Extremely Colourful Schemes

Looking at pictures with too many bright colours usually leaves me visually violated. This is probably why I don't enjoy psychedelic poster colour schemes. Under such schemes, abstract forms are much easier to look at than definite forms. As a result I tend to keep my colour schemes conservative. Sometimes I worry if this move is actually shutting me out from creating unique visuals. In a bid to force myself into uncomfortable places and derive lukewarm masochistic pleasure, I created these -
Shifts & Rotations
Neon Runner
Coral
Apart from wilder use of colours, these pictures are left handed finger paintings (i.e, using my laptop's track-pad) and done in the wee hours of morning whilst trying to sleep. 'Coral' is also another attempt of mine to mess with your eyes.

Mind-room : 309/E

Recently on a holiday, I realized how much I missed my hostel room back in REC. It was room 309 in E-Hostel building. Got this room by chance. Rooms were allotted by a lot system - you were given a unique number, a lot was drawn and if your number came up; you picked your room. Back then I was aiming for the room 108, as I had managed to hold onto that number during the last 2 years. Luck would have it otherwise, my number was drawn a little too late and didn't have much choice. 309/E was a friend's room, familiar and well maintained by him. So I shrugged and moved into the room.

It was a small room, about 8' x7' with pink (YUCK!) whitewashed walls. I was told that the previous fucker had got the wall specially done a year ago. If you chipped the pink whitewash, a much worse colour came through - pistachio green whitewash (Double YUCK!). You got a cot, table & chair, a built-in cupboard, ceiling fan, a window in the east wall and a door in the west wall. Floor was old school red-oxide floor, pitted like the face of the moon. In-fact some craters had to be filled up DIY style with candle wax. Sounds like a goblin's cave.

The pink walls drove me nuts for a week until I figured out an elegant solution - one normal 60W tungsten bulb and one kaandhani table lamp donated by Srikanth. The yellow light made the room peachy in the evenings. Got a nice standard issue grass mat (not the plastic kind). Had a small booze party for house warming and she was ready. Most people complained the room made them drowsy, blamed it on the lighting, mattress or me. A year later the hostel authorities whitewashed it a bluish-white. The room was like a battery charger, I was the battery and I loved the space.

On a mental level the first 2 years at REC saw me going nuts on various levels. Now this space was the mana I needed to further space out. Many of the doodles on moongallery were done in the wee hours by that table lamp. Many a cassette tapes - where worn out on the h-fi. The first song played in that room was a jazz number called The A-Train (Duke Ellington) from a Verve compilation. The last was probably Dio's Rock n' Roll Children.

The most ambitious project taken up in the room was an installation piece. I noticed that when I switched off the lights the graphic equalizer on my hi-fi attracted fireflies. These buggers used to pop in every night and give me a good show. Later on I noticed that the spiders on the top corners of my room were having a field day, wrapping up the unfortunate fireflies that got stuck to their webworks. These guys would last about 3 days, before the died. So I stopped cleaning/destroying the webs out let the webbing grow naturally. Only problem being that I could not switch on the fan as it would destroy the delicate network of web. Soon I had a false ceiling of black web. It was black because I had the habit of lighting up 2 of my fav sandalwood incense sticks daily. So every night for 3 months I had a light show and the spiders had nice chow. I wonder if they ate them or just were light phobic. If I charged those spiders rent, I would've been a millionaire! The whole piece came crashing down on September 11th along with the Twin towers in USA (yes its very symbolic). Some fool popped into the room one afternoon, exclaimed it was hot, switched on the fan and told me I ought to clean the cobwebs!! The Bastard, the roof of my world collapsed. No more astral displays. In another months time my hi-fi set conked out and I was reduced to a trusty 2-in-1 with no fancy graphic equalizer.

The Elegant Solution

Mridul has alway claimed that I always blame things on pollution. I've never disputed this. Land, air and water, its all filthy. We're living like those fish in 'Finding Nemo'. Our fish bowl is dirty and we've no choice but to breathe, eat and drink it up. The world we live in is doomed. We can attribute this condition to various factors, mostly manmade. OR...

We can blame it on entropy and embrace apocalyptic visions of the Anti-Christ (Where the heck is he by the way?) and laugh like bastards. This doomed schtik has been going on for centuries. Its only us sentient monkeys making a fuss about it as a recent phenomenon. Why? simply because we can. If there existed another sentient species on the planet that we haven't wiped out yet; I'm sure the two would agree its doomed. We are alone & buzzing. History tells us that each civilization was looking for an Elegant Solution to end their problems. In todays terms the Elegant Solution is the Sci-Fi writers idea & the scientists wet dream. The media paints a picture of urgency, they show lab rats frantically experimenting on chimps & chimps experimenting on lab rats. they are all looking for a key. Key to the elegant solution.

Maybe we've to fight fire with fire. Maybe that might actually be the Elegant Solution. Its all futile. Buahahahha!
The Moral still is DON'T shit where you eat.

Precious Junk

I believe that we can all agree on the idea that we live in a materialistic world. I remember going once to my Mom's ancestral home in Pallakaad, Kerala. We had tea in this dining room which had a cupboard with neatly arranged, dusty and delicate china. A grand uncle of mine spent some time in the Far East & he had brought this and many other quality stuff. Quite a bit of his stuff were rumoured to be languishing in the attic of the house (or was it another house?). I'd never been to the attic as I was being constantly bombarded by questions like 'Do you remember me?' by various relatives. And when they got over the fact that the infant me was in-fact a gangly 13 year old, the next relative would pop in for the next iteration of questions. The stuff I saw in the cupboard will never be junk in my opinion for two reasons:

1. They don't make them like they used to. Those china cups were exquisite. The minimalist crock of today would just pale in comparison.
2. I like old stuff.

Confession: I am a pack rat. So what have I accumulated over the past few years? Whatever it is it will never have the charm of antique stuff. I tend to debate over purchases for so long that when I do buy the item, I no longer need it! Now this can be very irritating when you do stock taking of one's room like I am now. What a waste of money & space! One such object is my light box which has not been totally useless as I've made it to be.

The story of the light box- I found myself in a 2D animation course about four years ago. The need for a light box was unquestionable. Looked about town for one with a peg bar. No cigar. Ok I'll build one, drew up a design for the carpenter. He came in one morning, I explained the plan to him in grand detail. He knocked up one for me in two days. It looked like a deluxe rat trap! Problem being the angle at which the drawing surface inclined. It proved to be very uncomfortable when one slaved away for hours on it. The minor angle issue aside it was functional, portable and very spartan. I used it less often after I got it home. Consolation-wise I still use it nowadays for art and at night as reading light.

How much of the stuff we have accumulated are actually worth keeping? How much of it is going to last for the next five years? Who knows. Much of the bulk I own is media- books, tapes and CDs. The Choice is clear, either invest in miniature devices that become obsolete in about a years time or invest in something thats like a Soviet juggernaut i.e, hideous in execution but will last over half a life time as long as its not nuked twice to oblivion.

Q: Venice of the East?

A: Mumbai

On Creating

I'm going through a hectic period. I'm trying to build the Westminster Abbey in a month. And paint frames of animation for a movie, whose deadline is fast approaching.
I just realized that for a lazy fuck, I'm sure as hell hardcore.

I Arrive

I've landed in Dubai. This place is like Kuwait except that it is spread across a large area.
Somethings that struck me were:
1> Horrible Traffic.
2> My finger tips feel numb most of the time. I believe its something to do with shuttling between air-conditioned & non-ac-ified environs.
3> I'm totally lost & need to find my bearings.
4> Too pooped to do anything at the end of the day.
5> MCM, a French Music, is getting too weird. Try listening to Rain' B Fever's 'Un Gao a Oran'.
6> Can't seem to read at all.

Exodus

Bob Marley sang " Exodus, movement of Jah people".
I realized my batchmates from college are all on an Exodus. I only realized this after sending off Srikanth today evening. Srikanth's off to Texas for his PhD.

Heck! I too will be leaving in a few weeks time. It feels kind of weird. Its like in those detergent ads when they show stain blobs being yanked off fibres by super duper detergent particles. Only in this case you feel sad for the stain blobs. Maybe us blobs are off to face brighter prospects & maybe some of us are just simply going down the drain. Lemmings aaaargggghhhh!

Whatever it maybe, I can only sigh & say what I told Srikanth before he left " Remember man, always wear clean undies & drink lots of beer".
Best O' people.

An Apology & A Useful House Keeping Tip

Firstly I'd like to apologise to Jubilant- Dude your friend's software wasn't bogging down my system. It was something else (read on).

I have this favourite font called the '20th Century Poster' & I managed to lose it. I searched high & low for it. Gathered a lot of fonts from people around me. But it was useless & now I have around 11,400 fonts. Then I thought to myself (like a prick) now that I'm into graphic designing, I might want to use these fonts. So I installed all of them. Ever since then XP took about 4 minutes to boot up! Any attempt to uninstall them caused my PC to gag & hang (or is that hang & gag?)

Well it took me abt 4 days to figure it out. So there you have it,

House Keeping Tip- Don't install all your fonts i.e, if they number more than 150 & you are runnin Windows XP.

In case you don't wan't to install all your fonts & still want to see what they look like, use this freeware. It lets u look through fonts that are installed as well as uninstalled fonts (that exist on u hardisk). Nice.

Omen ( and I don't mean the movie)

While walking back home on Monday. I saw something weird : A large bark brownish toad just pops out of the gap between two granite slabs that cover the gutter. It was followed by an equally brown rat. The rat was trying to nibble the toad's behind & the toad just kept jumping away. The toad jumped on....the rat followed, untill they both disappeared down another gap. The whole episode lasted about 40 seconds.

Back in the old days, folks would have called this an omen. So I interpret the omen thusly:

1> If I were the toad, there is someone out there determined to get my ass.
2> If I were the rat, I'll never get any ass.
3> No matter what I am, I'm going down.

If you see something else? Warn us OH! PROPHET(/ESS) O' DOOM or whatever.

Navel

Sunday, I had been on a long walk with Anjalie. It has been a while since our last aimless walk. Just got me thinking about how busy I'm now (& how jobless I was, back then). Somewhere along the way I came to a conclusion that I will not die, instead I'd implode into my own navel. Maybe our navels are actually portals to another dimension!! All one has to do is 'implode' into one's navel and....

QUISSZZOOP!!! One is on 10" tall daisy covered hills that roll off to infinity. But something this good always has a catch. I figure that it woul'd be walking about with your insides out.

The Sunday evening sky was pretty clear & blue with scattered clouds. The clouds looked like white cotton (Lot of volume there). OR as we usually refer to it - the cotton transport truck just lost another load.

The Marriage Reception & after

The Marriage Reception:

Had loped of to Cochin on Friday for Anju & Zabil's wedding reception. It was held in a hall saturday, afternoon. Anju was wearing this brownish silk saree. (Did I see a hint of red somwhere? I can't tell) The Zari work was dazzling & not to mention exquisite. U could trace the pattern w/ ur pinky & not bump into other elements of the design. Nice!!
Our man, Zabil was looking sharp in a black, well cut suite that made him look a lot taller. It was a small gathering. Spotted a few familiar faces of which 25% I recognized, the rest where a tangle of names & familiar faces. Met Neck's brother too. Neck is trying for some advanced course in medicine. Its scary to think abt Dr. Neck starting practise. It was nice to see ppl remembering me as that bearded chap & funny uncle.

After the function I had a shit load of time on my hands. Wandered around a 5km radius around M.G. Road. This happens to be my 3rd visit to Cochin. Wished Caviar was around. Had around 5 hrs to kill. Came across a book exhibition & bought 'The Story of Painting -from the Renaissance to the present". A nice book on art history. Thought I'd grab a beer. But the afternoon sky was dark w/ rain threatening to pour. So I decided to get a rum & coke & another rum & coke from a seedy joint where the lighting made cockroaches look like peanuts. Gulped my drinks & got the hell out of that hole. Made it to the hotel room, ate a lot of hot,mucho delecioso vadas & spent my time channel surfing w/ a fuckole remote. The high hit me before I grew tired of channel surfing.

I was staying at the Udupi Ajantha Home. Its an old building gone through a series of renovations. The bathroom had green brass taps one for hot & another for cold, a gleaming white sink & black ceramic tiles. gr8t. I like the colour of verdigris.
I could have stayed in there for days.

The Ride Back Home:

All the luxury buses out of Cochin were booked solid for 2 days. So I decided to catch a KSRTC bus back home. I got seat number 2. I recommend it coz u can stretch ur legs out. And u have a nice view of the road up ahead. Only fuckup was when the bus stopped, u had to draw ur legs back in lest they get trampled to pulp & oncoming vehicles w/ headlights on high beam. Man can those things tattoo ur retina.

On the journey I realized that there existed only 4 kinds of animals on the road:
1> Roadkill - those animals hit by ur vehicle.
2> Potential Roadkill - those animals asking for it.
3> Roadkilled - the ones the vehicles before us, beat us to.
4> Roadhogs - human bastards that wanted to outrun u for no apparent reason.

Reached Calicut in 5 & 1/2 hours! Passed Mysore, The roads over there r gr8t & the road to Bangalore had a lot of jackfruit vendors. Those things where the size of Mysore durbar bolsters. Reached B'lore at 12pm. EOF

Realized

Just...

...Realized how neck deep I'm in work. Good thing I can swim. I'd like to swim in Beer right now. Beer....mmmmmmmmm...

...Realized how much of a visionary Alphonse Mucha was (Check out the links in the (DUH!)links section on the right side of this post).

...Realized how important French curves are to me.

...Rrealized how much mediocre my work is.

...Realized how fucking lazy ppl r getting at Planet Moon Studios. Their latest offering lacks the freshness of 'Giants: Citizen Kabuto'. Their animated interludes make me want to wretch. But the gameplay & humour r top-notch as always. Nick Bruty I salute u w/ my middle finger.

...Realized I'd rather spend my life as a collector & that too w/ another collector.

...Realized Gen-X sport sims rock.

Song for the day - Magic Moments (by Perry Como)
Song at the moment - She's a Lady (by Tom Jones)

@ G$'s Abode

It was relief to know that G$ wasn't down & out. Had been to his place in the evening. Susk made finding his place an utter fiasco. Anyways we sat around, talked abt 'paras' yet to be commited & getting Susk drunk. Jenny & her mom were playing an odd looking card game. She said it was something along the lines of Patience. G$'s orangey cat made its presence known by going around the den a couple of times stopping at my foot twice. It had a nice soft coat & didn't resist in any manner when I stroked its head. Cool Cat!

Preparations for the IBM try out has started earnestly. I feel a lot is riding on this interview. MEL (Maya Embedded Language) looks too daunting. G$ says don't sweat it as the guys at IBM r clueless as anybody else in the world. Hope thats true. I still can't figure out why IBM is looking for animators. Kittyal Kitti, Alangil Chatti! (Roughly translated from Malayalam : If u get it, u got it, otherwise clay-pot).

Earlier this afternoon I had met up w/ Srikanth. Conversation drifted over to forms of Idol Worship by religions that r against Idol Worshipping (as if we didn't have anything else to talk abt!). In their defence I came up w/ a definition for an Idol -

" An idol is a physical manifestation of a mnemonic representing the abstract concept titled God.". How fucking smart.

Past few hours have been spent trying to device a new peg bar arrangement that would do away with a need for a special paper punching machine. I ought to be animating & have 2 tasks more to finish but the tinkerer side of me begins to takeover. The Peg bar would ideally hold 15 sheets & save me a lot of headaches in dealing w/ the fools managing animaster.

Meanwhile an idea for an exhibition of my works (Ha Ha) has been fermenting in my mind. Ishraq sort of seeded the idea. But priority as of now would be to get my on-foot portfolio ready ASAP.

Sleep patterns have been derailed over the past 1 week. Sleep (when I do get it) is peppered w/ turbulent dreams. I'm conscious of the fact that I'm dreaming. While I'm dreaming I seem to be talking to myself. More like commenting eg, 'Eda u should be writing this down, it'd look good in a book' etc.

Been trying to finish Dungeon Keeper 2 since last sunday. Srikanth! Blood!!!