When you

start looking at yourself in the mirror thinking “I wouldn’t fuck me.”

You’ve got to sit down and ask yourself some very serious questions.

Reflections of an Atheist

I have been an atheist for about a year now. A year of strong “disbelief” as you would have it, for anything religious or anything that deals with faith. This is quite a serious subject matter, so I’m going to try to keep the jokes to the minimum okay? I once offended a religious friend by cracking several jokes about God, and good ol’ JC, and it pretty much ruined that friendship .

With regards to atheism, I find that with this new frame of reference and perspective to the world, I have become more assertive and decisive, and on the whole I would say this has been an incredible journey I do not regret, and one which I will continue down without reasonable doubt.

This sounds like confession.

Well maybe it is. Anyway, the main issue of concern that I have only very recently become aware of, is how quick I am to judge another. Especially when it comes to religious peers, or even strangers on the train wearing religious T-shirts, or the odd chap on the bus reading a Bible on the way to work.

I am certainly a convinced individual on the falsity and wishfulness of religion, and like many of my peers, am sometimes frustrated and saddened to the point of tears when I read about the things people do in the name of God.

I don’t want to go on about it, it’s certainly all been said and done. Both sides are pretty much stolid and steadfast in their perspectives, and the effort spent per argument, compared in a statistical data graph , is simply not worth it.

As such, it has become apparent that there are a large number of people who have started to think that it’s “cool” to poke fun at, ridicule, or openly shoot down religion without a shadow of doubt because they will ALWAYS be wrong. Sad to say, I am one of those people.

Yesterday I watched The Price of Egypt. This used to be my favourite animated film EVER. When I was young and I wasn’t concerned about things like religion, and didn’t really know about scripture. My Dad got it for me on VCD and I watched it ENDLESSLY. I know the songs inside out, and Through Heaven’s Eyes has some of the most inspiring lyrics I ever belted out in the bathroom when I was a kid.

Having shed this former innocence, I am now incredibly resistant to any form of religious persuasion. It’s like the mental equivalent of blocking my ears , shutting my eyes and going “YA LALALALALALALA ALALALALA, I DON’T HEAR YOU.”

But I was open to the Prince of Egypt, because it was familiar to me, a real childhood friend. I didn’t think about any of this when I was watching the movie, but I was strangely uncomfortable as the content started to swirl around “God” and “Heaven”. And I was so embroiled in thinking about these that I wasn’t enjoying the movie anymore.

And while thinking about these things, “Through Heaven’s Eyes” started playing. And it grabbed my attention immediately. Now for anyone who hasn’t watched the movie, it is probably the best animated musical in my personal opinion. I don’t usually like musicals, for what are the chances of walking down the street, starting a song, and by the end of it have EVERYONE dancing and singing along with you, will full understanding of the lyrics and choreography?

But The Prince of Egypt is just a beautiful beautiful piece of work. The music flows beautifully, the lyrics are incredible (and doesn’t just spam the G word all over the place in a lazy attempt to inspire awe), and just the general visual presentation during these pieces are immensely grand and artfully directed. Awe-inspiring stuff.

But at that point, the music took me; I started singing along, and I stopped being critical about things that didn’t matter. Words that I have come to frown upon (God, Heaven) came out from me without hesitation. And it is at that precise point where it struck me, and I realised how wrong I’ve been all this time.

We all have biases, and it’s only human nature to let them get in the way. I only allowed The Prince of Egypt beacuse it was a childhood friend, and my memories of it back then allowed me to suspend my disbelief (quite literally), and I truly enjoyed the rest of the film (if that isn’t persuasive enough, I cried okay).

We are all susceptible to bias, and we judge (we have to; I think as organised creatures, we have a subconscious need to categorise the world). But does that mean we should furiously oppose to everything about religion, or anything we don’t see eye to eye with, in the hopes that bashing it on the head with a shovel long enough is going to make it go away? I mean sometimes it works (personal experience, don’t ask), but such direct and violent actions also lead to direct and violent consequences.

What hopes do we have of calling ourselves logical and intelligent, when we shrug away all opportunities to understand and see things from the other side? In fact, there isn’t an other side, this “other side” is an invisible barrier; a mental divide we have erected over the Capital of the Universal Brotherhood of Love and Understanding.

There is no East or West Germany, we are all Germans (this is a metaphor, I’m actually Malaysian).

The point I’m getting to here is that a violent clash of ideals will do nothing to solve the problem. The problem I speak of isn’t about the intricacies of scripture being disputed, or the fallacy of religion/atheism/evolution/faith, or anything like that. It’s the fact that we are often blind to the fact that we are all the same people, just with different perspectives, and only when you understand your “enemy” can you truly begin to walk the path towards friendship and mutual respect.

Salvor Hardin, an Isaac Asimov character famous for his quotations said that “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” The quote doesn’t just refer to violence, but to direct action, straightforward opposition, blowing up the crate instead of approaching it from the side and wedging it open.

As I type this down, I truly believe (finally) that our own biases are our own greatest enemy.

Nissan GT-R: A WORK IN PROGRESS

I am in awe of technical illustrators, because this mechanical shit is HARD.

Believe or not, this is 4 hours solid work in Fireworks.

I spent an hour just trying to get the sketch right. AND IT DOESN’T EVEN RESEMBLE THE ORIGINAL CAR DOWN TO A T.

Although it is really hard, I am rather enjoying. Because I am alone, I am screaming aloud to songs, and I draw best when I scream.

Mmmm…

I do not eat tomatoes, unless they're on pizzaaaaa.(10 minutes, Fireworks)

But I enjoyed drawing this semi-fella as a quick icon for “GOURMET”.

Bill Hicks is right

Life is a roller coaster. The main attraction at the fair. Large flowing lights of resplendid neon and dry-ice at just the right spots. A ride of ups and downs, thrills and spills. It goes really fast, and sometimes it scares us. But we are strapped down, and we feel safe.

They tell you not to let go of the steel bar. NEVER EVER let go. You might lose your fingers as the carriage hurtles into a tunnel! You might fly off the ride altogether!

And so we keep our fingers tight around this meddling steel bar, and this burning strap across our waists, because we feel safe. Even when the adrenalin takes us, we suppress the urge to throw our hands in the air and scream expletives such as FUCK YEAH.

Life is a very very convincing roller coaster. It has been drilled into us. DO NOT LET GO OF THE METAL BAR, YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY DIE. And I sit here right now without a shadow of a doubt that if I were to let go of the metal bar on a roller coaster ride, I would almost certainly sustain serious injuries (though admittedly, I exclude the ESCAPE Theme Park coaster, that contraption is nothing more than a glorified carousel).

But I think this is just a ride, a pre-intended and pre-planned path for us. The seat I plant my bum on is faintly warm, and smells of a grand amalgamation of a thousand bums, a wonderful wonderful compound of terror spiced with glee, excitement and the occasional leak from an over enthusiastic rider. It has been experienced before me, and will be experienced after me. Why would I want to ride something everyone else has already ridden?

But that’s exactly why I want to ride it! Everyone else has already been on it! I want to fit in! I want to belong! I want to be able to talk along the same wavelengths with other people! So I go on the ride as well.

So I do, and when I get off, I can talk to people about it. People who have already been on it will accept me, and people who haven’t will look up to me for it.

What I’m trying to say here is that like a roller coaster, Life is mostly a pre-planned route. How many people do you know have gone through life this way:

1. Birth.
2. The best 6 years of your fucking life.
3. School.
4. Graduation – work.
5. Marriage, with continued work.
6. Work.
7. Retirement.
8. Death.

I’m not saying it’s a “bad” life, even a moron like me can see the appeal in that. I’m saying it’s a BORING life.

Boring not because it’s boring you know, but boring because it’s how we’re supposed to live, how the tracks go. I am bored to death of society, there is something more important than all this paper-thin materialism we’re living for, all these pit-stops and highlights we’re all supposed to experience.

I think we have to take our hands off the steel bar.

FUCK YEAH.

The Climb to Glory

Was meant to be used as a base for a more refined vector artwork. But I think I'm ditching this.

For some reason the image in my head always looks so much better than the one I draw.

It’s like my speech as well. In my head it’s amazing,  the quips witty and sharp, the articulation and intonation beautiful; when it does come out of my mouth, I sound like Keith from The Office.

If only they have an image projector that taps into your peripheral imagination and physically produces what you see in your head onto paper.

But if that was the case everyone would be able to draw well, and all aesthetic progress in art is rendered meaningless!

Symmetry

40 minutes, Photoshop

The pros do amazingly rich and lush paintings in 30 minutes; I take 40 minutes for this.

Ah well, baby steps.

Good thing I’m not good-looking; I get off with off-center proportions when I draw self-portraits.

I want to live.

Considering the fact that we all die eventually, and with the amount of stuff around that could kill  us right now, from terrorism to global warming; I’d rather die climbing a 400-foot building at the age of 25 than rot to death in various office jobs for 50 years.

This might be the rashness of youth, a drug that might make our short lives even shorter. But denying and suppressing that natural instinct would be the real betrayal to my youth.

Life is short, LIVE IT. Only when you have the balls to stare death in the face do you really feel alive.

Children’s Society: short animation

You have to click the image to see the animation. It's not that big.

A painstaking (and I mean PAINSTAKING) Animated GIF created in fireworks for Singapore’s Children’s Society.

I’m somewhat disappointed at the quality of animation, but still, I spent quite a bit of time on it. Rebelling against all forms of shamelessness, I’m pretty proud of it all the same.

Grrrrr

Good news: I am getting bored of video games.

Which means I finally have time to sit down and ENJOY the process of creating things.

I don’t quite like the term “designer” anymore. I think what it stands for isn’t really what I want to be.

Granted, it is a pretty general word, but a designer seems to be someone who presents things nicely.

I’d prefer being a carpenter over an interior designer.

I’d prefer being the illustrator over the layout artist.

I’d prefer being Mother Nature over a florist.

(Forget that last one, I don’t think I’m qualified enough for that gig yet.)

The point is that I want to MAKE stuff. I don’t want to be a designer.

I want to be a creator.

And I’ve realised that I like making stuff, like this little guy here:

I traced the proportions from a photo, but I'm trying to ad-lib the fur.

They say that when you draw something new, and you study every aspect of it, you learn to appreciate the subject in it’s entirety.

And it’s true.

I have scoured through every available photograph of a wolf known to mankind (Google images – not exactly EVERY photo, but close enough), and I now realise why is it that some people spend their entire career – their entire lives, just drawing wolves.

We are all familiar with dogs; but wolves: wild, raw, fucking wolves that starve out in the snow and would murder you in half a second if it knew it could win.

The eyes, the eyes. The sharp, almost glowing orange, nestled quietly among the diamond black eyelids suggests a deeper menace than manic ferocity.

EVEN THE FUR! The rows of dark fur, so precariously and aggressively zig-zagging across the creature hints of the danger that lurks within. Every strand of hair emanates an aura of intensity and warning.

Advice: Do not fuck with wolves (even if you have protection <clever pun btw>).