if I'm not mistaken. Damn. Anyway, I'm hoping to do atleast one sub a week. This'll keep me on my toes, and help me improve my illustration skills too.
Here's my sub for the week, still pending approval:
Here's my sub for the week, still pending approval:
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Bean-bagging.
I ended up watching 3 movies back to back last night.
First up, Mike Judge's Extract. Which is not as pornographic as it just sounded. The movie's isn't as awesome as Office Space, nor is it a satire like Idiocracy. Which isn't to say it's bad really. Most of the performances are good, even if the characters themselves are a bit loosely defined. Case in point - Mila Kunis's role. It isn't what I'd expected, and not in a good way. They really should have eliminated her character, and written around it. The funniest character by far, however, is the super-dumb male gigolo Jason Bateman's character hires to seduce his wife. The movie is kinda down-beat, on a very slow burn, with the humour not coming from one-liners, but from the character interactions. A one time watch, I wouldn't want to rewatch it anytime soon.
Then there was a Julianne Moore + Pierce Brosnan movie on tv, with both of them as opposing divorce lawyers. This was Laws of Attraction, with a fairly funny first half, until it suddenly and inexplicably became a somber, sappy, romantic train-wreck of a movie.
Not wanting to get up from the bean bag, I put on Funny People. Lonely People would have been a better title, it described the characters better. Adam Sandler is quite good here, and Seth Rogen has lost a lot of weight, so good for him. There was about 30 minutes of dead weight towards the end, and I'd have preferred to see more stand-up routine in the film, but it was a decent watch really. Not Judd Apatow's best though.
First up, Mike Judge's Extract. Which is not as pornographic as it just sounded. The movie's isn't as awesome as Office Space, nor is it a satire like Idiocracy. Which isn't to say it's bad really. Most of the performances are good, even if the characters themselves are a bit loosely defined. Case in point - Mila Kunis's role. It isn't what I'd expected, and not in a good way. They really should have eliminated her character, and written around it. The funniest character by far, however, is the super-dumb male gigolo Jason Bateman's character hires to seduce his wife. The movie is kinda down-beat, on a very slow burn, with the humour not coming from one-liners, but from the character interactions. A one time watch, I wouldn't want to rewatch it anytime soon.
Then there was a Julianne Moore + Pierce Brosnan movie on tv, with both of them as opposing divorce lawyers. This was Laws of Attraction, with a fairly funny first half, until it suddenly and inexplicably became a somber, sappy, romantic train-wreck of a movie.
Not wanting to get up from the bean bag, I put on Funny People. Lonely People would have been a better title, it described the characters better. Adam Sandler is quite good here, and Seth Rogen has lost a lot of weight, so good for him. There was about 30 minutes of dead weight towards the end, and I'd have preferred to see more stand-up routine in the film, but it was a decent watch really. Not Judd Apatow's best though.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Website: Everstone Capital online
The revamped website for Everstone Capital was launched on Monday. This was a collaboration with Sudeep, over at Moving Stones.
Click here, or on the image above, to view the site.
Click here, or on the image above, to view the site.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
COMIX.INDIA - The self-published black & white comics anthology
(Update: The CDBi forums are no more. It's all been integrated with the Comix.India website.)
It's an exciting time to be involved with the local comics scene. There's a new comics anthology on the cards, and it's titled COMIX.INDIA. It's being edited by Bharat Murthy and designed by me.
The magazine's features are:
- Black & White pages, with a color coer
- Size: 7"x9"
- Page count: 250-300
This is a completely fan-driven venture, with no commercial backing. Anybody can contribute content. It won't be available at the shops. It'll only be available online at Pothi.com, a print-on-demand site. Since there's no initial investment needed here, there's no real risk of commercial failure.
Get more details at the COMIX.INDIA forum.
It's an exciting time to be involved with the local comics scene. There's a new comics anthology on the cards, and it's titled COMIX.INDIA. It's being edited by Bharat Murthy and designed by me.
The magazine's features are:
- Black & White pages, with a color coer
- Size: 7"x9"
- Page count: 250-300
This is a completely fan-driven venture, with no commercial backing. Anybody can contribute content. It won't be available at the shops. It'll only be available online at Pothi.com, a print-on-demand site. Since there's no initial investment needed here, there's no real risk of commercial failure.
Get more details at the COMIX.INDIA forum.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Website: Ravi Udyawar Films online
After a lot of work, edits, and revision, the spankin' new website for Ravi Udyawar Films, one of India's premier ad-film production house, is finally online.
Click Here Or On The Image Above To View The Website
Click Here Or On The Image Above To View The Website
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Logo designs for the Project C initiative
Two tentative logos I created sometime back for the Project C comic magazine that's in the works.
Option A: A custom-made font, composed of blocks. The logo can be extended to comfortably accomodate info like the issue number, date etc.
Option B: The circles on top can be seen as a depiction of the half-tone process used in a lot of color printing (though, truthfully speaking, this could use a little refinement).
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Mind-bogglingly awesome poster designs
UK-based designer Simon Page created 10 space-themed retro-feel posters for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 campaign.
My favourites: 1st and 3rd on top; 2nd and 3rd bottom. Brilliant.
You can purchase these prints.
Link via David Airey.
My favourites: 1st and 3rd on top; 2nd and 3rd bottom. Brilliant.
You can purchase these prints.
Link via David Airey.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Out phishing
I check my yahoo mail today morning, and I get a mail from twitter - We detected a link in your profile (bio, URL or location) pointing to a phishing site or other harmful material that we identified as malware. We removed the link from your profile. My site's gone bad!
A quick google search returned the following message - "This site may harm your computer."
Well, I'll be damned.
I contacted my web-hosting ppl, who shot off a quick mail with some clean-up instructions. Blah blah, I had my newly upped site scanned by http://wam.dasient.com and http://www.unmaskparasites.com, both report it's clean now. So it's been submitted to Lord Almight Google for its approval.
A quick google search returned the following message - "This site may harm your computer."
Well, I'll be damned.
I contacted my web-hosting ppl, who shot off a quick mail with some clean-up instructions. Blah blah, I had my newly upped site scanned by http://wam.dasient.com and http://www.unmaskparasites.com, both report it's clean now. So it's been submitted to Lord Almight Google for its approval.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Tin Man's Broken Heart - Work in Progress
EDIT: This design is up for voting on Threadless!
It's a slightly modified version of the design below.
============
New t-shirt design for threadless! Being critiqued here.
"...when the Tin Man went to the land of Oz, and asked the Wizard for a heart, he didn't think of all the bad things that would happen to him. He never stopped to think, if you have a heart, you'll also experience a heartbreak..."
I've visualised it as the Tin Man going on a city-wide rampage. Him being godzilla-like is largely a symbolic thing.
Two things I'm debating:
1) Should I keep it completely monochromatic?
2) Does the city need more elements like cars, fire-hydrants etc? Maybe some people running about in terror?
It's a slightly modified version of the design below.
============
New t-shirt design for threadless! Being critiqued here.
"...when the Tin Man went to the land of Oz, and asked the Wizard for a heart, he didn't think of all the bad things that would happen to him. He never stopped to think, if you have a heart, you'll also experience a heartbreak..."
I've visualised it as the Tin Man going on a city-wide rampage. Him being godzilla-like is largely a symbolic thing.
Two things I'm debating:
1) Should I keep it completely monochromatic?
2) Does the city need more elements like cars, fire-hydrants etc? Maybe some people running about in terror?
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Uninteresting Basterds
I used to like Quentin Tarantino. His movie were in a league of their own. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction wer, and still are, brilliant. He was also a great writer of dialogues and scripts, and I enjoyed From Dusk Till Dawn and True Romance all the more for it. I haven't, however enjoyed any of his recent works. Kill Bill 1 and 2 was an exercise in self-indulgent, and the first half of Death Proof was a crashing bore. So I wasn't really expecting much from his supposed "World War II epic" Inglorious Basterds, and that's a good thing, because I left the theatre less disappointed for it.
What I liked, a somewhat idiosyncratic list:
Hans Landa: Wow. Just, wow. I haven't seen a more chilling, creepier villain in recent times. He was an outstanding character, and fantastically brought to life by Christoph Waltz. He's going to storm hollywood oon, having already landed the role of the villain in the new Dreen Hornet movie. Awesome! He rightly deserves his Cannes best actor award.
Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz: The only interesting Basterd. Which is ironic because he wasn't even one of the nine of the original American squad. He's a German recruited in Germany. A traitor, really. Til Schweiger did a fabulous job, and would have single-handedly destroyed the rest of the Basterds in Mortal Kombat. Hah!
Bridget von Hammersmark & the clandestine basement operation: A very short, yet pivotal part, played out way better than deserved by Diane Kruger. it certainly helped that she was absolutely gorgeous! This Clandestine Basement Meeting was hands-down my favourite sequence in the movie. It so aptly demonstrated Murphy's Law, wherein anything that can go wrong, will. It was an incredibly well written scene, that reminded me in some ways of the what-if car-crash sequence in Benjamin Button. Anyway, this scene also had one of Tarantino's directorial trademarks, the Mexican Standoff, and the shoot-out at the end was simply fabulous.
Shoshanna's plot: The only parts of the movie that felt like a cohesive story. If Tarantino had elected to completely edit away the rest and make the movie only about Shoshanna, I couldn't be happier. Infact, if I will ever get 'round to watching this movie on tv, I'll skip through all the frivolousness and just watch her scenes.
What I didn't like, an unfortunately more complete list:
The Basterds: The movie title is misleading, because the basterds are hardly in the movie. but I'm not complaining, because this uninteresting bunch of rag-tags felt more like charicatures, than serious characters. Brad Pitt's Aldo The Apache talked and behaved like a redneck hick (which he probably was, seeing as how he sold bootleg liquor, and apparently escaped a mob lynching), and was a very bad choice to be the face of the movie. The Bear Jew, supposedly an important character, was reduced to a symbol that played out in exactly one scene, and spent the rest of the movie merging in with the scenery. And the other seven in the squads, heck they were faceless cannon-fodder.
Old wine in a new bottle: That's what Tarantino's direction felt like. There really wasn't anything fresh or exciting here. It just felt like he was recycling his older tricks, with less success. Quirky characters that turn out to be inconsequential, older American Music totally out of place in a movie set in Germany, a half-baked effort to get in some retro graphics, and so on.
The Score: Seems like Tarantino can't look beyond his favourite record collection. I was expecting some really good German music, or something suited to a World War II movie, but no, we get some more retro American stuff. Which in itself isn't bad, but an absolute misfit here.
Character Treatments: All through this movie, major characters are built up, and then do absolutely nothing, and something totally out of character. The Bear Jew appears as a terriying baseball-bat-psycho in exactly one scene, and does nothing for the rest of the movie. Aldo The Apache shows no realy leadership abilities, nor does he do anything that really distinguishes him. Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz is the only Basterd who gets an awesome back-story, but is once again reduced to mere cannon-fodder, and knocked off without real glory. Worst of all, is what happens to Hans Lands. His ending was atrocious, and a major disservice to him. The whole idea that he would even consider surrendering to the Americans seemed kind of lame. He just didn't seem like the traitorous or turn-coat types to me. Basically Tarantino built up his character, and had no idea what to do with him, so he got one of the worst endings possible. Pathetic.
In closing...
This is a juvenile escapist fantasy, and not a very interesting one at that. I am, ofcourse, in the vast minority that didn't like it, as most of my other friends seem to act as if this movie is the cure for cancer. Cure for insomnia is more like it. I think Tarantino ought to stop hyping himself so much, and maybe skip directing for a while, in favour or writing. That's his strength, really. As a director, he's lately been just too self-indulgent.
What I liked, a somewhat idiosyncratic list:
Hans Landa: Wow. Just, wow. I haven't seen a more chilling, creepier villain in recent times. He was an outstanding character, and fantastically brought to life by Christoph Waltz. He's going to storm hollywood oon, having already landed the role of the villain in the new Dreen Hornet movie. Awesome! He rightly deserves his Cannes best actor award.
Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz: The only interesting Basterd. Which is ironic because he wasn't even one of the nine of the original American squad. He's a German recruited in Germany. A traitor, really. Til Schweiger did a fabulous job, and would have single-handedly destroyed the rest of the Basterds in Mortal Kombat. Hah!
Bridget von Hammersmark & the clandestine basement operation: A very short, yet pivotal part, played out way better than deserved by Diane Kruger. it certainly helped that she was absolutely gorgeous! This Clandestine Basement Meeting was hands-down my favourite sequence in the movie. It so aptly demonstrated Murphy's Law, wherein anything that can go wrong, will. It was an incredibly well written scene, that reminded me in some ways of the what-if car-crash sequence in Benjamin Button. Anyway, this scene also had one of Tarantino's directorial trademarks, the Mexican Standoff, and the shoot-out at the end was simply fabulous.
Shoshanna's plot: The only parts of the movie that felt like a cohesive story. If Tarantino had elected to completely edit away the rest and make the movie only about Shoshanna, I couldn't be happier. Infact, if I will ever get 'round to watching this movie on tv, I'll skip through all the frivolousness and just watch her scenes.
What I didn't like, an unfortunately more complete list:
The Basterds: The movie title is misleading, because the basterds are hardly in the movie. but I'm not complaining, because this uninteresting bunch of rag-tags felt more like charicatures, than serious characters. Brad Pitt's Aldo The Apache talked and behaved like a redneck hick (which he probably was, seeing as how he sold bootleg liquor, and apparently escaped a mob lynching), and was a very bad choice to be the face of the movie. The Bear Jew, supposedly an important character, was reduced to a symbol that played out in exactly one scene, and spent the rest of the movie merging in with the scenery. And the other seven in the squads, heck they were faceless cannon-fodder.
Old wine in a new bottle: That's what Tarantino's direction felt like. There really wasn't anything fresh or exciting here. It just felt like he was recycling his older tricks, with less success. Quirky characters that turn out to be inconsequential, older American Music totally out of place in a movie set in Germany, a half-baked effort to get in some retro graphics, and so on.
The Score: Seems like Tarantino can't look beyond his favourite record collection. I was expecting some really good German music, or something suited to a World War II movie, but no, we get some more retro American stuff. Which in itself isn't bad, but an absolute misfit here.
Character Treatments: All through this movie, major characters are built up, and then do absolutely nothing, and something totally out of character. The Bear Jew appears as a terriying baseball-bat-psycho in exactly one scene, and does nothing for the rest of the movie. Aldo The Apache shows no realy leadership abilities, nor does he do anything that really distinguishes him. Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz is the only Basterd who gets an awesome back-story, but is once again reduced to mere cannon-fodder, and knocked off without real glory. Worst of all, is what happens to Hans Lands. His ending was atrocious, and a major disservice to him. The whole idea that he would even consider surrendering to the Americans seemed kind of lame. He just didn't seem like the traitorous or turn-coat types to me. Basically Tarantino built up his character, and had no idea what to do with him, so he got one of the worst endings possible. Pathetic.
In closing...
This is a juvenile escapist fantasy, and not a very interesting one at that. I am, ofcourse, in the vast minority that didn't like it, as most of my other friends seem to act as if this movie is the cure for cancer. Cure for insomnia is more like it. I think Tarantino ought to stop hyping himself so much, and maybe skip directing for a while, in favour or writing. That's his strength, really. As a director, he's lately been just too self-indulgent.
Friday, October 02, 2009
A.I. Ailment
New design up for voting on Threadless!
What do you prescribe for a sick computer? A binary feed, of 1's and 0's!
I got this idea sometime last week, when I was sick and admitted to a hospital for a few days. So I guess something good did come out of that illness!
What do you prescribe for a sick computer? A binary feed, of 1's and 0's!
I got this idea sometime last week, when I was sick and admitted to a hospital for a few days. So I guess something good did come out of that illness!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Twitter bgs
Hmm, I meant to post this before, but it slipped my mind. I whipped up a quick twitter bg for my uncle's twitter page.
A custom bg for my twitter page too. Whatdya know, it's raining bottles!
A custom bg for my twitter page too. Whatdya know, it's raining bottles!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Two designs up on threadless!
Kickass, I got two designs up for voting on Threadless.com, for their "Threadless Loves Horror II" competition. It's a pretty tough show, and I don't have any delusions about winning, but it was a thrill entering anyway!
Design One - Don't Be Fooled By The Smile...
A bunch of smileys representing various horror monsters and icons.
Vote for it here:
Vote for it here:
Design Two - Past Its Expiry Date..
Zombies = bad blood = not good for vampires.
Vote for it here:
Friday, September 04, 2009
Tracer Bullet!
Two wallpapers in accordance with last weekend's hangover:
... 
Forgive me Bill Watterson, I mean no harm.
... 
Tracer Bullet: An all-percussion symphony was playing in my head, and the acoustics were incredible.
Forgive me Bill Watterson, I mean no harm.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Smashing September Calenders!
It's a new month! Which means it's time for a new set of wallpapers! And this month, Smashing Magazine has a gorgeous set.
Some of my favourites this month:S for September - Gorgeous! My favourite this month! Luka, do one for every month!
Prelude (I love wallpapers with a single hue or color scheme)
Upside Down World Map (again, nice colors and concept, but I didn't like the typography)
Neon House Spirit (nice minimalistic color usage)
Field of Gold (great image and placement, but bad typography)
Curiosity and the Rose (love the image!)
Smashin September (very bold, interesting typo)
Septypo (nice colors and typo)
September Colors (the colors, hah)
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