Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)Directed by Rian JohnsonI watched "The Last Jedi" on Sunday morning and enjoyed it.  After the very entertaining "The Force Awakens", Rian Johnson had a high bar to live up to. And this being the eighth episode in the series, it's a huge task to be inventive. The movie was very well made, and if anything, succeeded in completely subverting our expectations. It picks up immediately after the previous installment, with the Rebels trying to escape the First Order, and Rey finally finding Luke Skywalker who's been in hiding all these years on the planet Ahch-To. We get to see more of the conflicted villain Kylo Ren and I thought that character was well handled. There are quite a few unexpected turns in the story and the way it ends, leaves a lot of possibilities open for Episode IX. There are some gorgeous visuals in this movie. John Williams's music is effective as well. Perhaps the pace could have been tightened up a bit. Also, I kind of felt Luke became unlikeable in this movie. But overall, it's a worthy entry in the series. I think I enjoyed Episode VII a bit more though. Since I've already drawn sketches of Daisy Ridley as Rey from the movie, I thought I'd draw this Porg (a bird like creature indigenous to Ahch-To). The drawing was done on my new Brustro A5 sketchbook (160 GSM paper), with 0.5mm 2B pencil and @Prismacolor pencils. This is a scan of the drawing. #DailyMovieSketch #Porg #StarWars #TheLastJedi #310 / 19-Dec-17
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Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995)Created by Bruce Timm and Eric RadomskiWhile gearing up to watch #StarWars #TheLastJedi (booked tickets for Sunday), I watched a few episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. The show is really superbly done, no wonder it was critically acclaimed and won many awards. One of the standout aspects was Luke Skywalker / Mark Hamill's voice work as The Joker. It's pretty amazing (he has even read a few of Donald Trump's tweets in that voice). So I did a sketch of The Joker from the show, this is I believe the first appearance of the character (Episode 2). It was drawn in 0.5mm 2B pencil, @prismacolor pencils and white gel pen on @cansonpaper_northamerica paper.#batman #tas #joker #markhamill#309 / 14-Dec-17
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Dark (2017)Created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje FrieseThis weekend, I finished watching the 10 episodes of this German show, made for Netflix. "Dark" is a blend of dark family drama, science fiction and horror. The core plot line of the show concerns the disappearance of a 12 year old boy in the sleepy town of Winden, which mirrors events from 33 years ago. We are introduced to four families from the town – Nielsen, Tiedemann, Doppler and Kahnwald – whose stories span multiple time lines, where past, present and future influence one another. Knowing more might actually detract from your enjoyment of the show. You have to pay attention and follow the characters, to the show's credit, whenever you experience a feeling of confusion, there'll typically be a flashback or insert shot to help you understand.I enjoyed the show greatly. The ending is open for future seasons, and while the themes aren't exactly something never been done before, it's inventively packaged. The production values are fantastic (the gorgeous cinematography is on the Alexa 65), the music and soundtrack is great as is the acting. IMDb says the show has a Dolby Atmos sound mix. Certain exposition heavy scenes called attention to themselves otherwise the tone is spot on. I watched it in German with English Subtitles. There is an English dub available but I prefer listening to the original language.You might hear comparisons with "Stranger Things", to me, the shows are very different. This show reminded me more of "Donnie Darko" and "Back to the Future" than anything else. If you've just finished your recent binge watch and are looking for something to fill the void, go for "Dark" – it's a really good show. This is a drawing of one of the characters from the show. I don't want to mention who it is, because part of the experience lies in letting the show gradually reveal things to the audience, and I wouldn't want to come in the way of that. It was drawn with @prismacolorPencils, 0.5mm 2B pencil, and a white gel pen on Canson paper. I think this is one of my best drawings till date, I'm really pleased with the way it came out. #308 / 11-Dec-17
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The nine most liked images from 2017, from this account! Number one is my sketch of Vijay Deverakonda as Arjun Reddy. #2017bestnine #DailyMovieSketch
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Flipping through sketchbook pages. Filmed on my new camera (see @karthikabhiram for that), the @canonasia #sl2 with the 10-18mm lens.
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Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru a.k.a. Khakee The Power of Police (2017)Directed by H VinothI had been hearing a lot of good things about this movie, so I watched it a couple of weeks back and really liked it. It's only now that I got around to doing this sketch though. I watched the Telugu dubbed version of this movie, the title being "Khakee". I think it's still running in theatres this week, so if you can I would suggest checking it out. The movie stars Karthi as Tamil Nadu Police Officer Dheeraj, and it's about how he and his team solved a case of a series of brutal murders / robberies in the early 2000s. What's interesting is that the movie is based on actual events and an actual case. There are interviews on YouTube with the real life officer on which the character is based, and they talk about the research that went into making the movie (the person who plays a fingerprint expert in the film is apparently the one who actually worked on the real case). I thought the movie worked well as a cinematic actioner, blended with more realistic police thriller elements. The first half hour or so of the movie, which focuses on the romance between Karthi and Rakul Preet I felt could have been trimmed down or handled differently, but once the main story started it just didn't let up and it was really intense (maybe a bit much for its U/A rating). It was fast paced and very well made, plus featured locations in North India which you don't typically see in a South Indian movie. Overall I really liked it, definitely it's one of the best Tamil / Telugu films of the year.This is a sketch of Karthi when he charges ahead along with his team in a desert area. It was drawn in 0.5mm 2B pencil and scanned.#307 / 6-Dec-17#theeran #khakee #DailyMovieSketch #tamil #telugu #karthi #rakulpreet
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Avengers: Infinity War (2018)Directed by Joe and Anthony RussoThe third "Avengers" is a highly anticipated release. Ever since @marvelstudios showed footage at Comic Con in July, we have been waiting for a trailer. An official trailer was finally released yesterday and it's nothing short of epic. Can't wait for the movie to be released! It would be the 19th Marvel Cinematic Universe movie (after "Thor: Ragnarok", and "Black Panther" which is releasing in Feb 2018). It's been 10 years leading to this, and in the hands of the Russos who gave us two of the best MCU movies ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Civil War") it is sure to be great. All our heroes would face off against the big bad, #Thanos (Josh Brolin). I drew him for today's #DailyMovieSketch, in 0.5mm 2B pencil and @prismacolor pencils. Here are my observations from the trailer, with inputs from @smaugthe_dragon, @kashyapchandra and @alphanumericwala. – Nick Fury starts the opening narration, followed by Tony Stark, Vision, Thor and Black Widow. – So good to hear Alan Silvestri's Avengers Theme. – Vision seen in human form. – Our first look at Spidey sense! – Thanos' lines in the trailer are epic. Am I the only one who thought the CG could use a bit of sprucing up? Maybe they'll tweak it for the final movie. – Great to see Doctor Strange along with Tony and Bruce. – So, Loki did take the tesseract at the end of "Thor: Ragnarok". – We see the Iron Spider Suit. – We see Thanos's Stargate type portal. – Cap with a beard, and T'Challa saying "Get this man a shield". – We see the Hulkbuster armour. – Black Panther fighting a creature. – Bucky is seen. – A terrific hero shot in Wakanda, with Team Cap (?) facing Thanos's army. – Eye patch Thor meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy! – Most importantly, if you see the version of the trailer on @marvel_india's FB page, it lists the release date as April 2018, which means, we will get this a week earlier than the US release date of 4-May-18. – Will the final Infinity stone be revealed in "Black Panther" or this movie? #AvengersInfinityWar #Avengers #InfinityWar #306 / 29-Nov-17
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The Punisher (2017)Created by Steve LightfootThe character of Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisheer was introduced in Marvel Television / Netflix's "Daredevil" Season 2. I did a sketch based on it and wrote about how much I loved that show and this character. Jon Bernthal made it his own, and it is easily the best on screen version of the character. Castle is a war veteran whose family was killed, and he in turn set out to eliminate those gang members responsible. When Netflix announced a dedicated series I was excited.The series was released on 17-Nov-17, same day as "Justice League", and a few days later I finished watching all the 13 episodes.The show is brilliant. It opens with Frank living off the grid, having killed everyone responsible for his family's death. But when he's contacted by the mysterious Micro, it soon becomes apparent that the people he killed were just pawns, and those actually behind his family's death are still alive, and very powerful people with ties to his stint in Afghanistan. This is more self contained than the other Marvel shows, and only includes few references to other shows and characters. Maybe 13 episodes was a bit long to tell this story, it may have worked better had it been 10, but what we get is still excellent. It was very well done, brutally violent at times, always dramatic and involving. The cinematography in the earlier episodes I felt was rather unremarkable, compared to the contrasty and saturated look of "Daredevil", but later on I got used to it and it was good, noticed that some shots employed interesting framing (using golden ratio). I loved the opening sequence by Elastic (@artofthetitle should do a piece on it), the music and the writing. Jon Bernthal is fantastic here as well, which is why I drew him.Is this the best Marvel show? For me it's tied very closely with "Daredevil", the latter with a slight edge. The sketch is done in 2B 0.5mm pencil and scanned. Check @karthikabhiram for a colour tinted version. #305 / 28-Nov-17
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Welcome Back, Frank. Work in progress sketch of The Punisher. I watched the show last week and it was terrific. Will complete the drawing and post it soon. Would you like to see more in progress sketches like these, or should I just stick to posting the finished ones? #ThePunisher #DailyMovieSketch
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Justice League (2017)Directed by Zack Snyder [NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST | FIRST COMMENT HAS SPOILERS]I wrote a detailed review in the previous post, so do check that out.  Here are some more thoughts on the movie.I already mentioned that I really enjoyed it a great deal. I loved watching the characters on screen and there was just so much to like about it. I saw it on the Prasad's Large Screen (which was once an IMAX screen), and here the 1.85:1 aspect ratio worked really well. The slow motion opening credits scene with a cover of "Everybody Knows" reminded me of the opening titles of "Batman v Superman" and the Comedian funeral from "Watchmen". I liked this a lot.I liked this better than "Thor Ragnarok" – I felt the lighter tone there undermined the actual threat of Ragnarok. Here, despite the jokes, you never got the feel that there was any less threat from Steppenwolf, and the characters weren't taking it lightly either.I mentioned that I'd love to see Zack Snyder's original cut of the movie – unfortunately, it seems that with all the changes they made, we might only get an extended cut and not a true director's cut. That would also be superior, as characters would be more developed. As much as I enjoyed the movie, I didn't like that they are taking steps back from the universe established by Snyder over two entire movies – "Man of Steel" and "Batman v Superman". I love the serious tone and their take on these characters. The epic music also added a lot. They made "Justice League" lighter, I only worry that they'll cross the line and future movies would become insignificant like some of the worse non-Universe or standalone Marvel / DC movies.This is a drawing of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman from one of the scenes in the trailer that didn't make it into the final movie. Here, she asks Bruce if Aquaman agreed to join the team, and he says "More or Less". She asks him, "More 'more' or more 'less'?" to which he says "More Less", and then she says, "He said 'No'" to which Bruce agrees.This was drawn in 2B mechanical pencil on Canson paper and this is a scan.See my Instagram story for a slightly extended version of the drawing! #304 / 22-Nov-17
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