Apparently, I should live in...

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	You should live in New York City. America's largest city will ensure that you will blend into the crowd. You are the brooding type--introspective, creative, and eccentric--and NYC's cutting-edge, individualistic culture and ambience will appeal to you.
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On my twenty-second birthday...

...I felt like a new person; I felt like doing things differently; I felt like being better, quicker, stronger; a more whole person...

...until I realized it was just gas.

rgb

rgb 2007 is the first design festival in India and it's been a long time coming. Conceived and planned by the students of NID, it will be held this October on the 5th, 6th and 7th.

The student team organizing the event asked me to quickly create an intro animation (based on the logo, created by the ridiculously talented SN Rajpurohit) for the festival, and this is what I whipped up over three days and nights-


Click To Play
I made this in Maya 7.0 and rendered it with finalRender Stage-2. The idea was to get make something that looks and sounds professional and is at the same time short and quick. The really difficult part was finding the right material and render settings to get the desired look. I wanted a glass/acrylic feel to the letters. Both the letters and the camera were animated to give the feeling that the logo is forming slowly. The camera movements are very bullet time inspired and the shots were edited to sync with the music.

I really enjoyed working on this as it gave me an opportunity to get back to working with Maya and to experiment with new ideas. And given the time constraints, it was a pretty cool crash job.

I hope you like it. Do post your thoughts!

Call me a pervert...

I spent yesterday illustrating Kamasutra positions, reading about three incestuous sisters and then a book called Girls.

Well, the illustrations were actually cartoons for a project.

The Three Incestuous Sisters is the strangest illustrated book I've read in a long time.



And Girls by the Luna Brothers is the strangest comic book I've read in some time.



Yes, yes... I went on another one of my regular trips to Landmark, the book store and was able to read almost two books before the store closed.

The Three Incestuous Sisters is a book unlike any other. Beautifully illustrated and through a sparse use of words to support the illustrations, it reads at one and the same time like a fairy-tale, a script, a storyboard, a book. I heartily recommend it just for it's strangeness disturbing visuals and the fairly tedious process used to illustrate them (aquatint) makes one appreciate it even more.



Girls is a comic book that at first glance seems like any other comic book. But the weird and wacky story of a small American town being attacked by a horde of naked beautiful women who were hatched in a bathroom stops looking run-of-the-mill once you flip the cover.

The Luna brothers take you on this wild ride but what really holds it all together is the central character, Ethan, a guy who has trouble understanding women and probably starts the whole mess. The great thing about the story is that it shifts quickly and easily between being funny, quirky, sexy, intriguing to downright scary. The best part is how well the story's been edited between issues - it just takes these twists and turns which will keep you on the edge of your seat. It looks and reads almost like a movie.

You can read the first issue here for free!

http://www.imagecomics.com/iconline.php?title=girls_001&page=cover

I could only find the first volume (Issues 1-6) compiled in a trade paperback, but I wasn't able to finish the last issue before the store closed!

This just means I'll have to go back.

And no I'm not a perv.

VC Promos 2007

Well, this post is LONG overdue.

Brief introduction - Every year, at NID, we have a festival called Monsoon Fiesta where we have three teams competing for the prize, namely VC (Visual Communication), ID (Industrial Design) and Foundation (Freshers).

Each year we make promos to promote our team and colour. Last year VC's colour was green:



This year we were white.

So here are the promos...

The first is a spoof of an old commercial:



This is our version (Directed by Sayantan, I have a cameo):


Click To Play

The other three promos are spoofs of the Get A Mac Ads. These were made by me, Vinu and Devika.

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

And here they are. ID's played by Ayush Jain. And Tanvi Bhatia plays the lovely Foundy. Some of the jokes are quite specific, so don't worry if you don't get them.

BE VC - Poster

Click To Play

BE VC - Basketball

Click To Play

BE VC - Next Year

Click To Play

By the way, I play VC.

Profile Pic

MAUS

Shreyas (previously) is being quite generous when it comes to lending me books. She happens to own a brand new copy of MAUS, both part I and II. The first time I heard about MAUS was when I first read From Aargh! to Zap! by Harvey Kurtzman.

It gave me great joy to finally read the entire story almost like fulfilling something left incomplete in my childhood.

MAUS is a must read for anyone and everyone. It put into a scary context every day things that I take for granted, like ragging or "social interaction" in my college to the food I eat so comfortably.

But more than that I was able to relate most with Artie (Art Spiegelman, the author) and his difficulties in trying to tell a tale which he himself has not witnessed.

Beg, borrow (I did), or steal a copy today!

Cat on Air-Conditioner

From Aargh! to Zap!

From Aargh! to Zap!: Harvey Kurtzman's Visual History of the Comics is one of the many books that I happened to chance by because of the wonderful Scarborough Public Library (now the Toronto Public Library, it seems), back when I was around 8 or 9.

In those days, the library used to clear out all their old books and they would sell them to the public for peanuts. And since both of my parents were (at the time) unbiased and voracious readers, they bought almost anything and everything.

That's when I first saw From Aargh! to Zap! - a gigantisized tattered old book about the history of comics.

I suppose I didn't realize it then, bu when I look back now, I realize that it was probably one of the biggest influences early on in my life. Later every time I heard someone talking about any of the comics/comix mentioned in the book, I was able to relate and sometimes show off with a bit of trivia about it (even if I had never read the book myself).

Now, when I'm finally able to read the books I read about then, things come full circle and it all feels predestined in a weird sort of way.

Thank you, Harvey Kurtzman!

Just Like Clockwork...

I just finished reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick on an overcast Thursday afternoon. This book actually belongs to Shreyas Krishnan, who unlike me, prefers to BUY books and treasure them rather than devour them sneakily in the store itself

The Invention... is a thoroughly mesmerising read as it brings together the best things about pictures and words and neither of the two are given the short end. I just love it when an author is able to blend together fact, fiction, images, words, history, cinema, characters, mystery, story, print with a dash of poignancy and make all these gears work like...

...well, clockwork!

Then again, this is probably the first time I've experienced it.

I've been SIMPSONIZED!!!

http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/

The Fountain

A brand new Landmark Bookstore has just opened in the outskirts of Ahmedabad in ISCON mall. My favorite thing about Landmark is the graphic novel section. My usual mission is to get in; read a book; finish before anyone wants to leave. It's very satisfying to get to read great work without having to pay for it!

Speaking of great work, yesterday I read the graphic novel version of The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky and Kent Williams. As most of you might now, I've been looking forward to the film version for a long time. But sadly, I haven't been able to see it. I did absolutely love the trailer though.



The book is great, if simply for the fact that visually it doesn't try to ape the movie. That is of course probably because they were both made parallel to each other. This is a pleasant change from the cheap comic book adaptations of movies that you usually see (most often they are comic book adaptations of movie adaptations of comics!).

The story here is being marketed as the Ultimate Director's Cut. Well, I don't know about that. But it's definitely worth a read!

My MTV Work Is On Air!

UPDATE!!!

Here are UN-CUT versions of the two promos I made during my internship at MTV.

Enjoy!





_____________________________________________________________

Hey!

Finally back to posting. Coming to the point:

MTV India has a whole new look and the channel's been revamped. So has the website:

http://www.mtvindia.com/

My two promos are finally on air. One is the MTV-Vh1 CAS promo. It appears at random times so watch out for it.

The second promo is the intro for a new show on MTV called IT SUCKS! This promo appears at the start of the show, which airs at 6 pm on weekdays. You can also see it online on the same website linked above.

http://www.mtvindia.com/mtv/mymtv/shows/itsucks/

The problem is that the quality's quite bad and the promo has been CENSORED!

I'll be posting an UNCUT version here soon, so look out for that!

Ratatouille

Possibly the most interesting character in Ratatouille, for me, is Anton Ego. The film begins and ends with him. He is also a representative of us - the audience.

How long have we craved for something to enjoy; something to love? Although we are quick to point out faults in the work that we see, it is truly a repercussion of the need to find something greater in life - something tastier.

Ratatouille is by no means perfect. I have to admit, if one gets technical, there are quite a few things that I did not like about it. But the important thing is that it strives for greatness; just like its protagonist. Remy knows that he might fail, but ultimately that doesn't mean he shouldn't express himself.

I'd like to applaud Brad Bird for making a film that is not just for "audiences", but also for critics. He has made a film that shows us, by example, that we should expect greater things from our art and our lives.

Bravo!

Poll - Do I look like this?

Via Priyankar's Blog

Drawn by him too.