Embrace your creed

It's due to the limited time I had when I was in my studies and to write about it now seems...I don't know, outdated? But then again, it is one of the most anticipated movies of 2012 and not writing about it would seem injustice; considering that I am a huge film geek.  Maybe it's the idea of writing a long and witty review about the film that bores me; it takes time and I lose focus easily.  So, instead of writing a long head crunching review, I'm going to write a short and simple one instead.




Some dubbed it as the best Superhero movie of all time and if I had to give my reasons why, it is due to the effort of respecting the dark and gritty mythology of Batman while adapting it to the 21st century's reality.  What did I expect from it before it was release? As the tagline suggests, 'The Legend Ends', I expected a good ending; one that could inspire me and shock me with something that I have never expected.  Of course, with ending gimmick revolving around the film, it comes to two assumptions: Will Batman die or will Robin pick up the mantel?


And after watching it, I was amazed by the villain, Bane.  His body language and vocabulary was just intimidating and entertaining.  And to answer who's my favorite Batman villain is just too demanding because I'm quite indecisive when it comes to this.  Ra's Al Ghul was a superb villain due to his relationship with Batman; something that I've never seen before. ( I don't read much of Batman comics, folks) He's also a creative way of adapting a villain into reality.  His immortality in the comics was translated to a myth; a gimmick to strike fear to his enemies.  Joker, as well in the comics, was equivalent to Bruce's decision to use brute force against criminals.  If justice decided to smack crime in the face, why couldn't crime hit back? Joker's actions question Batman's very idea and that makes an interesting story.  But of course, it's his random acts of violence that caught the audience's eyes.  Personally, random violence is nothing to me without a purpose; without it, the film would just be another straight forward action thriller which I'm not fond off.  It's the combination of what Joker's violence and what he stands for that makes him entertaining.  Lastly, Bane is certainly a villain that I could have never expected.  Relationship, idealist and what next? What all Superhero face in every story... brutality.  Bane is huge, smart and a capable leader.  He had what both Ra's Al Ghul and Joker lacked, strength.  And it is a delight to see Batman fighting in a one on one combat; one that involve two martial artists and not a brawl or a henchman fight which usually ends with the henchmen loosing with no effort.  Some craved for The Riddler as the next villain but to see another idealist might not cope with what Nolan had in mind.  By the end of the day, it was all about Batman and not the villains.


As for the ending...I must say, it wasn't really exhilarating.  I assumed that there would be another guy who'd wore the Batsuit.  While Bruce Wayne was heavily injured, the new guy was continuing his legacy.  But you have to understand how Christopher Nolan wanted to ended it.  He didn't want to make a spin-off or even a slight hint of another sequel.  And after minutes of considering that intentions, I concluded that the ending was necessary.  In real life, nobody wants to struggle for the rest of their lives.  Athletes and cops retire when they are physically incapable and this also implies if you're a crime fighting superhero.  This relevant story also signifies maturity for long time Batman fans; of how we realize that we're too old for reading comic books.  It's time to put down the books and start taking responsibility for the people we love and ourselves.



  This is a fan art and I think it's awesome! And so, to end this review, I give The Dark Knight Rises a 4.5/5 for the awesome ride with the trilogy.  Emotional, passionate, inspiring and oddly enough, colorful.  Why didn't I gave a full 5/5? I have to be honest.  It's due to the ending.  I blame the spoilers and vast knowledge of Batman I knew :'(





























Why Post Batman? I was too caught up with The Dark Knight; I didn't bother giving much attention to
movies after it.  Now that I'm having my holidays, it's time for this film geek to get back in the game.  Honestly, after Batman, I instantly started searching for a new movie to be obsessed with...sort of pathetic, don't you think? But the movies I found are next year's release.  Until then, let's watch Looper!

Another Bruce Willis film...wow, this is going to be another silly action pack film.

Boy, was I wrong! Joseph's make-up caught my attention at first.  We have Benjamin Button's superb CGI face and even Captain America's scrawny body but they decided to go along with make-up instead.  Honestly though, Joseph looks like Bruce Willis if he was a slick sexy boy but we all know that in his younger days, Bruce was a big harry tough guy; the kind of looks I prefer with heroes.


Watching the film gave me hope for writing stories because it had loads of layers.  Assassin's Creed is an example of balancing a lot of layers but I haven't seen much of this in films lately.  Looper certainly broke that chain.  Assassins, Time Travelling, Mutants, you vs older you and heck, even motherhood is put in there! It gave that typical gun fight action a new breath of fresh air with it's themes and science fiction background.




The down side though is that somehow, this film doesn't screams out 'marketable'.  How do I put this? With Batman's background of being a comic book icon, it's easy to remember him;easily advertised and to be obsessed with.  This film, with the ending it offers, doesn't allows itself to be marketable in a long extent.  What about the success of Inception and Titanic? I'm sensing no sequels ever coming but yet they were inspiring nonetheless.  It's just a shame to me that this movie isn't getting much attention in the 'mainstream' media.  It is good...really good.

Before the ratings, I would like to remind the system :)

2/5: Boring/ Cliche'.
3/5: A good film to past the time/ Could of been better.
4/5: An awesome and inspiring movie.
5/5: Ever green/ An instant classic/ Inspiring/ Epic/ Genius. 

The addition of 0.5 is somewhat an extra to films that I think that could go to the next level of the ratings.  Did that made any sense? :/ 
In summary, I give the film a 4/5 for an unexpected turn with the genre.  For now, it doesn't feels like a solid 5/5 but if I have to give a good reason why, it has to be the ending.  It's not that it's not good but it needs more verbal emphasis to the character's emotional build up....that's it, I guess. 


Salam and have a good day everybody! 

Hi, everybody! 


I started with the Hyena.  Finding the style of drawing was the part where it took some time but it turned out okay.  I wanted the colors to be flat so coloring it wasn't a pain.  
 

But the skater was a pain.  I am really not good with dynamic angles.  At the beginning, I already thought of drawing a simple flat skater because I knew I wasn't good with angles but even with a simple idea, I really couldn't get the legs right.  They weren't flexible or mildly dynamic enough.

   My goodness, it has really been awhile since I've posted anything here.  After a month of work at MPH as my excuse to not be an active blogger, now I have another one; a big step forward in my life and it's University.  Yep, no longer I'm learning as a teenager; being spoon fed in many ways that I haven't noticed until now. Now, I'm learning as an adult; figuring out on how do I survive in this cruel world and no longer imagining it as I always do as a teen.  Alhamdulillah, I was able to get myself into a designing university and though it is expensive, with god's will, I hope I can find a way to pay not only those fees but also paying my parents back.  So, here in this post, I shall post some of the artworks I did in my studies! Why now? Well, the first semester is almost over so with the weeks of freedom I have, why not start with this blog of mine?



It's not much but it's a start.  I haven't really explored the deeper and better uses of Photoshop but in time, I will.  This is just basics of adjusting color and brightness.  I prefer candid pictures because to me, it captures the true essence of people rather than posing ones.









Now this is one of the pictures that I submitted and frankly, I'm happy with it.  The subject is certainly a challenge as it requires me to travel.  It's definitely a good experience because I've never done things like this.

Even with time not being on my side, I must admit that the works I had to do was very interesting and this is one of them:









































Chose your own local movie and start Photoshopping it! I had to chose different stills from my movie by watching it.  Bunohan was just a random movie I picked because 'Budak Kelantan' was nowhere to be found but be that as it may, this flick was really good.  It wasn't the regular shallow story that most local films offer nowadays.  It was a complex story of a dark mishap between brothers from another mothers...did that make sense? Well, it's a conflict between step brothers whose dad had made lots of mistakes and this includes numerous failed marriage.


 Another scene I've chosen and below is the photoshopped product:


BAM! 


Bad, isn't it? But this not the end product though.  In fact, this is sort of a last minute work since I didn't really know how to use Photoshop.  But Alhamdulillah, my friends helped me a lot with it and this is as good as it gets at the time.  Oh, did I tell you that I had to paint it after I'm done? What the heck?! I'm not that good with painting and there I was, forced to this and to make matters worst, this was the final project which would be 40%...damn.  Which leads me to lesson number two of being a designer:

"ALWAYS PUSH YOURSELF BECAUSE THE MARKET IS VERY DEMANDING"

Seriously, the standards in my university is high and they really push their art students to the max.  I'm not sure if other public universities are like this...oh, and my university is a private one.




And this is the final product; chosen out of simplicity and conveniences.  The color scheme I chose (which is a must and no spontaneous colors is allowed) is analogous colors because I already bought the color blue and I don't want to leave it to waste =P

I also had to use live trace in order to make the painting process easier.  I'm not sure what this style is called but basically it's when you simplify the colors in groups of patches instead of the real life complexity. Below is the steps of painting it:





Alhamdulillah, it was better than expected.  I had a bad history of painting when I was in primary school and the fact that I didn't tried to improve throughout my whole teen years really didn't helped with my odds of executing this artwork.














            It took 3 days in total to finish this and I'm pretty satisfied with the men.  The background isn't the best that I could do.  Maybe the problem was with the photoshopped composition in the first place but it is what it is; I did what I could.




















And here's another hand drawn/colored artwork of mine:






Now, I haven't been posting much of my original sketches but oh boy, I'm gonna make it up to this with not only the sketches I did for my assignments but also with fully colored characters! :'D
Finally, I get to post fully colored characters for the first time and this, to me, is the main event of this post.




 
 

The assignment required me to make character concepts and I knew then that I wanna make sure that this will define my style.  I always prefer a realistic and simple story and that's what I did with my characters.  Instead of sketching out of this world characters with heavy and huge weapons, I just drew characters that stays true as possible to history; reflecting their culture and personality.

Before I get to the colored characters, here's my first inked post: Space Opera





As for the lady on the far right, the credits goes to my friend for helping me out with the designs...thanks pal! This was also a last minute work as you may notice, their eyes aren't colored.  But I'm still happy with it because I've never colored anything yet and to see it being better than I expected is really fulfilling.  But wait, there's more! The next work is I have to make a poster out of these characters.


I had to come up with a title to and that took me a long time to figure out the right word for them.


I had to use all of the characters and I did but I decided to do another one where it only focuses on these two.  I think that the background could still be improved though.  This isn't the the artwork I submitted.

THIS IS: 




I believe that as an artist, there's always room for improvements in your artworks but quite frankly, I love it! 

As you can see, I adjust some things here and there.  Most of the eyes are colored and one of the character's clothe is recolored.  I even add some shades on the main character's face (Center) and change the Malay woman's skin tone.  I decided to make it into a comic book cover since it was empty with texts.  It's just that their poses aren't suited for a movie poster and, of course, I don't have much time to redraw them.  So, I just work with what I got.


Well, I'm sooooo satisfied with this post because it's full with pictures and artworks unlike the previous posts which had only 2 to 4 artworks.  The first semester is technically over (I have one more exam) and in the end, I learned a lot.  Though at first, it seems like total perfection is demanded and I wasn't really fond of it but it all became clearer and easier (Thank god) once I get along with much of my course mates and lecturers.  It's just their way of pushing us to be our best.  With the free time I have, I hope I can get a lot of personal artworks done, Insya Allah.


Here's hoping for better days for me, my family and friends,
HAVE A NICE DAY AND SALAM!

I didn't had a negative reaction towards this movie nor did I had a positive one.  What came to my mind is "Wow, time flies really fast".  It seemed like yesterday when I first saw Tobey Maguire's Spiderman.  Now, my favorite childhood version of Spidey is nothing but a blast from the past with this new version coming out in theaters soon.  It seems like there's no more classic superhero plot with this one and honestly, It's a bold move.  With the phenomenon of Christopher Nolan's Batman, superhero films tend to be more realistic with their story line.  There's no more cliche' destined to be great plot with no relevant explanation whatsoever.  Writer's also tend to satisfy the comic book fans with major and interesting twist with the hero's iconic history , looks, relationships and so on.  Thus, let's go on with my expectations or predictions with this film.




One of the biggest changes with the costume, to me, are the web shooters.  In the comics, Spidey can't really shoot organic webs but they gave that powers to Tobey's Spiderman.  I think it's because they thought that it would be more logical.  I really do agree because being bitten by a radio active spider should give you web-shooting ability as well right? Why stop to just strength, agility and reflexes? Now, do I agree with the mechanical shooting webs? Yes, because I understand the necessity of it.  They wanted this new version of Spiderman to stand on his own and giving him that would certainly do the job.  As for his new red stripes, it's an interesting twist to it but according to most people I've ask, especially old ones, it seems just the same.  It takes a true geek to notice it...haha.  His eyes are also yellow.  Not sure if I'm okay with that but lets just see how they pull it off.



What do I expect from the story line:
 

      Well, first, it's a stupendous move to recreate Spidey's legacy by relating it to a Bio or DNA altering plot. To most eyes, Spiderman is a hero with Spider-like powers who fight random gifted villains.  But in this film, it emphasizes the DNA altering gimmick with Peter Parker's parent's dark past and also the new villain; The Lizard.  I'm guessing that there's gonna be a lot of slime and ooze; considering the bio gimmick.  Surprisingly, we only saw Venom's slime in Tobey's Spiderman and it's not green.  I don't know, green slime always symbolizes bio to me.  With this gimmick, I also see potential for them to bring in some animal-themed villains for Spidey.  I just noticed that most villains that the old movie had were people with mechanical advantage.  Having a random symbiotic alien and another accident is not much of a creative way to introduce a villain.  Again, I like to emphasize, since I'm a huge fan of Batman ( :p ), the bar for realistic and smart writing for superhero films has been raised and having random accidents more than once in a movie series is uninteresting.  Now, there's a huge possibility that three villains such as Rhino, Vulture and Scorpion could be introduce in a very unique way.  I also see the Osborns being heavily used again in the plot.  Perhaps, the sequel would introduce the Kingpin who wants this new bio-tech freaks to be in his army in order to take over New York or Kraven the Hunter could appear as a hitman and he is tasked to hunt all the bio-freaks.


 Spidey's legacy could finally be told in a way that could bring out the same feeling that comic book fans get while reading the comics; witty, action packed, teen drama or whatever it is that they feel.  Quite frankly, I see Spiderman as a big time underdog superhero in the Marvel universe; balancing his personal life that we could relate in many ways and stopping villains while holding on to his infamous belief, "With great power, comes great responsibilities".  How could you not see him as an underdog? You've got the genius millionaire, Tony Stark and the legendary Steve Rogers saving lives.  With talents such as Spideys', people might say that he is useless.  That, people, is the beauty of Spiderman; doing the right thing regardless of what people say and the very thought of it just gives me a nostalgic feeling of how I enjoy watching Spiderman as a child.



     

   

When I dropped my early comic idea for this blog, most of my posts lacked original designs from then on.  I've posted a few short comics but they weren't enough for me.  I wrote some reviews and even posted some random videos just for the sake of making this blog more...alive, so to speak though I did enjoy writing the reviews.  I had a project of making a 10 to 20 page comic book with a friend but alas, it didn't came to reality as there were loads of technical difficulties and time problems.  I had my part time job at the time while my scanners and laptop were completely annoying and unhelpful.  In the end, I lost the script due to reformatting.  Oh, I saved most of sketches and files in a hard drive.  All but ONE and it had to be that script.  The project was called Hipter Stan.  A hipster who works on the moon.

Alhamdulillah,
this is my second post labelled 'Book reviews' and I really don't do a lot of reading.  I'm trying to get use to reading since my ambitions involves creative writing.  I believe that you have to get inspirations from many resources; relying only on television isn't much of a good idea.  To be frank, I feel really good about myself because I don't read a lot of novels and to finish this one which I've spent more than a month is really satisfying.  I'm a pretty slow reader you know and I bet if I would to tell a regular book enthusiast that I spent a month reading a 300 page book, they would laugh.  By the way, here's the first post of Book reviews: Comics (DMZ Friendly Fire and World War Hulk)




I stumbled upon this book's wikia about a year ago and the main character's design fascinated me.  What makes it more fascinating is that there's rumours that there's going to be a movie adaptation of it and so, with those two facts bearing in my mind; I bought the book.  It was sort of serendipitous--well, not really; spontaneously stumbling Mumford and Sons's Sigh No More album was serendipitous because I tried to looked for it for 3 years.  They're not popular in Malaysia so it was difficult to find it.  I found this book when I was working at MPH Bookstores and since I get 20% off as a result of employee discount; I figured, why not just buy it? So, the story is a combination of detective and magic though I didn't felt much of the detective part.  It felt more to a "secret magical society living in our modern world" kind of plot.  Did that made sense? I hope it did.  Maybe it's just me but the story definitely focus more on explaining the secret magical society's history rather than emphasizing the crime solving.  The story starts with an adolescent girl who got herself involve in a secret world when she investigates the curious death of her uncle.  Stephanie Edgley met Skulduggery Pleasant, a walking skeleton with good taste in fashion and highly mannered, while sticking up her nose in this awfully dangerous world and thus, causing them to be good friends.  In my opinion, this book focuses more on the magical world's history.  Don't get me wrong, they are plenty of investigations going on but with the Faceless Ones and The War being told; it just screams out history to me.  To know more about the Faceless Ones and The War, buy the book! It's good--I mean, I don't read a lot of novels but it kept me reading; that proves something, doesn't it?

It's too sketchy, don't you think?

What I love about it though is the main character, Skulduggery.  He's the kind of character with a vast vocabulary and manners; a fine combination of making a gentleman.  I love smooth talking characters, they look just so cool and fascinating to me.  They could give low IQ villains a hard time understanding them with their choice of words.  Plus, it makes you sound more intelligent! He's also funny.  He makes intelligent jokes which I always choose over slapstick and dirty ones.













Another character's appearance that caught my attention was Ghastly Bespoke.  Now, I didn't saw a picture of him before I read the book.  After I read it, he's description was sort of weird to me.  A man who had a boxing background thus leading him to have a strong upper body strength; big arms and muscular all over.   But be that as it may, he chose to be a tailor instead.  He's background and physical appearance is quite a weird one.  He's face is said to have many scars; an unpleasant sight to be seen.  But official artworks of him didn't click with what I expected.  So, I made a sketch of my own.



 


I admit, Ghastly's appearance is quite hard to execute and this sketch of mine didn't satisfy me.  Instead of scars, I gave my version stitches.  Seeing the movie adaptation of him would be fun to see how they made him into reality.



Now the question for me is will I buy the next book? Well, of course but not now.  I'm going to college soon so I need to save money.  Besides, I have loads of other things to buy and so I guess, I would probably buy the book next year.  Thankfully, this book wasn't a waste of money and I give it a 3 out of 5 for a good read.  It's the first instalment; there are loads of story introduction in which I presume the next books should be good with it being build up.



Lately, I haven't been posting sketches of my own design a lot but now, alhamdulillah, I've finished part one of my short comic! :D


I'll post it soon, Insya Allah and I'll be hoping for some constructive criticism.  










That's all for now, Salam and have a good day everybody!    

I've just notice something; I haven't post anything labelled 'Experimental Character' (EC) for a while.   Since I've dropped 'Nurul Shakira', I guess I completely forgot about it.  Alhamdulillah, I did manage to post some short comics but they're under the label 'Shorts'.  The original concept of EC was to share you guys the development of my characters; sharing how they started out and where did I get the inspiration.  Then, I would post short stories of them.  Well, I don't think I would want to continue posting short stories of them but I do, however, want to share the development of a few characters...just for fun :D

A friend of mine once reminded me that sharing ideas can make them better by knowing the opinions of others and so, I'll continue doing EC.  Besides, I feel sort of guilty because the past three post of mine didn't had any of my sketches =/ ....man, that's not good.

And just for the sake of making this post longer :p
...here's the first post of Experimental Character.

I think this by far, the worst scanned sketch I've posted here . Sketching Tom wasn't enough to spark some ideas for the plot and so I drew this guy...a bald midget =) dude, that's so meannnn  -__-