Archive for August, 2007

Takeru’s maglev hoverbike from Freedom.

Now…what would one built with Lego look like ?
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It was work as usual yesterday despite the weekend, but in the evening a few of us bugged out for a short breather at the local Matsuri 祭, a traditional Japanese summer night bazaar, or something like that.

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A piece of conceptual artwork done for Freedom 4.

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Ayanami Rei from Evangelion graces the September cover of Rolling Stone Japan.

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Design for one of two new Freedom posters to be given away as prizes in an upcoming Nissin Cup Noodle Campaign. This is actually a scene appearing in Freedom 4, where Takeru says ” やっぱり外で食ってうまいよな！” – which roughly translates as “It ( Ramen ) just taste better outdoors !” Whatever that means.

Anyway, you probably won’t notice this, but if you are to examine the poster again in detail you might notice that Takeru’s noodle cup is just gargantuan ! Sure, we have 大盛り ( jumbo ) sized cup ramen here in Tokyo, but that’s really pushing it. A correctly sized cup would have looked tiny in Takeru’s hands, so I figured the modellers scaled that up upon request from Nissin.

Its a little known fact ( to all but my closest clubbing friends ) that I invariably succumb to temporal insanity whenever fed any music by Paul Van Dyk. Its like flipping on a switch inside me. His Politics of Dancing II Tour at Ageha in 2006 was one of best gigs I ever went to, so its utterly saddening that I had to miss his In Between Tour earlier in June this year due to work commitments.

I have only the album release on the 14th this month to salve my pain, but for my Singaporean friends, PVD will be spinning at Zouk on the 1st of September, you lucky chaps. You won’t be needing any booze; PVD’s music alone is intoxicating enough.

I believe I first heard of the obscure word Chiaroscuro many many years ago as an art elective student in Victoria School – My then art teacher, a distinguished Irish gentleman named Paul O’shea, was an accomplished artist who taught the subject with such passionate fervor that Art history left a deep, lasting impression on me and continues to be a big source of inspiration for my works today. Mr O’shea also pronounced Chiaroscuro ( and Contrapposto ) beautifully; I lucidly remember my classmates and me grinning in childish pleasure every time the word escaped his lips.

Chiaroscuro, simply put, means light and darkness. In painting terms, it denotes the use of deep variations in and subtle gradations of light and shade to create the illusion of three-dimensionality, often to dramatic effect. The Baroque artist Caravaggio was a champion of Chiaroscuro, creating paintings ( Supper at Emmaus, below ) as hauntingly beautiful now as they were 400 years ago.

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Located just 15 minutes away by bus from Mitaka 三鷹 and Kichijoji 吉祥寺, ( a bustling shopping town that was the visual basis for Takaramachi in Tekkon Kinkreet ) is Jindaiji 深大寺, an age old shrine village dating back to the Nara period 1200 years ago.

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