Friday, February 20, 2009

Nocturnal Artist

haha, I am loving that title. Even though, it barely has anything to do with the actual content of the post. I just couldn't go to sleep, I napped for 3 hours just before bedtime, this was bound to happen. If I can manage to get some sleep I might just go to the Langar event in Toronto.
So I went my sister's music class. It was great. There were like 15 students, very curious. Showed them the parts of the tabla (with a bit of history and explanation on the bol), played all the basic taals (6,7,8,10,12,14,16), played some beats, then played with them. It turned out as a learning experience for me as well. Now I know what a Djembe is. Its an african drum and... err... that's it. In the end, they played this really cool composition they had been practicing, few of the students got up and danced! It was wicked! BTW is it just me or does tabla sound very quiet? Compared to about 15 Djembes, I could hardly hear myself playing! and efore that one of the girls was like "Could you play louder?"
Anyway, it was cool except I didn't eat breakfast; which was not cool! At one point I was sure I was going to pass out! At other times, I would simply go blank. haha, that was high school all over again! The passing out bit, going blank and the fact that I went back.


Thursday, February 19, 2009

Feedback please

Come on, guys I've been blogging for quite a bit but I haven't gotten much feedback, their was a veer who pointed out that more non-war paintings should be done and some people are regularly checking the blog but other than that nothing! Comment on stuff, tell me what you think, what you like and what you don't like about what I write or paint. Only then I can figure out what people are looking for. If nothing else then just point out the speling mistaks and errors of gramatical, for God's sake. So c'mon people put your thinking caps and err... turbans? on and unleash the... err.. comments!

While your at it, check out this cartoon. The inspiration came from Chakram, a unit from Age of Empires. He is a nihang that always uses chakars. Kind of strange but I guess it does add variety. Anyway, here is Jathedar Cronk Singh. I've been thinking now and I think that I should star doing comics on him. Nothing major, just good old humour, Pagt(Bhagat) style!

Back to School with Akali Phula Singh ji, again...

Well, technically I am decieving my readers with the title but I am going back to school, not my university though but my old high school. My sister invited me to introduce her music class to tabla. Her teacher loves tabla and probably had something to do with this as well. So here I am waking up the good old tabla muscles who were in hibernation for 2 years!
So what does Akali Phula Singh ji have to do with this? Well, it just so happens that I was painting another version of him. The old one reminded me too much of Baba Deep Singh, it did not have that nihang look, you know the one you'll see in wars, the one that says "Come any closer and chop I'll your God d*** head off!" hahaha. Well, I was able to show that look in this new piece. I used my Crysis Turbanhead to start me off on the basic pose, and then I worked from there. Maybe, I can continue to work o nthe old one as Baba Deep Singh ji...

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Life with Mutants - Biocyborg

It's been quite a while since I last posted. I've been busy with school work and comics, mainly schoolwork. Last week I was able to put together an idea for a "biocyborg". A cyborg that builds itself. What happens is that these members of the Homo mutatio species are able to mold their skin around machines. They have little collagen in their skin. Collagen is exactly why your skin doesn't come off when that aunty pinches your cheek. The collagen that they do have in their tissues is modified to adhere to metal surfaces. The neurons in their body are also modified and are able to recieve electrical impulses from external sources. Well, actually anyone's neurons can recieve external electrical impulses. However, the difference here is that biocyborgs when constantly stimutaled by electrical impulses, generate a variant of neurons that will try to control that impulse. These neurons may develop special dendrites (the part of the neuron that recieves the signal, branch like), which will wrap around the stimuli and generate extracellular environments to try to reduce or amplify the signal. Although, a large electrical impulse can still kill biocyborgs, they will eventually adapt to this stimuli if they survive.
I present to you a Sikh Biocyborg. His armour is loosely based o nthe look of the Crysis armour. So what's his story? This currrently nameless Singh moves to US to further his studies. BOOM! 9/11! He becomes the target of hate, eventually, he is beaten harshy and gets knocked out. Not knowing what to do with him, the ignorant fools dump his body in an abandoned junkyard nearby. For days this Singh lays unconscious, unaware of what he is turning into. His head brutally smashed starts to shed the hair, as the skin and bone look for a way to repair the skull. His left eye, which was seriously damaged in the attack, is degraded, in fact, most of his body fat and some muscles are degraded as well, to provide energy for the repairs. Over a another few days, his damaged left forearm starts to recover, it bonds to any nearby metal, strengthening the bone and sealing the wound. Surprisingly, the repairs create a sort of basic skeleton, over the damaged one, leaving sealed holes in the metal as if expecting more metal to bind into them. Ok, I am going to leave it here and just show the cyborg.

Here is a more enhanced version of him. On the leftside, he now has an additional lens, which he augmented with infrared technology. His appearance amazes his professors but what they don't know is that he is a mutant, a biocyborg. He is naturally intelligent, with a larger brain sitting comfortably in his semi-metal skull. He also gave himself a mechinal hand which he is able to remove from that metal core of his arm. Later, on he will be able to equip weapons on this core. His back is also partly metal, it has sockets for hooking up to his computer or to recharge the metal core.