otak 3 pagi experiment

iPhone Review - Zombie Crasher - Let's crash some zombies!

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 10:43:00 +0000

Zombie Crasher is a fun and exciting endless running genre game which has graphics that reminds me of the 90s arcade game, which is great for someone who experienced and enjoyed these types of game. You control an army guy who literally crashes into zombies and avoids obstacles. You control the timing of the jumps and attacks and aim to get a big combo for a bigger score and to add into your fever gauge. If you miss a platform, the game instantly ends. The game is split into areas, and you know you’re at the end, when you face one of the random bosses.

Graphics:
As I stated previously, the graphics remind me of the old sprite-based arcade games of the 90s. The artwork is pretty appealing and even in the small screen of the iPhone, the main character stands out, up the point of having a red nose after picking up the bottle of wine object. There are several different types of zombies, including stationary and fast-moving ones that will pose quite a challenge. The end of area bosses are great! I love the unique character designs of each boss character. They are hilarious and nasty at the same time, and they have each their own method to kill. I have come across around three different bosses, and I’m sure I’ll come across more later.

Fun Factor:
The game is about getting the right timing for your taps, and beyond that, its a gameplay of endurance and how long you can keep your combo going. To me, the gameplay is just right, since I can choose to play it whenever I want, whether as a time killer or as a game I really sit down and play. Its fast, fun and adrenaline-pumping gameplay once you get the hang of it.

Lastability:
One things for sure, the game doesn’t have many modes, but the lastability in the game’s case is how I repeatedly keep coming back to the game to beat my own score, to see how far I can go. I haven’t even started trying to go against the global leaderboard. This game definitely has that “Just one more try” factor. For every game you play, you gain coins, and with the coins, you can purchase items to aid in your game, like heli support, health, triple jumps, and etc. So, the more you spend time with the game, the more you can buy items to help you last longer each run.

Overall:
Its a game that will be on my iPhone as a casual game that I come back to, but I do wish there’s GameCenter support for the leaderboards and achievements. I would love to see Retina support too, but what’s important is the gameplay, which I find entertaining.

Recommended 4/5

Illustration Friday : Cultivate

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:54:00 +0000

Phew, it has been ages since I submitted an entry for Illustration Friday. Anyway, this time, the topic is Cultivate. What I'm trying to convey here is Cultivate Love & Peace, and this coming from a soldier, something unexpected, and probably ironic? I know, it doesn't make sense that much, but this image was in my mind and I had to put it down. Its not the most superior illustration 'cause its more of a quick sketch and paint. I actually wanted to try out this new iPad app I bought, and I'm quite happy with the results.
This new app I just bought, called Procreate, is quite brilliant. Its $7.99 but its worth it. The interface is intuitive, the opacity and size slider is easily reachable without going through menus, and with that, I spend more time drawing than fumbling in the menus. I got most of the other drawing apps and I'm really starting to like this one. If you have an iPad, and 8 bucks to spend, I recommend it. Oh, the other cool thing is that you can create your own custom brushes. This is an AMAZING feature. Anyhow, if you're interested, just go here - Procreate App on iTunes

Quick draw: For Chalk'N'Talk contest

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 17:06:00 +0000

Here's a quick sketch, well not that quick, but I wanted to just make an entry for this contest where I have to portray Social Networking and Chalk'N'Talk, a drawing social game for iOS devices by Gamevil. What did I mean to portray? Well, its a chalk, jumping out of a iPhone, with several profile pictures popping out as well, to show that the main player is playing against various other people. Simple and straightforward.

Oh, and just a small update, I won the contest where I submitted CANgelina Jolie which I posted previously. I won a custom iPad case. :)

Over and out!

CANgelina Jolie - A contest entry

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 10:46:00 +0000

So there was a contest promoting an iPhone/iPad game called Can Knockdown 2. I can win a unique iPad case, but truthfully I'm in it for the subject, which is anything to do with cans, and can promote the upcoming game. Here's my artwork, which is supposedly a can version of Angelina Jolie. This was a fun art project, though I was a bit pissed off since there was a blackout while I was finishing up this piece, and I didn't save my progress. This is actually a second attempt. Hope you guys like it. Til' the next artwork!

Illustrator for outline +Photoshop for colours using Intuos 4

Mr. Logan

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Just got my hands on an iPad, not actually mine, but I'm seriously considering getting one now :).

Here's a wolverine sketch, based on Hugh Jackman, of course

Drawn using a Pogo Sketch and ArtStudio

IF: Caged

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:35:00 +0000

Just a quick sketch on the sketchbook. A caged panda. Uh-huh.

Wacom Intuos 3 6x11 (Wide) Japan Spec For Sale

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:27:00 +0000

To anyone who is interested, and is in Klang Valley (Malaysia), I'm selling my Wacom Intuos3 6x11 which was bought from Japan. It comes with everything in the box just like the Malaysian model, with one big difference; it comes with a mouse, and that costs RM169 according to Wacom's pricelist. I would really love to hold on to this but I have another Wacom tablet with me that I use. It has always been in the box, rarely used, since I didn't get the chance to really test it out as a result of procrastination. Interested? Read on...

If there's anyone interested to grab this tablet of me, and make full use of it, I'm selling it of for RM900. Your RM900 includes:

An Intuos 3 6" x 11" Tablet

An Intuos 3 Grip Pen

An Intuos 3 Mouse

All the extra nibs that came with it

A Grip Pen holder

Documents in Japanese and Driver CDs

And all that is packed in an egg carton box unlike the Malaysian one.

In case you're wondering, you can still use the Intuos 3 even if its Japanese, since its best to get the latest drivers from Wacom anyway. I have personally tested it, and its working great. One thing to note is, there's an Amazon.jp sticker on the box that I do not want to remove since I might ruin the box, but believe me, you don't need the box to use the tablet ;). I only accept COD (Cash on Delivery) and I do not trade for other things or offer installments.Preferable COD locations include Kelana Jaya LRT, Petaling Jaya, Sunway, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam. Further enquiries can be made by emailing me at bemsixtynine AT gmail DOT com.

Oh yeah, here are the pictures of the tablet.

Thanks for your interest. Hope to get a buyer for this soon :)

Portrait of a girl

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:07:00 +0000

A few days ago I had a WIP of a painting I did, which was a Portrait of a girl. Here's the complete version PLUS you can see the BIG changes that happen while I was painting it. Most of the time, I do massive changes from the original sketch, as you can see from this one. Read more to see the changes.

I start out with a rough sketch and outline of the face structure.

I put in some colours to get the rough tonal values in. Shadows, highlights and such.

I really add details now, detailing the eyes, nose and lips and general facial structure. Also, I paint the texture of the hair. You may notice that I have refined the shadows and highlights too.

Now, you see the big change, I decided that I wanted less definition of her cheekbones, so I erase and make her cheeks more, roundish. I changed her skin to make it look brighter, so that there's more contrast between the background and her skin. The skin looks silkier and glowing now. I refined her eyes, nostrils and mouth even more, and add more highlights.

Not much difference here, again, making her eyes, nose and mouth more realistic. Added some eye shadows that should make her eyes more attractive.

Finally, I decided to make a big change on her hairstyle, adding more details making it more realistic, and even "shaving" off some volume to make it look more natural.

I guess that's that, hope you find interest in this post. Thanks for reading!

Portrait of a girl WIP

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Just another portrait of a girl, you might say, but I just took out my Wacom tablet and started drawing again. Sure feels good. Here's a WIP (work in progress) of the portrait I'm working on. Trying out a couple of new techniques from tutorials. Will upload the update soon.

Just Press Play Header Design

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Shemah of Just Press Play, another blogger friend of mine, wanted a redesign for her film-centric entertainment blog, as she wanted a revamped look that was appealing to her blog readers and herself. She wanted a recharge to kickstart the blog to bring it back to its prime.

Firstly, I looked for a more energetic colour palette to coincide with the colourful world of movies. And it may be cliche, but a filmreel always does the job in symbolising films, movies and cinemas. My mission was to a header that's eye-catching but simple and uncluttered. I wouldn't want to distract the blog readers from the quality content she has. Here's my header design -

And here's the before and after..

Original Header

Redesigned Header

I created the header and she changed the colour scheme accordingly. I think her blog looks much better now, and I'm not trying to self promote myself (well, maybe a little ;P). She was happy with the new header too, so its all good!

Thanks Shemah!

Crafty Heart - Business Card Design

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Debbie a.k.a Phatelara of Crafty Heart and a blogger friend of mine entrusted me to create a card for her online craft business, and I enjoyed taking up the challenge. The mission - to create a card that shows the crafty side of her business, with appeal for a largely female demographic, and making it appealing and refreshing.

Debbie chose the primary colours of pink and black, which goes quite well with the design I had in mind. I created a custom illustration of a button to symbolise the business' primary focus, which is crafts, and I added a heart to compliment and enforce the name of "Crafty Heart". In addition to that, I put in some stitch trails to further strengthen the general theme of the card. I chose a layout thats slightly out of the norm to show that Crafty Heart produces creative arts and crafts.

She was quite happy with the end result, and nothing makes a designer feel better than a satisfied customer.

Thanks Debbs!

DBH Halloweek 3 Contest Entry - Bam-Boo!

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:57:00 +0000

Hello again. I know I haven't updated much, so I'm making up for it with this contest entry. I would say its one of my best illustrations ever, not technically, but for its idea. Well, I'd like to think so. Its my 2nd attempt in DBH, but this time I designed it specifically for t-shirts, using the t-shirt dimensions as a canvas. Here's the design and placement on t-shirt,

Support my t-shirt design, vote for me HERE

Description:

As you all may know, pandas eat bamboos. A lot of bamboos. What if the bamboo trees had souls, and decides to come back and haunt the pandas. This particular design illustrates how a bamboo can actually, be spooky and scare an unknowing panda.

Premise of the design is, the soul leaves the bamboo shell and goes around the back of the t-shirt, only to come back just beside the wearers neck to proceed with its devilish deed.

Here's a slightly closer look at my design,

Support my t-shirt design, vote for me HERE

If you like it, please support my design and vote for me HERE. I really hope I can get this printed because I myself want to try wearing it. Talk about self-promotion. Thanks for viewing and thanks in advance for voting!

To all who have voted for me, I thank you too!

Career Success Coach - Logo & Business Card Design

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:11:00 +0000

Recently, I had the opportunity of designing the logo and business card for a new company. Its a company that offers career training of various levels in the corporate sector.

Originally, I created a logo that reflects a stopwatch. I was happy with it, but the logo didn't convey the "career" side of things, so I decided to go with a humanoid logo. The concept of the logo is of a person raising his/her arms in the air in a victory stance, which conveys success. The necktie is there to portray that the person is a corporate employee.

With the business card, I went for a bright blue to get a sense of energy; as in the energy to make a change to success. Plenty of white space in the front for their key contact information and at the back, a list of the services they offer.

If you're interested in logo or business card design, just drop me an email at bemsixtynine at gmail dot com.

Illustration Friday: Drifting

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:16:00 +0000

I chose to draw on the topic of car drifting immediately after I saw the topic being announced. Fox beat me to it, but it has been in my mind for ages, so I had to sketch something out. Pardon the mess, I drew this from scratch, including the dodgy car design.

Concept: A professional racer drifts his car. Simple.

Operation Gift Drop

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:42:00 +0000

In 2006, I made another attempt with Wacom's e-greeting card contest. I wanted to give something flashier, so this time around I had the idea of putting Santa on poster, similar to what you see on film posters.

So the concept of illustration is, Santa is portrayed as an action hero, and the premise is that Santa has lost his loyal reindeers. But Christmas goes on and he has to complete the "job" of delivering all the presents. That's why its personal for him, and that's why it's called Operation Gift Drop. I drew Santa currently skydiving; equipped with night vision goggles to help him in the dark.

I thought it was a unique card, but alas, I didn't win anything. I did enjoy the execution of my idea though. :)

Click Read More to see the process flow of this artwork.

First, I sketched out a (very) rough outline of what type of posture I wanted Santa to be in.

And this is the completed outline. Sorry to skip a big step, but I didn't have any screenshots of how the sketch of Santa looked like.

At this point I added the pattern outlines to form a custom camouflage pattern for Santa's suit.

With a black-filled background, I painted the colours on Santa's suit, though I mistakenly added highlights in it as well.

I coloured Santa's beard and hair with all the highlights and shadows here. Also, I completed colouring his face. I also toned down the pattern outlines as I thought they were too distracting.

Added appropriate highlights on Santa generally

Added background elements including a lighted horizon, which is supposed to be reflections of the night-time lights, and I added a moon within clouds for dramatic effect.

Added highlights that matches the moon colour to make Santa blend with the background. Street lights were added, using a picture as reference. It was mostly just strategically positioned dots. You could probably see that. :P

Here's the final result, with addition of text, and a bit of motion blur on Santa to show some sense of speed while he's skydiving.

Hope you enjoyed this post. 'Til then.

Graffiti - Mouse Pouch

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:08:00 +0000

Just had to draw something and this what (sadly) I came up with. A sketch of the mouse pouch included in the laptop bag I purchased

Random sketches - Cat and Chair

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:51:00 +0000

I've been wanting to get back into drawing and sketching with the tablet, so I decided to just draw whatever I could find. I'm getting back into it now, I hope to get some presentable works in here soon enough. At the moment, just bear with me heheh.

This is a drawing of a cat sleeping on a clothes hanger, based on a picture I got from an email. I just had to draw something and this was stored in my laptop.

And this is simply a drawing of a chair right in front of my face in the office.

Thanks for viewing :)

Santa spoofs The Ring

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Hi again folks, I just realised that this is officially the 50th post for this blog, I know its not too much, but at least the blog is moving after a long hiatus. Thanks to my readers and followers for supporting me and for consistently dropping by my humble blog.

Unfortunately, its another blast from the past, but I figured its still something new for this blog.

Back in 2005, I wanted to enter Wacom's e-greeting card contest, in hopes of winning any one of their tablets, being a big Wacom fan myself. Was going for the funniest card title but I didn't make it in time. Its a bit messy, but I'm still proud that I managed to finish and materialise my idea.

Concept of the illustration? Well, Santa's found a new mode of transport, where he can warp through TV signals (farfetched I know) and because of this he can "teleport" to the TVs of the house he's visiting to leave presents. Unfortunately, he scares a mom and her child by crawling out of their TV, which is coincidentally in an unlit part of the household. Hilarity ensues as he looks more like the ghost that crawls out of the TV from The Ring.

Anyway as usual, here's the process flow of my greeting card non-entry:

Original very rough sketch for composition

Blocked in some flat colours and minor shadows

Smoothed out the colours on Santa and added details to his bag

Scrapped the details on Santa and added a lot of black for exaggeration

Finalised the details for the Xmas tree, mom, boy and the carpet.

Final artwork with appropriate comic text

Looking back at it, I think I've could have executed the idea better. Hope you enjoy the post. 'Til then!

Kamal - Hari Ini Single Cover Art

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 10 May 2009 12:26:00 +0000

My brother, the singer, released a single a couple of months back, marking his return into singing after being in a lonnggg hiatus. He released his single in GuaMuzik, so anyone interested should check him out there and support him by purchasing the song. He employed me to redo his cover art, as he wanted something that he'd like personally. Its nothing big, really, simple and functional, just the way he wants it. I took a shot of him with an off white backdrop and did the cutting and editing in Photoshop.

The photo

The finished cover art

Thanks for your support!

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:01:00 +0000

Foldees contest winners has just been announced but my card didn't get in the list. Just like to say to all who have helped rated my card, I appreciate it very much. I'll have to improve my designs further to get anywhere near the list of winners.

A Tribute For Juju

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Another blast from the past.

This is the late Juju (pronounced joojoo), my family's cat for 17 years. She is of Burman/Persian mixed breed. We call her Juju because she's cross-eyed, and in Malay (or Bahasa Malaysia) cross-eyed is Juling. So we just took the Ju from Juling and doubled it Truth is, Juju was closest to me, cause I could mimic her sound exactly and I played with her a lot during my teenage years. Basically, I was very attached to Juju, and I never thought she'd leave this sudden. She died because she couldn't eat, as her teeth were gone and she had ulcers in her mouth. She died at the vet, as the doctors couldn't do anything even when put on the drip.

I did this in Painter, tried to get the details right as much as possible but the picture I had of Juju was pretty small. I played with several different brushes for this including airbrushes, oils and blenders. This was my first attempt on painting a cat.

Rough sketch based on her picture.

Painting in the general colours.

Final colours under the original sketch

Added a brown background colour

Added some elements to add texture and fill the negative spaces

The completed painting of Juju.

Hope you guys like it. I sure miss having a pet cat.

Relaxed in Pajamas : Illustration for for Blog Layout

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Earlier on before Choul became my wife, she requested an illustration to go with her blog theme, and since she supported (and sometimes art directed) a number of my artworks, I obliged :). She wanted something cute, and colourful, and panda's have a special place in her heart. I don't usually create cute artwork but I'm pretty proud of this one, especially with the colours I've chosen. To the loyal readers of O3PE, you might notice that I've put this up before in my old post named Panda-monium, but the purpose of this post is to show (briefly) the steps I took to create the artwork. Note that I used OpenCanvas to create this.

Completed sketch drafted using blue lines for easy inking.

Inked digitally with black

Added the extra elements; magazine, Zune and a panda plushie. Tried minor colouring as well.

Blocked flat colours for all elements, still not final.

Painted in monotone blue to get values of highlights and shadows.

The final artwork completed.

Well, hope you enjoyed viewing this post, this was created a couple of years ago, but I'm still quite proud of this work. And yeah, Choul likes it too. 'Til then.

Foldees "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Entry

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Its time again for foldees' latest contest, and this time the theme is entitled "Where No Man Has Gone Before". The premise is simple, you have to design a birthday card with a sci-fi (science fiction) theme. Since there's a lot of sci-fi flicks out there, I decided to spoof the most recognisable sci-fi flick/franchise known to man, Star Wars (now now, don't get angry Trekkies). Check it out:

A Jedi Special Day

Cover of the card

Inside of the card

Description:
At the cover, Yoda is depicted as talking to a budding Jedi, which is directed to the audience, I guess they should be called Jedience? Ok lame joke. Anyway, he speaks in his usual grand master-ish manner and says that its a special day today, with a serious face, the face that he usually makes when he gives advice or orders.

When the reader opens the card, Yoda surprises them with two things, a special unique light saber that is remodeled in such a way that it functions as cake knife. He presents this blue saber "knife" to the reader WHILE actively floating the birthday cake, while smiling too. And that clearly reminds you why he's a master Jedi. R2D2 gets out of hiding and joins the fun (equipped with party hat) all because its party time for A Jedi Special Day.

Before the Star Wars experts ask, there are two reasons why I chose a Blue Light Saber.

Its supposed to be a gift from Yoda, so its not his Green Light Saber.
Try as I might, the Blue Light Saber version wins hands down when printed

Rating has just started on 1st of April, and it will run 'til the 1st of May, there's still plenty of time to rate, so if you have the time, please rate the cards, and if you like my card, show your support and give me a good score. To start, go here and make sure you've registered with Foldees. This time around its more or less 40 cards in the running, so it won't be that tedious :) besides you get a free card.

So, ladies and gentleman, please head on down to www.foldees.com and start rating! Gimme a good score and please rate the others fairly.

Remember, don't rate this post, instead, rate my card AT foldees.com, I won't gain anything if you just rate my blog post :P

Thanks!

MINI Space - Always Open entry

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:49:00 +0000

I managed to create a design for the competition MINI Space is hosting, with the theme "Always Open". I know I don't have a huge fanbase, and its hard to go against established designers, but I had this idea of colours coming out of the Mini. I would say its very similar to what I've pictured in my mind. If you like my design, please vote for me here by clicking "I like it!" on the thumbnail of the design. Here's the entry:

So remember, vote for me! Thanks very much in advance!

Stylized Guile From Street Fighter - The Full Version

noreply@blogger.com (bem69) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 04:20:00 +0000

Here's the bigger version of my previous post. Rather than let it go to waste I'll show the actual artwork, so I apologise for the duplicate.