you can read the rest of the comics here.

yes, i’ve been very busy “translating and migrating” the data from tanggam into my database. i’ve already managed to draw inferences from what i had, so now it’s just a matter of finishing the rest. hopefully i can get everything done by end of the week.

people said if you wanna get something done, give it to a busy man. here i am, keeping myself busy, and my BFBC clan asked me to design a new logo. sure, something that i thought i could do in 30minutes eventually took 3 hours lol. weapons featured are neosted 2000 shotgun, FN SCAR, M2 carl gustav anti tank, RPG-7, M-60 machine gun, M24 sniper rifle and HK416 assault rifle with M203 grenade launcher.

this is the first t-shirt design in a series of five for the splintered core game. splintered core is an upcoming online game which i’m involved as art director, and this series will be released as part of the promotion of the game. this is not the final design. i will only showcase the final product here when it has been printed .

done using painter 10 and manga studio 3.0 debut.

sometimes a blog entry doesnt quite need a lengthy text. surely the painting above would be enough, dontcha think so?

how long have i been away? way too long it seems.

here’s an update. i’ve been to egypt and back. i saw the dark knight. i’ve been told my research is on a good path. then i was told i’m about to fail my research bcoz my method is wrong. now i’m venturing into protocol analysis, something i’m not familiar at all. i havent had a haircut in a while. i’m a full time house husband now. i’m a lecturer but i’m still a student.

that about sums my whole life at the moment. now to find some money for tickets back home.

here’s another boring weekend. ila went down to london. i bought her a first class train ticket at only GBP18. that’s filthy cheap! not that i’m a cheapskate though lol.

on the way back, i grabbed june’s empire magazine. it had a 3D cover of the hulk smashing through a wall. i was already prepared to pay when i saw a catchier total film magazine that comes with a free foil poster of hellboy2. now that’s even cooler. so i dropped empire and grabbed total film instead.

browsing the interiors, an artwork caught my eyes. it was an oil poster by stephane levallois, a french artist, depicting the incredible hulk hunching down under an arch bridge in a rainy, misty new york night. or atleast i think it’s new york. anyways, as soon as i got back home, i started scribbling in spirit of the painting. but instead of oil, i opted to use the pallette knife. this is to differentiate my work from his. then i changed the character to batman, and the city to gotham. finally, i opted to use blue tinge instead of green, something that is more inline with batman’s gothic feel.

i spent 3 hours doing this. and it feels good.

looks can be deceiving. look closer.

focus, and hopefully u can see the things hidden.

no i dont mean that.

oh whatever…

yet again another style embraced.

a friend of mine pointed out how my style (or rather “styles”) have gone from impressionistic pencils to 3D assisted sceneries to animated pixel arts. “wouldn’t you want to stick to one style and develop it more?”. would i? i doubt so.

i rather enjoy being able to explore different styles, producing significantly different products while at the same time maintaining the essence of azarimy. u can still notice my preferred exaggeration of proportions, camera/lense action and focus, pseudo-realistic colours and my weak use of lighting. it’s all there. i never intend to be realistic, as i dont find the need to. i evolved from quesada-meet-otomo style, and that’s where i’m sticking to .

owh, you can see clearly the quesada influence in the pencils below:

it’s almost end of january, and i still couldnt come up with a good cause on why i need a virtual assistance to design education. owh, that’s part of my PhD research, but it’s one of the most crucial question that forms the core of the research. why would designers require an online or virtual assistance in doing design? cant they function without it? or does online assistance provide a certain edge that normal, offline designers do not possess?

these are some of the questions that need answering, and the thing is i have not a clue on how to even start explaining the answer. and i’ve got till 18 february to do this. and not to mention all the distractions that i foresee: the new PS3 console that i’ve just bought, valentines day around the corner, winter ending sale and so on.

so many things to do, so little time.

and i’ve talked to my head department back in UTM. he sort of hinted that i could proceed into my 4th year and he’ll approve it. although he did insist that i should really try to finish by end of this year. yeah, easy for him to say.

anyways, this piece above was done in painter and coreldraw. primarily in painter, as it is a paintover the cover of EMPIRE’s january issue featuring the late heath ledger as the joker. this piece was finished about less than a week before heath ledger was found dead in his apartment. his death did came to me as a surprise. i mean, i just painted him less than a week ago! oh bugger, may he rest in peace!