The Road To Kingdom Come

Hello, blog. Yes, I know.

As much as I’d like to recount the Incredible Adventures of Rindo McAwesome in the Orient, I’ll leave those for another time. Or possibly never, my forgetfulness and lethargy being what they are. So let’s skip the tales of cop chases, saving damsels in distress and other feats of derring-do, shall we? Bigger developments are afoot.

I’ve been drawing!

Living in Singapore without a smartphone is a disability. It’s not so much the inability to navigate in the city (a big problem indeed; I’m known for being more directionally challenged than a pickled turnip) or missing out on the  innumerable apps that make hailing a cab, finding out nightspots with great deals, and life in general so much easier; the thing that irks me most is the abject boredom in subway rides! While the rest happily stalk cute friends of friends on Facebook and hurl birds at pigs with their iThingies, I have to resort  to more Neanderthal means of entertainment: a sketchbook and pencil. And nowadays, the Zig.

My pencil work is always messy, and I hardly bother to clean up afterwards. I just sketch layer upon layer until I get a semblance of what I have in mind, and leave it rough-hewn. “It adds character,” I tell people. I’m plain fucking lazy, I tell myself.

Enter the Zig. Folks, it’s a dream. Blacker blacks, cleaner contours and it’s somehow… swift. It feels so good running that nib across paper and masking the imperfections with a rich flush of black. God, I drool just thinking about it.

Observe. Svelte super-women, but dull. Lifeless. Woefully inarticulate. Nothing is more frustrating than a lissome figure that’s ill-defined.

Now, look at this. Sharply etched muscle and, if you know your hatching (I don’t), excellent texture differentiation. Isn’t Death dandy?

Of late, I’ve been trying dynamic poses and stuff that action heroes are wont to do. Let me tell you, the pencil roughs were shit, but the Zig magicks them into clean-cut figures of men in action. Satisfaction.

Being off the internet for 2 hours everyday does have its benefits. Drawing semi-nude women is therapeutic.

1. Sign up for a hash jungle run.
2. Brace yourself for heavy downpour with nothing more than a santa hat.
3. Look up directions on gothere.sg and follow them to a T.
4. Forget to note the stop you have to get down at.
5. Realize you don’t have a smartphone to look it up again, because you’re a fucking cheapskate.
6. Miss the bus stop.
7. Walk around, hoping you’ll see signs to Blackmore Drive. You don’t.
8. Walk around, hoping you’ll meet someone to ask for directions, in the rain. You don’t.
9. Arrive at the hash location. Like a boss.
10. Start running with the team.
11. Fall behind, in 5 minutes.
12. Stop and pant like a bitch in heat, in 10 minutes.
13. Ask yourself why you sign up for things you can’t possibly survive.
14. Convince yourself  that it can’t get worse than this, and catch up with  the team, as they plunge into the jungle.
15. Realize it does get worse.
16. Trudge through mud. Fall.
17. Pick your way through vines and thick foliage. Fall.
18. Try to spot your team far ahead, and fail to notice the the knee-deep stream. Fall.
19. Hum the “Indiana Jones” tune, and feel nothing like him.
20. Learn your botany – specifically, trees and branches that have inch-long spikes all over them.
21. Promptly forget that, and grab onto said trees and branches for support.
22. Scream. Like a little girl.
23. Stumble upon an old rail track, defunct since  the Stone Age. Now feel like Indiana Jones.
24. Crawl under mangled trees and rotting logs.
25. Bite your lip and bear the pain of the dozen scratches all over you. Like a boss.
26. Will this rain to end. Will this run to end.
27. Follow your team, find a way out of the forest, and catch sight of cars and buses plying a busy avenue dead ahead.
28. Thank the Lord for civilization.
29. Promise yourself that you will strangle the next person who says “I wanna get back to nature.”
30. Better still, promise yourself that you’ll take said person to the next jungle run.
31. Notice that, in your reverie, you have lost your team beyond the bend.
32. Run to catch up, and find there’s no one to catch up to.
33. Drenched, leaf-covered and caked with an inch of mud all over you, walk around the swanky neighborhood and the startled denizens. And don’t give a fuck.
34. Keep walking.
35. Remind yourself to keep your phone with you, the next run.
36. Remind yourself  to never sign up for another run.
37. Comb every square foot of Holland Field.
38. Keep walking in the rain, in the dark, and dream of that warm bed back home.
39. Arrive at base camp, 45 minutes after the run ended.
40. Chug beer by the dozen.
41. Sing hash ditties, and down beer shots by the dozen.
42. Gobble up turkey, potatoes and all that warm goodness, and chug more beer by the dozen.
43. When the hashers say “See you next time,” respond with “Hell yea!”. Like a fucking boss.

No, seriously. I half-expected that Theseus, in the midst of heated battle, would rip out his toga and clobber the living daylights outta the bad guys in his shiny blue-and-red super suit. Just look at Henry Cavill: the man’s a spitting image of Christopher Reeve, and a whole lot more menacing. Plus, he’s got the beefcake to match the exaggerated proportions of Mr. S in comic books.

I wasn’t so sure when the teaser images of “Man of Steel” first came out, but now I’m convinced: Henry Cavill may be the best Superman yet. And with darker story material from Goyer and Nolan, “Man of Steel” may well be the best Superman movie yet.  And with Zach Snyder at the helm, we can expect some tastefully done slo-mo action sequences, a la “300″, “Watchmen” and “Sucker Punch”.

In short, a movie well worth waiting for. June 14, 2013 is a little too far out, but hey, anything for Superman.

Ah, but we digress. This blog is about “Immortals” – Hollywood’s latest attempt at aggrandizing Greek myth with beautiful people, spectacular visual effects, and incredible amounts of gore. And unfortunately, nothing much else. We follow the adventures of a strapping Greek peasant, Theseus, in his quest to foil the plans of the mad King Hyperion who’s hell bent on finding this super awesome weapon that will destroy the Gods. Does Theseus prevail? No, he doesn’t. Does Hyperion prevail? No, he doesn’t. Do the Gods prevail? No, they don’t. End of story.

To give the movie makers some credit, I loved the way the they strove to “keep it real”. The austere visuals, the  unabashed display of mutilation and dismemberment, and most especially the reimagining of the Minotaur plot, which I think was very well done. Remember Achilles’ heel in “Troy”? Quite like that, yes.

But after all the pain to create what could have well been the story behind the famous myth, they bring in Gods with super powers et al. If there are supernatural beings in the picture, why not go all out and stay faithful the old stories? I, for one, would have loved to see a real Minotaur. Oops, spoiler.

Then again, what old tale does not have its spin-offs? The comic-books of today have their hundred other story versions, where artists simply do what they please with superheroes, and justify it with “Oh, this is an alternate Universe.” So let’s not nitpick on the wildly inaccurate – I repeat, wildly inaccurate! – character histories, and enjoy the film for what its worth, shall we?

The violence is relentless from the very first scene. We are subjected to seeing men being hacked, slashed and shredded in increasingly imaginative ways. Heads burst open like melons, limbs are torn off bodies and flung all over the place, and at one point a God neatly cleaved a dude in two, along his spine. After a while, I got jaded from all the bloodletting. For once, I wanted the action to stop, just to see if there was any story beyond that.

While I shouldn’t be complaining (I got these sneak preview tickets from Omy.Sg for free!), I’ll give the movie a 2.5/5. Decent. Could’ve been more, though. Much, much more.

“Immortals” does have its moments. Like that epic showdown between the Gods and the Titans. More specifically, Athena slashing the Titans left, right and center. Warrior chicks turn me on. And, of course, that fine view of Freida Pinto’s derriere – in her birthday suit.

Boys, go get your tickets now!

This Retch-A-Sketch thing is getting difficult already. Too much thinking is involved, in trying to connect three completely random words. Like “Genie, Siri, Alien“. Still, I gave it a shot. Girl Who Writes For Food, this Retch-A-Sketch is for you.

Click to see image full-size.

I know, I know. Cortana isn’t quite extraterrestrial, but 25th Century technology oughta be alien enough for us.

Minor inaccuracies aside, this is turning out to be great practice, to shake the rust off my wrists.

So friends, countrymen, and the dude who got to my blog looking for “hercules p*rn”, do send in a bunch of three random words and, if I can, I will dedicate a picture to you. Drop a comment in here, the Retch-A-Sketch Requests page and – provided the time, inclination, and boredom borne out of too much Internet – I will pick up that stylus.

PS: I used Arial for the iPhone text in the picture. I would love to know exactly what font is used in Siri. Anybody?

It’s almost criminal, how I’ve been ignoring the Wacom.

More than the job, the long commute time and the general vagaries of old age (the woes of being in the late twenties, sigh), I squarely blame that massive time-suck of humanity we call Facebook. I don’t understand how the hundred and one annoying updates on breakfasts and the inane jokes and the LOLs and  the baby pictures (now even belly pictures, God!) can still keep me hooked to the screen. I try to convince myself that Facebook has allowed me to find out, check out and have a good time at countless events I wouldn’t have known otherwise, but the voyeur in me does a victory jig every time I stay an hour too long. I just have to know what everybody’s doing: the trips people have gone to, the exes’ new boyfriends, the now-tame lives of those who bullied me in school. And in college. And at the office…

Then there’s Twitter. And then there’s Reader. And then there’s Youtube. Oh good lord, Youtube.

ADD has taken its toll, big time. Thin of wallet and sober of disposition, I spent much of this long weekend, de-cluttering my computer. I found a lot of unfinished works lying around, some great ideas left incomplete because I was too lazy to pick up the stylus. I also noticed that, since 2007, I haven’t improved much. I learned nothing new. I tried nothing new. I just did the same thing, over and over again. While one would think iteration enhances skill, 4 years of my sporadic sketching fits proves that wrong.

Everything changes today. Well, actually, yesterday. Have you heard of “I Will Drawing That For You“? It’s this super idea by illustrator Nathan Hale, where he asks readers for bizarre and whimsical ideas which he then tries to sketch up.

So here I am, with “Three Words and a Picture” “A Picture’s Worth Three Words” “Help Me Guys!” “Retch-A-Sketch”: quite simply, I ask you for three words. Completely random, unconnected words. And then I draw something.

Yesterday, thanks to @strangie, I learned a new word: Frou-Frou. This Retch-A-Sketch is for her.

Good friend of mine @prazy suggested “aperitif, zombie, libido“. This Retch-A-Sketch is for him.

All in all, a fun exercise. And probably something I can do every evening, instead of passing out at the local bar. Do hit me up with your random words (preferably nouns) and I’ll dedicate a Retch-A-Sketch to you. Let’s see how I fare.