Life in colour

I'll let the pictures do the talking

The real photo

Photo: Rituraj Brahma

Going random as vacations come to an end

A few pics I took over the past two days

P.S.: The last picture was a disaster, as I tried to edit out the house that was the next to the well.

Maha Lame Katha

The side effects of vettiness during vacations...

Attempt at Photorealism

I must admit that my first attempt at Photorealism was a failure, but still I designed an Amby for pure love of the car. I chose the car, because it’s a cultural icon of India, it has been a part of our lives for more than 50 years. It was the car of choice for the Prime Ministers until Atal Bihari Vajpayee shifted to BMW 7 series for security reasons. Having said that, I don’t think many would have wanted to design one in a comp, they would rather do a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. The Hindustan Ambassador was originally based on a Moriss Oxford III, which came out in 1956. I happened to stumble upon a site that imported Ambassadors as classic retro cars in Britain. I dunno, the demand for an Amby in Britain, but the site had a few nice pics. I used a few as a guide to help me draw the ambassador and also for the shadow and glare effects.

I have attached a few pics of the work at various stages of completion. Hope you guys like it.

http://harikul.deviantart.com/

Eye of the Tiger

The animal needs no introduction. It was rated as the best looking animal in a National Geographic Traveler opinion poll. The Tiger with this malevolent look had always fascinated me. I had painted a Tiger way back during the 2004 vacations. A few days back, a documentary on Discovery brought back the idea I had for a long time, to draw a Tiger on a comp. I was bored designing stuff for Shaastra (although I enjoy the responsibility), so the work was a welcome change. It was also chance to get back to designing things from scratch, something that was time consuming but immensely satisfying.

I drew the Tiger first on a piece of paper and used the drawing as a guide to draw the outlines in illustrator. After drawing a black and white Vector version, I tried colouring it in Illustrator, but gave up in the beginning itself. My dad laughed at my creation, saying the Tiger looked as if it suffered from Jaundice.

If it wasn’t for my dad’s comments I would have given up. But I persisted and took the image to Photoshop and used a single brush to finish the entire picture.The original file is 129 MB in size and my comp cupped thrice while trying to edit it. The original dimensions of the image are 5000*3200 pixels. It felt great after getting back to doing something entirely original, from the first line on a piece of paper to the finishing touches using the Burn tool, it was the most satisfying work I have done till now. A few might ask me whether all this was worth it, and my answer would be an emphatic YES!.....

(harikul.deviantart.com)

Some more thumbnails

Postscript
I was watching a Discovery Channel documentary the other day, on the Sariska Tiger Reserve. I know the Discovery isn’t the most exciting channel to watch when you are vetti, but it is quite entertaining. Anyway, the documentary was made by none other than David Attenborough (brother of the Richard Attenborough, director of Gandhi). It explained how the administration slept while all the tigers in Sariska disappeared without a trace. It took the media and public outcry to finally wake up the state and respond to the atrocities. Soon, as usual a committee was setup, while the CBI investigated how 20 odds tigers vanished and the park officials denied any tigers were killed. At the end of it, the Project Tiger was scrapped, and in its place National Tiger Conservation authority was established. Project Tiger was once the pride of Indian government showcasing its ability to protect the nation’s natural wealth. The new committee was made Inclusive, by including scientists, experts, park officials, local members, bureaucrats, politicians and the guy who came to serve chai while the committee was being formed. This meant, everyone had an opinion, but only a few really understood what was happening. As conservationist and naturalist Valmik Thapar put it, “it ended up being like a Khichdi, a mix of everything resulting in all talk and no action”. Interestingly the committee gave powers to the local people to decide the future of the Tigers. At first sight, it sounds like a great innovation, since local people are supposed to revere and respect the Tiger. Yet, the encroachments into the national parks by the same local people have only increased the threats to the wild life in the park. Confrontations with man and beast have become more common. Another problem that escapes most people while talking about inclusiveness is the fact that the local authorities sometimes just do not have the necessary expertise to tackle important issues. Making local authorities, a part of protecting tigers is a different issue and one which can lead to positive outcomes, but making them more or less fully accountable for coming up with plans to protect tiger reserves seems to be a naïve decision on the part of the government.

Hardcore Vedanta 2.0

It’s about a year since I have written anything on the blog, mostly due to my laziness. I just hate putting things on paper, and I am a horrible writer. Few days back, I decided I should rejoin the blogosphere, but I had to do it with a refreshingly new look to the blog. So, off went the old logo and in came the new logo (I selected an ordinary template – will change it sometime later). It’s a simple logo, with more emphasis on the font and the text (Logotype) rather than pseud graphics.


P.S.: New post coming soon...

Frustrations of a non-vegetarian environmentalist....

It’s August 2008, it has been a long 3 years of struggle for me. My friends still call me a pessimist, although I have always seen myself as a realist. The world hasn’t got much better either, in fact things have took a turn for the worst with spiralling oil and food prices, and an economy showing signs of recession. A big relief is the recent news of the Left withdrawing support to the UPA, after 4 ½ years of refusing to release the hand-brake on the govt, it has finally decided to call it a day. Then there is global warming and environmentalism. A subject I’ve had intense introspection for the past few months and a subject I would like to raise here.

Thank God for Al Gore, for if it wasn’t for him and his blockbuster documentary we would be swimming in neck deep water by now. Before I start, I would like to say that this post is not about throwing brickbats at the greens. I would like to say that I respect nature and I do accept the gravity of the problem of global warming. My cynicism at the greens or pseudo-greens (in case you are offended) is the fact that they have lost their way and sense of purpose due to too much emotion and very little Science. They turn to vegetarianism, start wearing t-shirts with MESSAGES written on them, and rubbish all corporate stuff. All good, coz all of it is politically correct. But, I say that turning yourself into a vegetarian isn’t going to help the world in any way. Vegetarianism (Vegans are no separate species of vegetarians, FYI) is the most obvious choice that a neo-environmentalist makes. I would like to tell them that our beautiful planet just doesn’t work like that. One animal dead is another animal’s food. It’s really basic high school Biology. We humans have literally screwed up our thinking, so we feel that by not eating Chicken and Beef, the Tigers in Ranthambore could be saved from poachers.

I wouldn’t advocate that humans should start to eat their dead relatives, but everything in life has to have a balance, especially with food. Instead of turning into Vegetarianism, try to control one’s diet and balance it with required carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and the taboo word for greens FAT (Fat is just as imperative for the body as any other vital nutrition). Environmentalism should be with a purpose and actions should be targeted at a particular end rather than doing it for the sake of doing it. Oh… One more thing…. Vegetarians, please stop Evangelizing. Respect the rights of the others to eat what they want to eat…