Monday, June 18, 2012

Mc Donald's Olympics

Seeing people wearing lungis and sitting on the bench next to the plastic Mc Donalds guy has been a familiar sight in Indian Cities. And such infiltration can be considered just the collateral gloom of globalisation. But considering the food served by this chain of restaurant, it is ironic that they are the proud sponsors of Olympics, a sporting event where the best of athletes are seen.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Factoons. Brainwave. 13th June

Ever wondered why the process of recording on a disc is referred to as burning? The information on a disc is recorded in digital form, represented by a series of 1s and 0s. A disc has a thin reflective metal sheet with a translucent dye layered on top. The CD burner is equipped with a powerful 'write laser' that burns the translucent dye to make it opaque. The parts which are opaque block the light from reflecting off the metal sheet, giving it a digital value of 0, and the parts which are left translucent get a value of 1. This is how data is burnt on a CD!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Brainwave. Issue 19. Paleo Planet

Although this issue came to the stands before the first week of June but the blog update of it got delayed due to the production week for the July Issue. The work has been running tight and it the middle of all the last minute chaos I ended up doing the cover for the June issue along with the layouts and spot illustrations for inside pages. The theme for it is crocodiles, dinosaurs and birds and the cover turned out to be alright for a last minute job. But, before everything else, here's a comic strip on why a few dinosaurs have been upset with what the paleontologist did to them.

Right-click on the image and select 'open link in new tab' for larger view.

Here are a couple of spot illustrations for an article done on Gustave, one of the largest crocodile alive right now. His size and voracious appetite has given him a cult status in the neighbouring areas of Burundi. 

 
And lastly, here's the cover.

The next issue is about visual effects used in movies. So gear up with 3D glasses, modelling clay, flip-books and persistence of vision. The kids of 80's and 90's are going to have a good time.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Factoons. Brainwave. 6th june

A walnut is tough to crack but just because it's hard-shelled doesn't mean it's a nut. In reality, walnuts are classified as drupes! Fruits that have a fleshy covering over a hard shell surrounding the seed, are called drupes like coffee, mangoes and coconuts. Dry fruit that just have a hard shell covering a seed inside are true nuts, like hazelnuts, chestnuts and acorns.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

100 years of Indian Cinema

Outlook launched it's last issue (28th May) celebrating the 100 years of Indian Cinema and had requested the minimal movie poster gang to submit original artworks to showcase in it. I contributed three posters for it. I wished to do more but was restricted by the tight work schedule. I watched Pather Panchali for this project and I consider that to be one of the most memorable experience of the project. And to mention the classic beauty of Waheed Rehman in Kaagz ke Phool and my childhood memory of Mukesh's songs from Mera Naam Joker were the revisited treasured bookmarks.  


I am planning to continue this as a personal project and if anyone wants to own the prints, do let me know. You can see rest of the published posters here.

Friday, June 1, 2012

George Sprott and the Dominion City by Seth

Last week I finished reading another book by Seth titled as 'George Sprott'. It deals about a Small town TV showman called George Sprott who for most of his life time spent shooting videos in the Arctic and later airing it on TV for the audience. His show which once was a popular air time slowly started to fade away in its last stages but still clinging on to its cult followers. The story has been put together through interviews, anecdotes, flashbacks, dream sequences and a few more other narrative tools. The various viewpoints coming together to patch a story together gives an overall weight of the character, his charm and traumas. It helps the reader's mind to approach the character of George Sprott from the eyes of many who may have despised or loved him in small to sumptuous amount. But there is one thing where Seth has taken the medium a notch up by creating the mock up of the whole environment. Each of the sections in the book are separated by the pictures of cardboard houses, shops, restaurants, broadcasting office, theatre and all the elements that create an architecture of a city called Dominion where George Sprott comes from. It creates the ghost town that exists in Seth's head when he is making his characters walk through its streets. The full model of the city was up on display and I got a few photographs from the Drawn & Quarterly site to share it with you all.


You can take a look at the full series and the room in was up on display from this flickr link - Seth: Dominion City