Sketches from the jungle
Tend to be covered with dirt, pieces of grass and the squashed remains of unmentionable creatures. Honestly, what is it about jungles that turn simple, primitive (maybe lovable in some freakish manner) anthropods into mutated monsters?
My Bronco driving course is nearing the end of its lifespan, tomorrow being the final nail in its wholly imaginary coffin. I had to stay in for two days previously, as one particular day’s itenarary had some of us waking up at 0430 hours to pickup a boat from another army compound for our flotation exercise.
Yes, you heard me right. Flotation. Like, on water. Muddy, disgusting, probably bacteria-infested waters. Such things are viewed not as obstacles, oh no. They are merely opportunities.
Because the majority of this course mostly involves each person spending about 5 – 15 minutes inside a musty, dirty and cramped space, with a giagantic wheel placed almost too conveniently in front of their chest, then placing their foot on pedals various, thereafter proceeding to wait anywhere between four and five hours before the course commander called it a day, I decided early on that it would, perhaps, be better for me to find something to do while waiting for someone to oversteer and end up in a ditch.
I began with simple paperback novels, those that would withstand the humidity and the wildlife of the outfield. When it came to the point where I was reading the epilogue for a second time before lunch, I decided that it was time for more drastic measures. A couple of hours spent alone in a quiet corner, with only my thoughts, my Pilot 0.2 and notebook for company yielded a cachophony of material, some of which I now present as a token of my insanity.
I began with a simple semi-realistic piece, inspired, perhaps, by all the inked artwork I’d seen over the years, especially with regard to woodcut artwork and K.C. Green’s inks. While I still retain some badly-executed feathering in this piece, I’m pretty ok about how it turned out, considering I am not a fan of working with inks at all.
Yea, it’s supposed to be sort of a recreation of the site where our flotation training with the Bronco was conducted, although, in retrospect, it’s not really that accurate. For instance, I recall tall grass, but not reeds.
Incidentally, our Bronco flotation involved us conducting an ‘emergency exit drill’ in the morning, in case the vehicle overturned in the water (which, if you don’t realize, is something very, very bad), which basically meant we fooled around with a couple of switches, engaged the parking brake, climbed out of the vehicle, and jumped into the pleasantly refreshing muddy, murky cesspool that most refer to as river water.
In two seconds, my boots gave off the kind of aroma that would have taken me 6 days to attain via a field camp in Pulau Tekong. Needless to say, I was less than pleased. I was pleased even less when I noted the following day at 0130 hours that I still had not been given a chance to take a proper shower.
That’s fucking right, we spent the whole fucking day in wet clothes and wet boots. My feet fucking itch like mad now. I can only hope this won’t progress to full-blown athelete’s foot, though I’ve already noticed a slight rash starting to rear its ugly head.
To
day’s post image is something I came with up probably while half-stoned from the lunch we had that day: I swear, sometimes I’m not sure if the lunches we get contain some undisclosed ingredients that the taxpayers don’t know about. In any case, it’s a different take on how exactly we continue to receive liquid subsistence from the gods. Nothing special, really, but have I told you how much I love sharing?
My next contribution started out with the blood flowing down from the eye, then it turned into something from Silent Hill, and finally it became an outlet for me to try a new wing design, that inspired from the tattoos I’d been admiring from Tetsuya Nomura’s outlet on the DS.
Incidentally, the chains were kind of an afterthought. I kind of thought that having mere feathering of inks as body detail was kind of lame, and struggled to come up with something a little more original.
Ok, so it isn’t much, but at least it’s a different combination of over-established memes. For me, anyway.
A weaker piece comes from my inability to decide on the elements in my work, a major annoyance I’d identified early on in my non-existant career as an artist. Combining all sorts of different stuff and cramming the entire thing into a work of art isn’t like combining several pieces of Lego, in my experience. Rather, it’s like taking several scraps of paper and trying to crush it into a paper ball; you might succeed, but throw the damn thing against someone and it almost certainly disintegrates into its constituents, ugly and useless, much like its thrower.
I kind of originally intended it as a classic antithesis of sorts to the earlier sketch (continuity, now there’s something you don’t see every day in my work), but it kind of branched out into something totally different though.
I’m not crazy about it, or anything, but I thought the premise kind of had potential, and I still do. Maybe I’ll work with this a little more some other day and see what else I can come up with.
My last offering for this post is ripped entirely off The World Ends With You, with Neku being a classic, generic trenchcoat-clad fool, although I didn’t really intend for this sketch to turn into that at the beginning. I mean, I was going to draw a nice bangle on his ear before I realized that I could make them look better as headphones.
Things went a little out of hand after that. Honestly, I’m only uploading this because of the musical wings of sorts. I kind of like that fucked up bullshit idea as well. Yes, let it be said for all to hear and dismiss completely as the rantings of yet another insane individual: I’m a sucker for stupid ideas.
Also, FF XIII for the 360. Wow. Ok, I have to admit, I sure as hell didn’t see that one coming. Maybe as a delayed release like Metal Gear Solid 2 was for the Xbox and PC, but definitely not as something that will be sure to give Sony something to think about.
In a way, it’s good, I guess. Now perhaps Sony will actually start thinking about getting some stuff for its owners other than forcing me to buy Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Virtua Fighter 5: The Shitty Edition to get any fun at all.
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