The devils came in a ‘Humvee’

Many years ago before the dawn of the new millennium I thought the world is going to be a much better place to live in with the advancement of technology. With all the new knowledge I was hoping that people could solve many problems in a more civilized manner. But sadly human conscience was left behind back in the 70’s. Technology became the integral part of the machinery of destructions. It helps to make efficient killing machines. Machines that can kill thousands in a second regardless of non-combatant, women and children. After a day work the killers can enjoy their fast foods and video games. Life and death became just a number in a score.

The war machines are glorified as technical supremacy that need to be placed on the altar. It is broadcasted all over the news media like new Christmas toys. This is how they sell democracy to the world. Anybody who do not agree with their ideology will be eliminated. It has to be done to maintain stability. The stability is not about freedom of the country or people but about money. Money that they can earn easily and lots of it without obstacles into their own pockets and just crumbs to the foolish common men . It is the hypocrisy of democracy.

The brilliant minds behind the killing machines thought they have made great achievements. All the years they spend in college finally paid off. Isn’t that look great on TV? Who could missed the Humvee on the news? Equipped with all the latest technology and cost around US$65,000 each and the armored one cost around US$140,000 each. They are more than 250,000 units in the US military. Crunch that out on the calculator. The number is so sinful that it has to be devil’s own. It could have solved the unemployment, medical, housing, poverty, education and the environment problems. But the people are more contented with misguided patriotism.

In Palestine 3000 A.D. I designed a Humvee-like vehicle which I code named it “The Bastard’s Rover’ named after the three ‘devils’ that rode in it.  Many may foresee that in the 3rd millennium that most land vehicles will not look like anything like today’s. It may not even run on wheels anymore. But as most of my designs for Palestine 3000 A.D. it is metaphoric.

So how to fit a Humvee into that era?  In design I called it bending the spoon without touching it. It is not the spoon that is bend but the mind. If you stop the mind from thinking straight then it will bend any way you like. Sometime it will go to the extreme that it loose reality. That was what happened last year. The Humvee lost it basic identity and became more like a spaceship. Perhaps back then I have not developed a style for Palestine 3000 A.D. After the style has been established I know I need to abundant the initial design and return back to the drawing board and came out with this new thumbnail.

The details were added in Manga Studio. It just took away the pain of buying special templates from the art supplies shop. The custom rulers in Manga Studio really help in drawing an accurate sketch over the original thumbnail. The design has to breakaway in some areas while maintaining the basic framework of the thumbnail. It has to bend more towards a non-aero-dynamic vehicle and more towards heavy metal as most structures in Palestine 3000 A.D.

The final output was imported into Rhino 3D as a background image to be traced over. I am more comfortable with Rhino 3D after more than 10 years working with it. The irony is during the early days with Rhino I was designing metal structures for a friend company. Then I ended up working for a metal factory down in Millington, Tennessee. That was real heavy metal in a real world. It still got a hold on me in the virtual world. I still can feel the machines. It breathe in the design.

Now the vehicle really fits the script. It is something not to be rationalize about. The mind has to remain bend. In that state you will believe that it is heavy. You will believe that there is danger. You will believe that the individuals that ride in it can cause major destruction. I named them ‘The Three Bastards’. You may named them the devils. If the devil came on horseback the world still called them the devil. If the devils ride in a super advanced vehicle they are still the devils. Why the world still glorified them as heroes?

 

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New Jerusalem – The Temple Mount

The Temple Mount or Mount Moriah or also known as The Nobel Sanctuary by Muslims is significant to Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is a place where great prophets had walked upon to bring just to the world. Yet bloody battles were fought just to win this piece of sacred ground. The conflict is still on-going and looks like it will be for thousand of years to come. It has gone through many transformations through out the centuries. It is impossible to imagine how it will look like in the third millennium.

In Palestine 3000 A.D. I visualize the Temple Mount is the only structure that survives the catastrophic war 500 years prior. What is left is al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock standing over a decayed ground. Some may disagree with my perspective  but it is a fiction that need not to be rationalized. It is just my expression. The Temple Mount will be used as a backdrop in the scene where the caravan of slaves enter New Jerusalem.

Backdrops are important in movies so as in graphic novels. It place the characters in a proper environment to add mood to the story. Blank backgrounds may be an easy and quick way to churn a graphic novel but it may end up like a newspaper cartoon strip. Palestine 3000 A.D. is not one of those.

For the backdrop of New Jerusalem I used a reference from a painting shown above by an artist David Roberts that was painted in 1839. I wanted a different view of the Temple Mount compared to what is commonly seen today. The southern view is the best angle to show al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock in close proximity. Though I have a 3D model of the Temple Mount from Google Earth but not all of my works use a 3d reference especially if there is no need for it.

This is a quick pencil sketch I did which I focused more on the decayed ground. I used many references from photos of cliffs and canyons for the rock texture while retaining the flow that I wanted. As for the building structures I make it more stylize to fit the whole design balance. The hole on the ground is meant to portray a screaming or a crying expression. It is a sign of my own displeasure against any kind of excavation works under the holy site.

The pencil sketch was then imported into Manga Studio EX to be traced over with blue lines. The perspective and rulers tools help to make perspective drawing much easier compared to the traditional method. The snap to the perspective and ruler tools though may sound digital but it still allow the artist to retain the traditional strokes. It really help when you are drawing with a Wacom tablet where accuracy can be difficult to achieve because you are not drawing directly on the screen unlike using the Cintiq.

The shadow areas were indicated on a different layer. But it is just a guide because I always do some changes when I render the real shadows. A mask area was added using the outline of the drawing. This was done to make it easier to insert a background on the bottom layer. This is not part of Manga Studio EX features but it is a practice of cel animators while working in a digital format for an easier composition.

The sky background was added using a previous work that I have done. With a bit of Photoshop filter it blends nicely with the foreground. Most of the sky backgrounds will be like this for Palestine 3000 A.D. It is dark and gloomy. It is a depressing environment that I hope I will never experience in my lifetime.The splatter brush stroke was added to add to the rage.

The final drawing is used for the Palestine 3000 A.D. blog header and also the header for the welcome page at Facebook. The layout will probably be different for the graphic novel. But the expressions that I have mention will still remain.

 

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The Making of a Hero

It has been a tradition for most figure artists to have some kind  of reference to draw figures. Either by using a real life model or a wooden mannequin like the one on the right. The tradition probably started during the early figure drawing classes. But tradition can be broken because it is still possible to draw a figure without using any references by understanding the principal of human anatomy. But if you want to breathe a personality into the figure then references are a must. Our imagination do have limitation in portraying reality. On the other hand a wooden mannequin do not have a real personality. It is good just for poses. It is a John or Jane Doe of the art world.

When I was writing the script for Palestine 3000 A.D. I have already build up the personality of each character in my mind. Personalities that I could describe verbally. But visually I was not so settled yet even though I have collected many references. Studios usually audition for models in this kind of situation where they can look at various angles and check out the posing skills of the models. For this project I need around 20 models. I certainly do not have a budget for that. Nobody is really interested to fund a project like this. It is not a fantasy story that entertains the everyday family. Palestine 3000 A.D. is a metaphor about a reality that most people like to look away. 

Wealth is not necessary about money. It is also can be of knowledge and experiences. My years of experience in 3D animation  is a big asset for me. All the CG tools are at my disposal. I can have all the models I want at no cost and they are available 24/7. But 3D models nowadays are too surrealistic. It is not the kind of character that you will see walking in downtown West Bank or Gaza. They are just great for a display on shops’ windows. To get into the reality I have to go to Palestine. The instant flight is by Google.

I was looking for a specific Palestinian boy. Not the one that is crying or the one that died or the one posing their smiles for the western journalists who want to show the world that everything is alright in Palestine. Out of the thousands photos I have browse through Google I found one that looks right. He was pointing a gun at the camera. He sure got my attention. But he was just posing because his finger was not on the trigger. He might be slightly older then the character I have in mind but CG technology can do wonders in making him look younger. Most of all I like his intensity. The young hero in Palestine 3000 A.D. may be a young kid but he is a strong boy. A tribute to all the brave children of Palestine. With the magic of Photoshop I removed the revolver that was partially covering his mouth. Brightened the shadows under his eyes and symmetrise his face. He is ready for the 3D world.

I am not going to model him from scratch. That procedure is time consuming especially when there are 19 more in line. The best choice is to use a face generator software. My favourite tool for many years for posing is Poser by Smith Micro which has a face generator module called the Face Room. The problem is it is not suitable for children faces and it looks so CG. The next choice is FaceGen  by Singular Inversion. I prefer FaceGen because the result is more natural. With the PhotoFit feature it makes modelling much easier. The procedure is to use a photo to shape the face. Once I got the basic feature then I tweak it to make it look younger. It has features to adjust the age of the model  or adjust the gender. But no matter young it gets the head proportion is not big as a child.

The problem with FaceGen is it generates only heads without the body. For a full body pose I need to export it to Poser. Trying to make those two to work together is like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Usually it needs a third software to smooth things out so that it fits well on the other end. I have to use my old and trusted software 3ds Max for this job. The head proportion was adjusted in Max and also the neck joint that is going to fit onto the Poser model.

With the help of Photoshop the texture was smoothen to make the boy look younger. The hair was then added in Poser just for reference purpose. Though it may not look exactly as the reference photo I am quite happy with the adjustments. The objective was not to make a replica of the actual boy in the photo but to make it look more to the boy I have in mind while retaining the intensity of the boy in the photo.

Around 31 head models were used to make the morph targets for the expression library. What it means in 3D jargon is I can make the model do facial expressions by mixing the morph targets which can be controlled by the dials in Poser. Each dial is created whenever a new morph target is added. I can always add a new morph target or expression in the future if there is a need. It may not be perfect but it is just for reference. The real reason to have a 3D model as a reference is because of the freedom to choose various camera angles and lighting. It enhances the mood in the story. In Palestine 3000 A.D. lighting is very crucial because of the noir style that I am opting.

The whole development took around one month. But I heard some people took 2 months to make it work properly. But that does not mean the next 19 models will take another 19 months. Once the procedure is perfected the rest will be painless. Most of the models will be used for many episodes to come. It is more productive in the long run.

The final stage is the drawing board. Not the traditional drawing board but the digital drawing board. This is the year 2010 and it is ethical to save trees that is to save paper. But the real reason behind it is to work in a digital domain where I can have more choices and flexibility. Mistakes can be undone at multiple levels and creative changes can be applied without dumping the whole thing. Yet the artist is not deprived of his traditional feel and procedures.

 Thanks to Photoshop for the layers concept. But the work below was not done in Photoshop. It was done on Manga Studio EX, another Smith Micro product. It is a software for doing comics but borrowed many of the Photoshop features and added all the comic tools. The blue lines drawing is for the lines indication while the red lines which is on a different layer is for the shadows indication. It feels very much like a pencil stroke but done using a Wacom tablet. The ‘paper’ can be rotated just like a compound light table for drawing better curve strokes.

This is the stage when I detached myself from the 3D domain and fully applied my expressions in a 2D  domain where pencil and ink can make most things possible without crunching numbers or cracking my head.

 Here is the quick inking that I have done. It is a mix of digital pen and pencil spread over various layers so that future changes can be done easily. I am still developing a style but it is quite close to what I have in mind.

  I prefer to make the good guys to look more human while the villains are more stylized or caricaturized so that we could connect easily with the good guys as humans. While the Zionist villains have more off-human features. People who acted inhumanely do not deserve human features. In Palestine 3000 A.D. I am the one that decides who is the hero. For the millions who wait the hero will surely come.

 

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Self-Sustainable Living in 3000 A.D.

Living in the year 2010 can be unreal sometime. In this second millennium we are becoming more and more plugged to the system. All the energy and food resources are not within our control. Even our own homes are build by others. Yet we have or could acquire all the knowledge necessary to be self-sustainable. We spend nearly all our times working for others and a little or perhaps no time at all for ourselves. Are we really living in ‘The Matrix’?

To have a self-sustainable living is not a far-fetch idea. An architect named Mike Reynolds has been experimenting with a radical self-sustainable living in a desert in Taos, New Mexico for more than 35 years. But in our complacent lives we will always ignore such ideas unless a catastrophe happens. But in Palestine 3000 A.D. such situation did happen. After the great war all that remains is a hostile environment of acid dust. It was tough to visualize how things will be in a thousand years from now. Most likely something unimaginable but yet I need references of the present to link the story to the present situation in Palestine.

This hut-house design is one of the design that I can reveal here. It was inspired by Mike Reynolds’ Earthship self-sustainable housing. The concept is perfect for my story because in such apocalyptic situation people need to rebuilt and survive on their own. After reviewing various Earthship designs and typical old Middle Eastern mud houses, I came out with this simple design, a modest structure in an outpost:

Designing it with pencil was easy but the 3D modelling was quite challenging. The design is totally organic without any hard cubical shape. The structure uses three domes which are not hemispherical perfect by choice. The Earthship’s tyre element was abandon because it may ends up as a large mansion which will not reflect a peasant life. The domes connected together in a unique way using a small elongated sphere to form a connecting gateway. From the top view the connecting sphere is clearly seen in the centre.

 The final design do not faithfully represent the initial pencil sketch. The doors and windows are repositioned according to the script where the characters stand, walk, and even run. But certain elements from the Earthship design still remain like the gutter and the energy panel on the roof. I have added a silo kind of structure and also some kind of communication structure.It is possible to built the structure in this present day. Everything was done to scale. The glass windows and doors are not flat. The curvature follows the contour of the dome. That might be difficult for an individual to built. So is the solar panel on both roof. It might not be energy efficient to have it on a curve shape facing both solstices But this is the future. The technology probably a thousand times better then. Perhaps energy resources may be cultivated rather than bought.

Here is the wireframe view revealing the interior and also the human height reference. The interior is fully furnished but there are still some modifications to be done. The most difficult part of designing this structure is trying to keep it  simple.

The above are just the computer previews and not the final visual treatment. The hut-house is actually a crime scene in the story. As a great fan of CSI Las Vegas I had placed much detail in the design. Where things are positioned and how they look like. It is tough to decide not to be influenced by today's perspective and not to be too futuristic like Star Wars. Even as simple it may seems the design went through fifty iterations. That is damn a lot for a modest hut-house in a graphic novel.

Palestine 3000 A.D. is not just a futuristic fiction or just to remind us about the situation in Palestine right now. It is also a reminder about our own situation of being too plugged to the system. It is not just about energy or food resources but also our thinking because most of it are fed by the system especially the west. Perhaps we can never survive outside of the system but sometime we need to unplug. We need to free our mind.

 

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Sub-Razor: The Underground Rover

 The Sub-Razor is a military vehicle mainly to transport insurgents underground in Palestine 3000 A.D.. The sketch above is the second iteration that I have done recently for the graphic novel. I was not happy with the former window design which I have replaced with a round glass port hole. But the real main design obstacle is the top hatch which is used for entry and exit. It is also the same area where the landing chute is deployed. That will be a physical obstacle. But I do not want to fall into deep rationale when molecular synthesis is a norm in the future. I may sound Greek but it is better than a geek who speaks in binary.

The passenger compartment can accommodate four people including the pilot. In the story only three persons rode in the Sub-Razor during an escape operation. The space is quite tight and almost like our present day submarine. It also dives deep but in this case a subterranean deep.

The above is the final rendered model. The initial idea came out of nothing. 100% pure imagination. For functionality  I have to look into the real world and borrowed some mechanical suspension system design for the bottom half. The top half came from my right brain after a couple of mugs of thick hot cocoa and grunge music and remain sober.

Riding the Sub-Razor is like riding a roller coaster in the dark. The situation is intense. It is about ‘what is going to happen next?’. So hold on to your seat.

 

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Sub-Crawler: The Underground Spaceship

The design above is called the Sub-Crawler. It is a gigantic excavation machine that is operated by two operators in Palestine 3000 A.D.. The approach of the design is very much the film method that is to apply details only to the part that is visible to the camera. The top sketch is the first iteration where there are more details on the body. While the bottom design is the final iteration where there is no detail on the body because of it is buried in the ground. In the actual scene of the graphic novel the focus is mainly on the head. Much of the detail is actually in the interior where the controller room is located.

The final 3D design of the head is not faithfully the same as the 2D sketch. The sketch came from pure imagination while the 3D design is technically accurate. The final design only has one head light and one level of pilot lights. It is not practical to have the second level like on the pencil sketch.

The reason for the second iteration is because I was trying to find a proper spot to place the entrance door. I finally found a good spot on the bottom right of the picture. The placement goes well according to the script. That also give an idea the size of human head to toe compared to the machine.

The visual treatment for the final print is not the same as the 3D rendered picture above. Though I was tempted to show it but let save it for the final.

 

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The Bastards’ Weapon

There are a number of self-imposed restriction that I applied in Palestine 3000 A.D. One of it is the weapon technology. It is difficult to imagine a story of the future without major explosive weapons or even the typical laser like. Do warriors fight cowardly from the distance or face each other like brave old medieval knights? I prefer the later but with weapons of much advance technology.

I had look into old archives of medieval weapons but it did not sparked any idea. But I do love heavy metallic weapons. It is more masculine than the laser kind. So I peeked into my tool box where there are many solid metal devices. The spark of  inspiration came and I assembled a composite and add a game controller feature for a touch of technology. A new weapon was invented, a two handled sabre.  I named it the Bastard’s Sabre after the nickname of the three villains in the story.

The 3D modelling was challenging because of some of the organic form of the weapon. Some features evolved from the original design and that is expected. The handle is borrowed from some parts of M16 assault rifle. The controller buttons and wheels were carefully design so that it is reachable from both handle. If you are wondering how do the weapon function or what special technology it is designed upon then you have to wait till the graphic novel is publish.

 

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