Graphic Novel - 'The Tinboxed Tiger' Development

This isn't much to show but I have finally begun work on painting my graphic novel!! 'The Tinboxed Tiger'. I am expecting my first painting to take the longest since I will be learning plenty as I go along. The first stage was thumbnailing, the second stage was to prepare the wooden board with emulsion. It is now at the beginning of the third stage - applying the first layers of medium (lining and color). It was as far as I could go amidst one very busy day.

I would like to figure out a way to paint a complete page every day but that might be quite difficult seeing as Eid and new years are around the corner, Gogi Studios is shifting location and there are innumerable 'mandatory' events in between. Good luck to me!

Digital Paint - Coffee

Here's my promised coffee. I had a lot of difficulty with this one and it still doesn't look right.

Gogi Studios Move Out

Gogi Studios (along with my animation division, Gogimation) is finally moving into its new premises. Ever since properly investing in the studios we have wanted to make Gogi Studios a bigger and better place and a place where people want to work, and not have to work.

Tomorrow will mark the first day of emptying the apartment floor from its previous tenants to make way for the studios. In the meantime, enjoy this lonely tequila. I'm going to need coffee pretty soon after all this alcohol...


p.s. scroll down to see photos updated on the 'Seminar At Hunerkada' post.

Foreign Animation Update - 99

Animation is thriving around the world. 'Freej', the highly popular animated TV series produced and directed by Mohammad Harib in the UAE for the entire Arab world was a pleasant discovery for me. I had also been hearing a lot about an up and coming animated series called The 99 - with a concept and name in reference to the 99 names of Allah. My AWN newspaper came in the mail today and wallah - the news about this project has finally reached the general animation audience.

I had heard rumors that Mohammad Harib is not only involved but is the person heading the animation team for this project. However I didn't notice his name anywhere in the article - credit is given to Dr. Naif Al Mutawa. Also, there is no mention of the concept of '99' being derived from the 99 names of Allah. It is not mentioned in this article and probably wisely so. Instead, focus is given on the execution of the concept of 99 'global values' (global values??) in the form of superheroes. Yerks! I hope they do it well.

I can't wait to see glimpses of the animation. It looks like it is being done with a huge budget and support. The comic clearly has connections with artists from Marvel and DC Comics both in the writing aspects and art. According to the article, the comics are distributed widely throughout the Middle East, Indonesia and South Asia. I personally haven't seen anything of the sort, although I have heard people buzzing a bit. The 99 will soon make its debut on millions of water bottles (?) licensed by Nestle Waters. To top this all, the first of six 'The 99' theme parks is due to open in Kuwait early 2009. Man. If only Pakistan had Arab money to invest in something as big as this.

Feel free to add whatever you know or have heard about the 99 in the comments of this post.

You can read the entire article online HERE. The official website for the 99 is HERE.

Painting Digital Alcohol - Further 'Deliberation'

I didn't work on my graphic novel today either. Instead, I fixed up Santa and painted alcoholic beverages.

My First Digital Paint - Santa

I wanted to paint (acrylics and mixed media) the first page of my graphic novel: 'The Tinboxed Tiger' today. Instead I digital painted Santa for a friends friend. I've never really painted before so this is a first for me.

E Card - Last Eid Mubarak

I made this quick little ecard last Eid. I hope I'm able to make something fun for Eid-Ul-Azha (Bakra (Goat) Eid). It's right around the corner and should be theoretically easier to make into a funny cartoon. If anyone else is making ecards, I'd love to see them.

Seminar at Hunerkada

The seminar yesterday went quite well and the turnout was inspiring! Halfway through my presentation, I noticed the organizers squeezing in more chairs and there were still people who had to stand. Click on the images below if you'd like to read the article that came in the paper today. Thank you Saadia Khalid for your pleasant article:

Errors I must point out:
- My last name is spelled 'Abbas'.
- I was slightly misquoted. No single film to date, including animated ones, have been able to bring in a billion dollars. Shrek is an animated movie series with which episodes 1 and 2 together, along with their merchandising and everything that goes with, have been able to pull in 8 billion dollars by Dec. 2007 for the Dreamworks studio.


Update: Photos! (Click on each to see larger)

Sorry about the blur. I wasn't the camera-person.

This is at the very beginning of the presentation. Double the number turned up halfway through.

Hunerkada Seminar - 29th November

The 'finished' poster jpg has finally been sent to me with final amendments made at the Hunerkada end. Drop the flyers from planes, attach as a virus to computers, distribute to beggars to hand out at traffic signals! Well, do what you must, but tell interested people to come anyway.

PLEASE NOTE: Time is 11:00am - 1:00pm (10:30am for people who like to take their time)

Moleskine - Event: Writers Guild Annual Meeting 2008

I went looking to meet creative writers, humorous writers, fiction writers at the fearfully literary sounding: 'Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq'. Yep. That's the official name in Urdu. It roughly translates to - the 'circle of members of taste'. I had my trusty moleskine with me as usual and observed some entertaining faces.

Moleskine - Mehndi Sketches

I went to a Mehndi (the official party thrown by the brides friends before the actual wedding) last night. I got bored for a lot of the time before the dances started so I took out my trusty moleskine and had fun drawing people.

By the time the dances began I had lost all inhibition and went right to the front to draw their movements in clear view. One of the dancers clearly had no inhibitions either and I'm sure a parent or two took their children out of the room for the while she had her 3 minutes on stage.


Oh and a girl next to me told me 'your drawings are amazing'. Wow. Now thats a compliment! ^_^

Coming Soon - Seminar at Hunerkada

As part of my initiative to do my part in spreading animation as an art and career choice in my country that is quite devoid of it, I am signing up with several universities/colleges near and around Islamabad to teach the subject as a regular course. It's quite an endeavor in itself but if I take all these things step by step I hope it'll be worth my efforts.



The course at Hunerkada will be starting very soon. In the meantime I've prepared a flyer to be sent advertising a 2 hour seminar presentation in which I will introduce the subject. It will most probably be held on the 29th of this month at Hunerkada (the address on the flyers above is incorrect) As far as my observation has been, I feel that animation is a lesser known subject here still. So most of my seminar will be an attempt to explain what it is and why it is so exciting to me. If I manage to interest students, they can register for the upcoming course right there.

These are the two designs. I like the flat white design but since this is an introduction of animation to a lot of people who might not be completely acquainted with film, I'm wondering if the more obvious one is the better choice. Anyone want to help me choose?

I'll be looking forward to teaching at NCA (Pindi) and FJWU starting somewhere around January.

p.s. If there is anything anyone would like me to talk about in the seminar, please do let me know in the comments section of this post. I want to do my best to inspire more people to extract as much knowledge of Animation and what I learned living in Hollywood from my brain.

Meeting With An Old Friend In Animation - Taqi

Taqi Shaheen, an old friend from NCA and talented film-making animator came over to my place yesterday and we caught up on things. He is teaching stop motion animation (they call it 'Table Top Animation' there) regularly at the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Pindi. I was excited to get his updates. We talked for hours!

Eventually I asked to see his students work if he had any with him. I got to see the above films, 12 of them in all. These are the first attempts at animation for these students. I think they are a good start and show promise. It seems that these are exercises rather than attempts at complete films, so I appreciated that some did try to present a legible storyline. I particularly liked Jojo's Adventures by Sidra Iftekhar. It had a reasonable sense of story, the characters were nicely designed and it showed plenty of attention to detail (like the face on the door). Duddoo Mian by Anoshia Hamid and Hammad was cute although it seemed to drag a little bit for me. But once again, there was a cute story to follow and was well designed. All of them were cute to watch and showed enthusiasm and the energy to create animation using whatever is available. Good luck girls and I would love to see more from you!

Progress of Animation in Bollywood

Remember the time when Indian movies copied Hollywood movies? I'm pretty sure they still do. Ever since Disney joined forces with Yash Raj Films there are a few movies 'coming soon' that remind me of a few other internationally acclaimed movies. I'll be brash and point out which ones...

Roadside Romeo - (Lady and the Tramp)
Ali Baba - (Aladdin)
Cheenti Cheenti Bang Bang - (Antz (name from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang))
Jumbo - (Dumbo)

here are some articles for you to read to keep in touch with animation this side of the planet: http://www.thenews.com.pk/instep_today.asp (scroll down to the bollywood buzz section) and http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/10/04/disney-discovers-bollywood/

a long time coming (back)

Good lord! It's been more than a year since I posted anything on my blog. Even though I would like to say that its been because I've been doing a lot since then, that's only half the truth. I have been very busy doing a lot of art and animation related things, but I've also been busy with a lot of other things in life too. For one I've finished my thesis and have moved to Pakistan for a while.

Anyway, I only intend this blog to be about art and animation and I'll stick by that. I did do a lot of it since the last post and so will also attempt to update this blog with most of that as well. Do keep watching this space, I'll be giving updates about my progress in getting animation, especially traditional animation, started in Pakistan, if not the Subcontinent.

Thief Film - Concept Art for Thief Character

I might not be able to make my animated character have these type of cut-out shadows but I do like how it looks. I think I'm pretty close to a final look for the thief that I'm satisfied with. He's not always going to be just happy anymore, he's somewhat resembling a vulture and his body will be completely seen now - no more gaps because of the stripes in his clothes. There are still unresolved issues but they'll heal with time. Now I need to start placing the design with different backgrounds and getting him to move to see which combination of character over background is readable but still pretty.

p.s. I like that this pose makes my thief take the form of a question mark, which was actually an accident. He is a bit of a mystery to me and I still don't know when he's going to settle down into a design! Hurry up Numair, get with it!

Thief Film - Background Stylistic Choices

Ok anyone checking these out is definitely going to have to click each one to see them properly. The black base color makes all the detail vanish so fast. Hmm.. I'm going to have to keep that in mind for the film too.

I'm trying to experiment with as many styles of brush strokes for the backgrounds before I decide on the final look for this thief film. In the process I'm able to test out possible techniques for the characters too. I'm not sure I can make any concrete decisions with these experiments alone just yet. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have to lay out all my options once I feel like I can't come up with any more/get tired and then mix and match with the options of the animated thief. I only know the feelings I'd like to provoke in the viewers so I'm going to have to use that to make my decision. Errr... I might need to hurry soon if I want to have something viewable in time for the Prom!!

These illustrations above are all made with vectors in Freehand. The textures are scans. I don't know if that would make it easier to animate with. That's to be thought of later on anyway. Right now I need to focus on a nice look.


And these two are the same as above but in day situations. Somehow I like how they look in day situation more than night. They're just so much more readable. I can't change that in the story though so I'll just have to be happy looking at them here in the meantime.

TV Show - brainstorming

I'm developing some ideas for a tv show to be sold in Pakistan.

Above is some development. Scanned in paper, illustrated in photochop.



And this above is having made some (deceptive) progress. i.e. none at all. I feel like I'm still undecided which design is best.

So I'm really confused which character looks better (see: more appropriate) than the others and I'm scared to ask for opinions ...because right now I have almost no real opinion of my own!!

I've also posted a little test animation with one of these characters to see how it might end up looking in (not so) glorious 'tv series' limited motion HERE (ON YOUTUBE).

Thief Film - Rich Magnate Design

Here's some development of the rich magnate the thief bumps into on his way out. I'm sorry about the ugly untextured 3d designs. On top are sketches of the final design. I haven't finished modelling the 3d character but I'd say he's pretty much 85% done except for the body and ears. Oops yeah I seem to have forgotten to add those but they're going to be tiny anyway.

I'll try to post some development sketches of this guy later. My scanner/computer isnt really loving me back these days.