[#Inktober2017]Death Note: Light Up The New World / PPAP (2016)The prompt word for #inktober for 23rd October was "juicy", and I thought of Ryuk from "Death Note" and his fondness for apples from the human realm, since they are juicy, compared to the apples that a Shinigami / Death God gets in the Shingami realm. @tiny.sharma10 also had the same idea for her Inktober sketch on 23rd (BTW you should check out her work, it's terrific, each day is an anime related drawing). I thought I'd put a slightly different spin on it though. Rather than draw Ryuk from the anime series, I drew him from a video that was produced by the makers of "Death Note: Light Up the New World". This is a video showing Ryuk dancing to the PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen) song by Piko-Taro. You can find the video on YouTube. This sketch was done with a Bic ballpoint pen and white gel pen, and the apple was drawn with a red ballpoint pen. This is a scan of the drawing.Tagging @inktober as well. #298 / 26-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Attack Force (2006)Directed by Michael KeuschSteven Seagal rose to popularity in the early 1990s as an action movie star, and some of his earlier movies are really good. However, in the 2000s, much of his output has been direct-to-video movies, that have less action and less production value. There is a whole bunch of these on Amazon Prime Video, and I watched one of them, "Attack Force", yesterday. It was quite an experience watching it – the movie is quite bad, but it's interesting to analyse why this is so.The movie was filmed as "Harvester", a story involving Seagal battling vampiric aliens. However, before the movie was released, the production company decided to change the story. They got some of the secondary actors to come in, reshot footage, re-dubbed some of the dialogue, and re-edited the film to remove all trace of aliens. This was done without the involvement of the movie's co-writer, Joe Halpin, and Seagal.What we do get, is a story about Marshall Lawson (Seagal), whose team is killed off, and this sets him on a trail of a drug called CTX that gives people superhuman powers. There's also a military conspiracy surrounding CTX and the people who developed it.An apt description for the movie would be a mess – it's very difficult to understand, plot threads are picked up and abandoned, there is no sense of place or continuity, many times you don't see Seagal as there's a stand-in playing his character, about half of his dialogue is dubbed over by a voice actor who sounds nothing like him, and the movie ends abruptly. It's as if they put the minimum amount of effort into making something resembling a finished movie, so that they could release it. All this of course, is not counting the non-acting or bad acting, no development for most of the characters, bad dialogue, and lack of actual fighting. The cinematography by itself is mostly OK and the movie isn't boring. So it's worth a watch, especially if you are into filmmaking!This is a sketch of Seagal as Marshall and was drawn with a Bic ballpoint and white gel pen, this is a scan. It was drawn for the #inktober @inktober prompt word "trail". #297 / 22-Oct-17
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Entry for @instagram's Weekend Hashtag Project, #WHPperfectpair. A sketchbook and pen. What more could you ask for? I also posted this same picture on my main account @karthikabhiram. #canon #5dmarkiii #50mm
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[#Inktober2017]Justice League (2017)Directed by Zack SnyderThe prompt word for #Inktober a couple of days back was "graceful", and the first thing that came to my mind was to draw Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, as she was so beautiful and graceful in the role. This is an image of her smiling from the latest trailer for "Justice League". One could call this the "Heroes" trailer since it uses a cover of the song by David Bowie. I liked how they showed Superman in this latest trailer (showing but not showing at the same time), and that little bit of Hans Zimmer music was great. The footage in the trailer looks brighter and more saturated than the earlier trailers. I don't know whether this was the intended colour grading always or if they've changed it now. It's not long now for the movie to be released (less than a month). After a personal tragedy, the movie's director Zack Snyder has stepped back from the project, and "Avengers" director Joss Whedon is handling reshoots and is taking care of actually finishing the movie. Zack Snyder is still the only director credited (as the majority of the movie is still his), and I believe Whedon is getting a Story or Screenwriting credit. I'm optimistic about the movie. Hope it would exceed expectations.This drawing was some with Bic ballpoint and white gel pen. This is a scan. I'm actually not that happy with the drawing, I don't think I did justice (an attempt at a pun?) to it. Anyway, posting it. Tagging @inktober as well. #296 / 19-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Breaking Bad (2008-2013)Created by Vince GilliganYou get a second drawing for the day! I started this one several days ago but didn't finish it. This is actually inspired by the Day 3 prompt word for Inktober 2017, which was "poison". There are several things I could have drawn related to poison, but I thought of this. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in this amazing show, utilises his chemistry knowledge to come up with poisons more than once (I won't reveal exactly what he does, since that would venture into spoiler territory). So I drew him handling some ricin.Tagging #inktober @inktober as well.This sketch was done with Bic ballpoint pen and a white gel pen. This is a scan.#295 / 18-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]The Foreigner (2017)Directed by Martin CampbellWhen I watched the trailer for this movie a few months ago, it was intriguing. This seemed to be a more realistic Jackie Chan thriller, unlike some of the misguided action comedies featuring him that have come out in the last few years. It seemed to play to his strengths as an actor, and it was directed by Martin Campbell who has made one of my favourite Bond movies, "GoldenEye". He also launched Daniel Craig's Bond, with "Casino Royale" (we shall forget that he made "Green Lantern", which I disliked). The movie is based on a book called "The Chinaman" (which reminded me of the "Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature" dialogue from "The Big Lebowski"). I got to see the movie this Sunday, and I liked it better than I expected to.Jackie Chan plays Quan, a Chinaman who is a London citizen. When he drops off his daughter at a clothing store, a bomb goes off killing her and several other people. It turns out to be the work of a terrorist organisation with ties to the IRA. Quan approaches minister Hennessy (Pierce Brosnan) demanding to know the names of the bombers. Hennessy dismisses this as just an old man grieving for his daughter, but Quan soon starts employing a few terrorist tactics of his own against Hennessy, wanting revenge on those who killed his daughter.I liked the fact that the movie stuck to its tone quite well. The acting was good and the action scenes were nicely done as well. The movie kept one's interest throughout. Overall, I'd rate it an 8/10.This is a sketch of Jackie Chan as Quan, right after the bomb that killed his daughter goes off. It was drawn with a Bic ballpoint pen, a red ballpoint pen, and I used a white gel ink pen too. This is a scan of the drawing. Thanks to those of you who joined in for the live video I did, of me drawing this. The story will be up for 24 hours, so you can check out @karthikabhiram to see it.Tagging @inktober #inktober as well.#294 / 18-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Star Trek: The Animated Series "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (1973)Directed by Hal SutherlandThe #Inktober prompt word for yesterday was "teeming", and I thought of tribbles from Star Trek. More specifically, I thought to do a drawing based on the Animated Series, which I watched in its entirety on Netflix a few weeks ago.This is a shot from the episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles", which is a sequel to the original series episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles", written by David Gerrold, who also wrote the original series episode. It shows Captain Kirk swamped with tribbles.I actually quite enjoyed The Animated Series (TAS), it features voice work from the actors of the original show, and the storylines are also good. If there's one aspect of the show that I felt wasn't up to par, it was the dated animation, from Filmation (who did the Masters of the Universe show, but of course that was 10 years later). This drawing was done with a Bic ballpoint pen and scanned.#293 / 14-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Blade Runner 2049 (2017)Directed by Denis Villeneuve [NO SPOILERS]I had been busy with Campus Recruitments for the last month (see @karthikabhiram for photos and stories), so this time I couldn't participate in #Inktober. However, I've resolved to do ink sketches whenever I can this month. I was in Vijayawada last week, and on Friday night, I watched "Blade Runner 2049" at Cinepolis PVP Mall.I am a "Blade Runner" fan, so was looking forward to this sequel. The plot involves blade runner K (Ryan Gosling) who is after older model replicants (artifically created humans), to "retire" (i.e. kill) them. When he retires Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), he comes across something that's been secret for the past 30 years, with the potential to shake up society.It's best to go in with as little knowledge of the plot as possible (the trailers thankfully ensured that). However, it helps to see the three prequel short films, that give you more of a background of the film. At 164 min, the movie is long, epic, deliberately slow paced, which would definitely be off-putting to many, especially if one hasn't seen the first movie. The production values are top notch, the visuals are breathtaking (thanks to production design by Dennis Gassner and the cinematography of Roger Deakins). I don't know whose idea it was to convert this into 3D, which was needless and actually detracted from the visual quality as it darkened and desaturated the image (especially in the screening I saw). The music by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch was incredible to listen to – I loved how they recalled themes from Vangelis's original score and the intensity that it added.I would want to watch the movie again, to really decide how I feel about it. It throws a lot at you to process, and like the first movie, I think it would improve on further viewings. For now, I would rate it 8/10.This sketch (done with Bic pen and white gel pen) is based on today's prompt word, "gigantic". It's a sketch of K's hologram girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas), a surprisingly interesting character. Towards the end of the movie, there's a gigantic ad for Joi that K stands in front of.#292 / 10-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Captain America: Civil War (2016)Directed by Joe and Anthony RussoToday's prompt word for #Inktober is "Divide", and one of the movies in recent memory that came to mind was this one, where due to a difference in ideology and some meddling from Baron Zemo, the Avengers are divided into two – Team Cap and Team Stark.I drew Chris Evans from the movie, the drawing was done in Bic ballpoint pen and scanned.On that note – yesterday's word was "Swift", and although it's not a direct connection, that drawing of Mahesh Babu from "Spyder" was done as he has to move swiftly to catch the serial killer villain!Tagging @inktober @jakeparker as well. #291 / 2-Oct-17
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[#Inktober2017]Spyder (2017)Directed by A R MurugadossFor the last 10 days I had been travelling for work, and was at Vijayawada and Vizag. A couple of days back, I watched "Spyder" at Varun INOX, Vizag.Mahesh Babu plays Shiva, an intelligence agent at a think tank whose job is listening in and analysing phone conversations, to identify anything that might indicate terrorism or a threat to national security. One such phone call and ensuing murders puts him on the trail of demented serial killer Bhairavudu (S J Surya), who is obsessed with death. Rakul Preet plays Shiva's love interest.I thought the movie was nicely done. Mahesh Babu was good as the lead and S J Surya made a really effective villain. The cinematography (Santosh Sivan), production design and the overall look of the movie was top notch. Harris Jayaraj's music was decent but not extraordinary (some of the themes recall his own work in earlier movies). I found the tone of the movie to be a bit uneven. Had they focused entirely on the cat and mouse game between hero and villain, and upped the darkness / violence quotient (the flashback sequence showing the 'birth' of Bhairavudu was deliciously dark), and made it more gritty, it would have been a very efficient thriller. Wherever they deviated from that and added a little humour, I felt it didn't work as well. There are a couple of scenes which are inventive (like the TV serial bit) but really require you to suspend disbelief. The visual effects weren't up to par in some places, which was a bit distracting.Rakul Preet looked great in the movie but her character is criminally wasted. They spared no expense on her look, but the character gets no development. But for one contribution towards the end, you could remove her entirely and it would make no difference to the plot.Overall though, I quite enjoyed "Spyder" and would rate it a 7/10.This is a sketch of Mahesh Babu as Shiva from the movie. It was a relatively quicker sketch done with Bic ballpoint and a white gel pen.Tagging #Inktober @inktober @jakeparker as well. #290 / 1-Oct-17
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