Designing Charaters - 'The Frog and the Nightingale' by Vikram Seth

For the second week of the course we were supposed to come up with a short story/poem that is character centric and had scope to be animated. After two days of juggling betweek Oscar Wilde's 'The Remarkable Rocket' and Vikram Seth's 'The Frog and the Nightingale' because I didn't want to work with a human character, I settled for the latter.

So I developed the characters in the poem over a week. I am still finalizing the geography of the characters and making the 'Bingle Bog' come alive. Anyway, here's the poem.

Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn
Other creatures loathed his voice,
But, alas, they had no choice,
And the crass cacophony
Blared out from the sumac tree
At whose foot the frog each night
Minstrelled on till morning light

Neither stones nor prayers nor sticks.
Insults or complaints or bricks
Stilled the frogs determination
To display his heart's elation.
But one night a nightingale
In the moonlight cold and pale
Perched upon the sumac tree
Casting forth her melody
Dumbstruck sat the gaping frog
And the whole admiring bog
Stared towards the sumac, rapt,
And, when she had ended, clapped.

Ducks had swum and herons waded
To her as she serenaded
And a solitary loon
Wept, beneath the summer moon.
Toads and teals and tiddlers, captured
By her voice, cheered on, enraptured:
“Bravo!” “Too divine!” “Encore!”
So the nightingale once more,
Quite unused to such applause,
Sang till dawn without a pause.

Next night when the Nightingale
Shook her head and twitched her tail,
Closed an eye and fluffed a wing
And had cleared her throat to sing
She was startled by a croak.
“Sorry – was that you who spoke?”
She enquired when the frog
Hopped towards her from the bog.
“Yes,” the frog replied. “You see,
I'm the frog who owns this tree
In this bog I've long been known
For my splendid baritone
And, of course, I wield my pen
For Bog Trumpet now and then”

“Did you… did you like my song?”
“Not too bad – but far too long.
The technique was fine of course,
But it lacked a certain force”.
“Oh!” the nightingale confessed.
Greatly flattered and impressed
That a critic of such note
Had discussed her art and throat:
“I don't think the song's divine.
But – oh, well – at least it's mine”.

“That's not much to boast about”.
Said the heartless frog. “Without
Proper training such as I-
And few others can supply.
You'll remain a mere beginner.
But with me you'll be a winner”
“Dearest frog”, the nightingale
Breathed: “This is a fairy tale –
And you are Mozart in disguise
Come to earth before my eyes”.

“Well I charge a modest fee.”
“Oh!” “But it won't hurt, you'll see”
Now the nightingale inspired,
Flushed with confidence, and fired
With both art and adoration,
Sang – and was a huge sensation.
Animals for miles around
Flocked towards the magic sound,
And the frog with great precision
Counted heads and charged admission.

Though next morning it was raining,
He began her vocal training.
“But I can't sing in this weather”
“Come my dear – we'll sing together.
Just put on your scarf and sash,
Koo-oh-ah! ko-ash! ko-ash!”
So the frog and nightingale
Journeyed up and down the scale
For six hours, till she was shivering
and her voice was hoarse and quivering.

Though subdued and sleep deprived,
In the night her throat revived,
And the sumac tree was bowed,
With a breathless, titled crowd:
Owl of Sandwich, Duck of Kent,
Mallard and Milady Trent,
Martin Cardinal Mephisto,
And the Coot of Monte Cristo,
Ladies with tiaras glittering
In the interval sat twittering –
And the frog observed them glitter
With a joy both sweet and bitter.

Every day the frog who'd sold her
Songs for silver tried to scold her:
“You must practice even longer
Till your voice, like mine grows stronger.
In the second song last night
You got nervous in mid-flight.
And, my dear, lay on more trills:
Audiences enjoy such frills.
You must make your public happier:
Give them something sharper snappier.
We must aim for better billings.
You still owe me sixty shillings.”

Day by day the nightingale
Grew more sorrowful and pale.
Night on night her tired song
Zipped and trilled and bounced along,
Till the birds and beasts grew tired
At a voice so uninspired
And the ticket office gross
Crashed, and she grew more morose -
For her ears were now addicted
To applause quite unrestricted,
And to sing into the night
All alone gave no delight.

Now the frog puffed up with rage.
“Brainless bird – you're on the stage –
Use your wits and follow fashion.
Puff your lungs out with your passion.”
Trembling, terrified to fail,
Blind with tears, the nightingale
Heard him out in silence, tried,
Puffed up, burst a vein, and died.

Said the frog: “I tried to teach her,
But she was a stupid creature –
Far too nervous, far too tense.
Far too prone to influence.
Well, poor bird – she should have known
That your song must be your own.
That's why I sing with panache:
“Koo-oh-ah! ko-ash! ko-ash!”
And the foghorn of the frog
Blared unrivalled through the bog.

And here's the characters...

I finalized the one in purple.

Do leave feedback:)

P.S. - I am sliiightly partial towards the frog.

Designing Characters - Tailor

Wow. I'm updating after ages. Have been very very busy with my course on Character Design that lasted three weeks. Got a lot of work done and that makes me feel less useless:)
The first week we were supposed to go to different tailors; sketch, study how they work and almost everything about from how they are and what you think they are capable of. Based on those sketches and a number of body structures that we worked on, we finalized one of the structures that would suit the profession. So here are the model sheets and some situation sketches of the same. More to come. Soon:)

My tailor's initial structure. Didn't quite fit the profession, I guess. Hence got chucked.


Tailor naked model sheet. Well, almost naked.


Basic Character Model sheet.


Some expressions...


Other action explorations...







And some situation drawings of him at his workplace.
Hope you like it. Do leave feedback.
Have a byootiful day:)

This little friend has not been updated because of a nasty fever, cough, cold and a terribly busy course. Hence no new post for a long long time. Apologies from my side:(

Update will happen. Soon.

Louwe:)

Scripting My Way Through

This is an illustration done for a class assignment during Visual Scripting where we had to choose a passage from the book and make a collage/ poster/ illustration on it. This is the passage from Khalid Housseini's 'The Kite Runner' in which the main character, Amir's first book gets published and a while later he gets a call from Pakistan in the latter part of the book. Interestingly, this marks the beginning of the character finally stepping up to anything. The text in the illustration are the last words of Rahim Khan on the phone call.

Here it is...

“You look pale,” Soraya repeated, placing the stack of papers on the table.
“I have to go to Pakistan.”
She stood up now. “Pakistan?”
“Rahim Khan is very sick.” A fist clenched inside me with those words.
“Kaka’s old business partner?” She’d never met Rahim Khan, but I had told her about him. I nodded.
“Oh’” she said. “I’m so sorry, Amir.”
“We used to be close.” I said, “When I was a kid, he was the first grown up I ever thought of as a friend.” I pictured him and Baba drinking tea in Baba’s study, then smoking near the window, a sweetbrier scented breeze blowing from the garden and bending the twin columns of smoke.
“I remember you telling me that,” Soraya said. She paused, “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know. He wants to see me.”
“Is it…”
“Yes, it’s safe. I’ll be all right Soraya.” It was the question she’d wanted to ask all along- fifteen years of marriage had turned us into mind readers. “I’m going to go for a walk.”
“Should I go with you?”
“Nay, I’d rather be alone.”

Have a good day!

Do leave feedback:)

The. Heat. Is. Killing. Me.

Winter. come. stick to me.

Illustration Friday : Shaky - A Tribute to Puppy Love

All of us go through this, right?

When a girl passes by, with her beautiful hair sashaying behind her, you legs can't help but get shaky. lol.

ball point pen,watercolor and paper stump on cartridge.

Do leave feedback!

Have a lovely day:)

The Fluoroscent Love Clone Affair Stamp.

I always had a thing for bright and neon and fluorescence. But recently it's just taking over. These be evidences. And then the clone stamp in Photoshop. I think its an affair. Or a fling. Well, I'm not quite sure.


My faculty.
Original Name : Dhiman Sengupta


The nympho and the takers.


Well, Lady GaGa influences. Hence the 'Disco Stick'.

All sketches done during class.
Fluorescent on newsprint.
Do leave feedback:)

Illustration Friday : Drifting

'Time passes, as I keep drifting.'

A sketch in watercolor on cartridge paper.

Do leave feedback:)

Illustration Friday - Unfold

I always found origami very fascinating. I tried hard but could never figure it out. One of the ways I thought I could get it right was by 'unfold'ing the whole structure, but by the time I would, it seemed impossible to get it back to what it was!

Though I was successful in getting the origami swan back to the sheet of paper...err... well, almost.

Sigh.

That Old Sketchbook.

Funny how as we grow up, we change. Our eating habits change (in my case, they just grow), our lifestyles change and so does our choice of music. Well, so much for thinking I was over the Black Eyed Peas. Their much much anticipated album, the E.N.D. is finally out and I'm already weak in the knees. I don't know how they do it, but I'm addicted. So I look back at these sketches I did a seemingly long long while back. These were album covers I wanted to 'draw' for their albums, Monkey Business and their latest yet-to-come-out-at-that-time album, the E.N.D. and I pictured how I wanted them to look. Now that I look at them, I can find a gazillion flaws in them, some very very unacceptable, but I love them for the love I made them with. Brimming with nostalgia as summer vacations get over, I pack my world to take back to college for yet another expectantly eventful year waiting ahead.

Illustration Friday : Craving

OK. Finally an Illustration Friday topic where I instantaneously think of what I'm going to use. Yes, I am craving for a huge, luscious, creamy, beautiful, godly slice of wonderful wonderful cheesecake!
Any will do, lemon, blueberry, mango, cherry, mocha, kiwi or more!
So, any givers?

The one above is the version that I drew recently, the bottom one being an old drawing:)

Dingbat the Singing Cat

Recently, my dear dear friend Kaveri Gopalakrishnan told me to about this site, Mooshy Moo, someone else had told her about. Its of this band that makes free music. It more or less falls into to the electronic genre. I'm not really a fan, but I happily downloaded all I could find and I must say, I'm hooked on to it. One of the songs, as the title reads, 'Dingbat the Singing cat', from Dalt Wisney's album 'Lifetime Psychedelic Dance Lessons' is absolutely addictive. While I was listening to it, There was this visual that came to my mind. So I drew it out. I didn't really picture it like this in my mind, but I'm OK with how this came out. Ah. The joy of drawing model-y things. And yes, This happens to be practically my second attempt at drawing a cat. Oh, and the song is fun. The lyrics go something like this :

'Dingbat, the singing cat,
She disappeared and that was that'
and now folks can sleep, sleep,
sleep till the break of day.
Meow, meow, meow.'

Ah. I end up writing too much. I need an editor.
Do leave feedback.

Illustration Friday : Cracked

Ok, This is perhaps my longest blog post. Anyway, for this week's Illustration Friday, I could only come up with this idea. It kind of traces back to my childhood. Well, as a kid, I was a hungry kid. very hungry. I wanted food. Hell with the world. Thankfully now its not the same. Ha! It involves some more hunger, some hard work, and finally being able to have 'cracked' the egg cracking***. Here goes...

Little Jassi got up one evening to realize no one was at home.
Momma was out for her evening walk and daddy for the cricket coaching.

Little Jassi was hungry. And bad.



'Ah! The fridge! But it will be locked like momma always keeps it when she goes out.'*


*yes, she used to do this. otherwise I'd eat everything inside it.

But like hunger found a way to his tummy;
Little Jassi always found a way to the top of the refrigerator...

... and be victorious.

As the golden light from the refrigerator glowed, little Jassi would soon find heaven.
'The appliance is calling to me...'

'But then... I can't cook vegetables and fruits are too healthy. Hmmm... What could I do?'

'I know... EGGS! They're easy, and I've seen Mum do it.
And how difficult could it get anyway?!?'

So he popped them in the frying pan. After all, who doesn't like scrambled eggs!?!
But something felt not-so-right.

'Uh...'

'YUCKH!!!
I made scrambled egg shells! Can't eat this... what now?'

'Ah! all hard work down the drain!' Little Jassi exclaimed as he did what he had to...

"TRRRINGGG!!!"
the doorbell rang.

'Oh my god! Now what do I do??'

'Ahem ahem...'

But Mommy dearest knew something strange had been cooking.
Little Jassi had left dead giveaways!

Like this...

... and this...

...annnd this...

'OK little one! WHAT, may I ask, have you been upto?'

'I... uhh... I...w...ww...was... just... uhh... h... hhh... hungry...'

And little Jassi was excused thanks to the I'm-so-sorry puppy dog face.
As he ended up with food in his stomach and a lesson in how to crack eggs!

And he, after a fine gap of eight years, finally got it.
Happy cracked-ing:)
Please do leave feedback!


**Sorry mom, for making you look so tyrranous, you don't look like this. But hey, I gave you pretty swell sneakers there! Love you:)
*** certain parts of the incident have been slightly altered or eggagerated.

Illustration Friday : Contagious

Wow. this entry is happening after soooo much procrastination its not even funny. As each week passed, Illustration friday rolled out really cool topics; and I was absolutely uninspired to do anything on any of them. After knowing what this week's topic was, there was only one word that came to my mind. And then... I 'yawn'ed. So I quickly took a pencil and it took me two days to figure out a yawning mouth's movement. I hope I have managed to get it right.



This was another little idea that came to my mind, as I remembered school days and how boring some classes were and how we had to sit through them, so I decided to draw it out too.
Hope you like it.
Please leave feedback!

And boy, Yawns sure are contagious.



*yawns*