Finding the roots

It’s been a while! SOOO I haven’t been updating my blog for such a long time now. I missed writing down my thoughts about art and animation, learning new things, challenging myself. It’s been really difficult to stay motivated lately; so I came back here to find my early inspirations. What used to keep me ticking?

I found a lot of those Artists along with many more whose work moves and entertains. I want to get back to basics, back to learning, and take it one step, one challenge at a time. I want to get as comfortable with drawing as I used to; draw for myself more, not just to do better work. So I thought I can start by posting here more frequently, be it art or artists who inspire me; so that I can always come back to it when things seem flat.

Some of my latest inspirations are Alberto Mielgo, Patrick O'Keefe, Tarun Lak, Shiyoon Kim, Anand Babu, hongsi84, Krishna Chandran, Rudy Hill, Djamila Knopf, Danielly Romero, Rebecca Sugar, Caio Martins,
Amongst the old favourites I want to revisit are Nathan Fawkes, Tom Bancroft, Glen Keane, Goro Fujita, Toby Shelton, Claire Wendling, Normand Lemay, Paul Briggs, Barukuri, Boulecorp, Frank Frazetta, Carter Goodrich, Peter de Seve, Chris Sanders to name a few!

I have been turning to Bobby Chui for his amazing content on Chuistream whenever I need motivation!
One of my favourite interviews is of Paul Briggs, who keeps reminding us that Story is King, and we should never forget to communicate through our drawing. Hope you enjoy listening to the stream too.

J

Happy New Year 2015!

11th Jan 2015

And a very happy new year to all!! I've been having the best of everything. Work is balanced with play so far - been travelling so much whenever a project ends! There's been a huge mixed variety of work we've been doing so far. Hopefully this year we'll kickstart with some great animation projects!

I finished my Professional Storyboarding Course with CGMA Academy and working on some commercial as well as personal work! Unfortunately everything we've got is still confidential until release, so will only be able to share that later. I only hope I manange to squeeze in time for personal work and fitness now! And then I'd have nothing to complain about. ;)

Happy New Year 2015 everyone! Hope to share something concrete soon! Until next update, enjoy this quick storytelling panel I did for fun.

Update

13th March 2014

Hey guys.
Well it seems like forever since I posted any of my work. I have been busy with a hell lot of personal issues and massive motivation problems. Tonight I watched a TED talk by Nick Vujicic. I'm not generally so emotional, but I guess it was just the timing of it; when it was over, I was like a fountain of tears, crying uncontrollably and feeling more miserable than ever. If you need hope, you should watch it. I have been in a lot of self-doubt and loss of confidence for a really long time. To top that, I feel apathy very very often, which can get ridiculously scary. I just hope this weird dark phase moves off quickly.

So once it does, if it does, I will soon share all the stuff I've been upto. Maybe tomorrow will be a brighter day.

Coming Soon!!

24th Sept 2013

ALRIGHT!! The wait is FINALLY OVER!

I have been SO busy struggling with finishing up this project and wrapping up all the lose ends that I totally forgot to update the blog.
So yes! The Mailbox is finally READY FOR A FESTIVAL RUN!

I still wish there was a cooler way to compress files without losing out on so much quality, but I think I got a pretty decent output. I've had no help at all with post production, and so - I learnt a TON of things on my own, the hard way, and a bunch of softwares as well (that too with a suck snailnet). Also I find now that I could have done more justice to the story and to the animation, but giving the pressing deadlines, motivation issues and lack of guidance towards the end, I decided to correct my flaws in the coming shortfilms that I dream of making!

Now enough with the complaining! I hope you guys love this film as much as I enjoyed making it, and learning from it! I hope it's something fresh for you, and that it gives you something, even if for a short while.

It's still not available for public viewing, but it's 'COMING SOON'!! ;) ;) (Now I get how much fun this is for the fim-makers and distributers)

With this message, I commence to make this blog - PUBLIC. O__o
Cheers and lots of love! <3 p="">

More inspiration, news, and updates!

30th August 2013

Soooo! All you fellow bloggers, artists and film makers! Here's another dose of crazy inspiration!! <3 p="">



Cory Loftis
Visual Dev. artist at Walt Disney - his work is SO JUICY!! So much humor, personality, and life! Beautiful handwork, coloring and compositions! A major inspiration to suffice for another 3 weeks!

Rachel Saunders/Barukurri
Illustrator and painter. Although she's British, her work looks very eastern, and makes me want to watch all the Miyazaki movies (including the ones I've already drooled over) again and again!
Her drawing is so beautiful and soft, and her characters are lovable at the least! Beautiful colors and inspiring characters!

 

After seeing this, I think you guys should be interested in participating and giving this a shot! It's a mind-blowing opportunity to go for an all-expense-paid-trip to Burbank CA for CTNXpo!!!!!
Hells yeah! The deadline is Oct. 1st. Here are the DETAILS.

Lastly some updates. I have been trying to make a living out of freelancing to fund my own film. I've been working with Doodle Monkey, a company started by some close friends, and I'm using a great site called PeoplePerHour which is for freelancers and people who want to avail their services. Unfortunately it's one of those projects that is confidential and that I can't put up here. :'( Check it out. It's been taxing, fun, and interesting.That's all for now. Film is almost done, sound is left, and my awesome new laptop is finally here to help me finish it! Things are finally looking up!

Cheers and love!! <3 br="">  

Travel Update

12th June 2013

Sooo, I have been travelling a LOT. One gets pretty tired of sitting at home and procrastinating work once one graduates. Life is very uncertain after graduation, and there's avoid you have to fill or you get depressed quickly. I was dying to go to Leh Ladakh, Kashmir for a very long time. Finally my family and I decided to go north where it's a climate we're not familiar with (being Goans and living in the South with the heat and rain and humidity). It was an adventure. It was not what I expected, which made it an adventure all the more.

 Besides having motion sickness and severe migrains thanks to the low Oxygen levels there, I got to enjoy the most gorgeous senery and be with nature. It was wonderful.


After we got back to Delhi, I left my parents and went on a trip to Ramgarh, Uttarakhand where my friend Prachi recently built a house. That trip was just what I needed. After Leh these mountains were nothing. Ramgarh is a place in the hills, very close to Nainital. We plucked apricots, peaches and plums right from her orchard and got to see clouds passing through us! It was beautiful, and I got to spend it with my two awesome college friends Prachi and Madhuwanti.


 I got back home yesterday, and I feel so fresh and have a new wave of eagerness to work and produce some magical stuff. :) So that's why I've been explaining what I'm upto.

On the work front, me and my friend Laskhmi have decided to take up the MAGNIFICIENT! the CHALLENGING! the DAUNTING! the EXCITING - 30 DAY ANIMATION CHALLENGE!! >:)

Hells yeah! So yesterday was day one and we decided to animate blinks. I managed to finish 3 and realized how rusted I am! I really need to get my shit togetha! Today, weight shift. :/ Hope we last till day 30!

And lastly about my film, I am getting back to it and not giving up. I am more determined than ever to see it through.

Rock on guys! \m/

Google wishes me!

22nd Oct 2012

How wonderful to login my google account and find this!!! It's totally made my day. I'm already teary!

Here's another photo which really touched me by my fellow HP fan mamta. :) This is absolutely 'wunnerful'! :)

Second Internship!

6th October 2012

Hello blog and its readers, if any! It's been a really long time! I haven't been posting any work lately because I'm so busy working on 2 confidential projects and my Colloquium (pre-graduation thesis paper)! I wish I could post the stuff here but I'm allowed to only when the product is ready. It's an app for children's book stories to be told via the tablet and the digital medium. Learning a lot about translating  story. I'm so used to telling stuff as if it's a film, I'm now trying hard to break from that.

The people I'm working for is a firm called Atnovus Design. It's a Switzerland based firm, so I get to work with people from another beautiful country, and that's another fun part, besides the fact that they are really nice people.

The Mailbox, my graduation film has been on a hold since I am losing it trying to handle so many things at a time. I am longing a year-long holiday now! I wish life was longer and every lasted over 24 hours!

On the sidelines I'm going crazy over The Hunger Games. After the movie came out I was obsessed with it, and I bought the books. I am now on Mockingjay - book 3, and I strongly suggest all you fiction-sci fi lovers to just grab a copy of your own.

That's all for now. Watchout for my regular inspirational animated/live action films.

Okay now bye. :|

In hungarian countryside!

It's been long!

I'm on vacation with my family here in Hungary. We visited Vienna as well and they're both beautiful cities, Vienna and Budapest. I am now in Hungarian countryside enjoying peace and quiet, playing cards, sleeping and eating! It's hard to be so cut off from work. There are so many funny moments I want to board but I don't have my buddy wacom here. It was too big, so no artwork from me for a while.  I am dying to watch a huge list of movies (prometheus, great gatsby, batman beyond, snowwhite and the huntsmen, madagascar III, brave, shanghai) and cook and eat a bunch of things when I'm back.
Lot of plans! Until then, peace and quiet for me.
  
*sounds of birds chirping in the background*

Finally! Some animation!

26th April 2012

It's interesting how a simple change in the color of the layout in TV can change your attitude towards animation. It started making my frames look better! Here is the old one VS the changed one.

I know, right? Anyway, the animation's finally kicked off! Atleast I've done something I'm proud of today.
We went together to speak to Shyamu (our HOD) about getting our deadlines extended. Somehow came to settlement to finish atleast one shot complete with the inking, color, bg and sound. Phew. Will also get a briefing on our colloquium paper on Monday. That's kinda a thesis paper.

Besides that on the Animation side, we're all going for 'The Avengers' tomorrow! Can't wait. We were so eager we pre-booked the tickets online and got top row seats! It better be good. The last one I saw was Thor, and I was horribly dissappointed with that.

That's all for tonight.

Gesture Drawing Session - 24th April

24th April

Wow, I can't remember the last time I sketched/posted gestures! True, it's been a long time - but also true is my state of absolute stress and escaist tendencies. I've been running away from the fear of making a shitty movie and involving myself in games like Alladin (a childhood comfort) and Pottermore (this is based ON my childhood (Harry Potter)). I wish it never got over and JK Rowling lived as long as Nicholas Flamel. The fever is not back - it never died. I hate it when I talk about Hogwarts and people tell me to grow up! Anyway, more on that later (hopefully).

Gestures have become highly dependent on self-initiative now. Since juries are closing in, everyone's buy with coursework and noone has the time to sketch gestures. I was feeling super let down and rusty, so I sketched these from the AMAZINGly resourceful gesture drawing tool from Pixellovely. I used to use this for anatomy study as well.

So here's how they turned out. I'm embarassed! I went from getting-better to smelly drawings! Anyway. They all took about 1 minute to sketch and 1 minute for tone. Here goes.


I've sketched this Asian man before. He always seemed to have weird anatomy to me. Here I tried to quickly study color along with the lighting. Pretty decent for the first time eh?

Ummm....

29th March 2012

Haaahh!! I am so out of schedule on the mailbox. Anyway, the reason I write is because I finally showed it to Gayatri ma'am. She's been taking a class for the juniors on Maya - so she came where I sat and asked me where I was. I looked like this:


Lately my answer to everything has been "Ummmmm......"
Dad: Nikhi, what about your portfolio? What about intership?"
Me: Ummmmm......

Mumma: What've you thought about your job??
Me: Ummmmm......

En: Where do you wanna go for dinner?
Me: Ummmmm......

And the worst one happened today:
Gayatri Ma'am: Where have you reached with 'The Mailbox?'
Me: Ummmmm......I'll just show you.

So I showed her the layers of the psd files that I took approx. 4 hours to save as Jpgs. The reason I could 'automate batch' them was that I had to manually hide/unhide what was to be shown in every frame. So she liked it! And thought I'd made a great deal of progress. The worst part is, premier is acting b***hy... It hangs every 5 minutes. I've tried everything, emptied cache, temp files, transferred my data to my HDD - it's STILL b***hy. :| Oh heck, I guess I'll just take a few days longer.

*Sigh*
Well. See u guys.

Update and progress!

17th March 2012

It's a quiet Saturday morning in the computer lab and I 'm currently on the BG stage in pre-production. According to my new safer schedule, I was supposed to be done with them on the 9th of March, and today's the 17th! Well anyway, I learned a LOT on the way, esp. about line, thickness, inking, depth, composition, and how WONDERFUL Maya is when it comes to taking a reference. I've become super hard in modelling. Of course it's just blocks, but it helps a ton to figure out the placement of objects. A huge inspiration has been the backgrounds of Triplets of Belleville. I wish I could get that kind of look in my film, with Goan backdrops. I really hope it looks pretty after the coloring. Hopefully I'll finish the remaining BGs today, and start with the character design. I have no idea how I'm gonna animate the characters in the backgrounds that have such dynamic angles. And the cycle! :-s Anywho, I've got a lot of great references.

Here's a peak at the great pen I bought from the stationary, really good for inking stuff since it has a really thin nib. Helps give the handmade look I want for my film:


Alok's been in a tense fix. He can't visualise his movie since the world of his film is upside down in an anglo indian house! I'm trying my best to help him as well. That's all for today morning.