Angry Squid

Recently I have taken an interest in the book “Sát thủ đầu mưng mủ” a illustrated book of Vietnamese slang by Thành Phong. Most of the slang in the book revolves around rhyming with mostly Northern Vietnamese words. For example “Ngốc như con ốc” [stupid like a snail], and “Xấu như con Gấu” [Ugly like a bear]. My personal favorite because it rhymes so well “Đói như con chó sói” [Hungry like a wolf], My wife and I normally shorten it to “Đói như con sói”.

I decided to re-illustrate my 2nd favorite term “Bực như con Mực” [Angry like a squid], my own interpretation is when a Squid is mad, it’ll spit ink and flail it’s tentacles around.

Bực như con Mực

Mui Ne Sunshine

Mui Ne Sunshine

Spent most of yesterday researching Photoshop tutorials, and found a few to practice, then try to use myself, I don’t know why but I have never been a big fan of Photoshop. Also because I thought I would brush up on my own techniques for teaching Photoshop to my students.

Pixel vs Vector

Pixel vs Vector

For one of my first assignments for my Photoshop™ class, is to combine graphics created with Illustrator™ with graphics in Photoshop™. The above graphic was my demo graphic for the assignment, I showed my students how it was constructed. I tried to keep it as composed as possible.

The King of Kowloon

My last entry was a commentary of sorts, about companies advertising on pirated DVDs in Vietnam, as an unethical trend and to continue along the line of commentary about design in society. I wanted to write another blog that wasn’t about me or my designs. In 1991 I visited Hong Kong for the first time, on a stop over, during a family trip, I don’t remember if we were returning to Australia or traveling through to England. I remember we stayed on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, and when we traveled to the Island side of Hong Kong we would catch the ferry from the star ferry pier from Tsim Sha Tsui.

Star Ferry Pier Kowloon

This is the first time I saw the calligraphy of Tsang Tsou Choi [曾灶財] who was affectionately know as the King of Kowloon, His calligraphy can be seen all over Kowloon still to this day, I found out recently he passed away in 2007, after accidentally after reading a blog I found while image searching on google.
He always claimed that his ancestors owned the Kowloon peninsula in his calligraphy he would list his family tree, and names of emperors and exclaim “Down with the Queen of England” he had also made complaints as well, that supposedly the government made gross misappropriation of his land, and demanded the government pay him land taxes, even if the claims were a little bit  inconsistent He wasn’t always attacking the queen of England, he also talked about Patriotic movements, glorifying martyrs, heroes, rebels and his estranged wife and children, creating a very public diary of his life, for those that made the time to read his writings.

A photo from a recent exhibition of The King of Kowloons caligraphy

often at times he was considered crazy, as he would scrawl his writings all over Kowloon, lamp posts, walls, the occasional car and many other public areas, I read, even when he was put into a nursing home, he would scrawl his calligraphy all over curtains, cups, mugs and any other inanimate objects.

an illustration dedicated to the King of Kowloon

He was quoted in Colours Magazine as saying “I am not an artist — I am simply the King.”

A photo of Tsang Tsou Choi writing caligraphy at the star ferry pier

Caligraphy by Tsang Tsuo Choi aka The King of Kowloon

The King of Kowloon's Caligraphy on a Car

 

References:
Memories of the King of Kowloon
CNN Go: Tsang Tsou-Choi: King of Kowloon, crazy old man and pioneer of Hong Kong Street Art
King of Kowloon Wiki

Unethical New Trend

Recently in Vietnam I have noticed a new trend with pirated / bootlegged DVDs which I find unethical, the newest trend for pirated DVDs is to put advertisements on the back of the DVD cover for mobile phone games and chat lines. Then when you put the DVD in to your DVD player, it will play two or three television commercials you cannot skip. The ads again are aimed at the mobile phone market.

Pirate DVD with Advertisements

When I asked a colleague of mine “Do you think it is ethical, to buy ad space on, the back of a pirated DVD movie?” the answer was mixed, “If you’re already buying a pirated DVD, you’ve already crossed that line, buying the DVD”. But when asked “But what about the Advertiser, when is it okay to promote a service on an illegal format?.” This is when the line blurs, pirated DVDs are quite common, even so that, pretty much almost every street in the city and even in the suburban areas, there is going to be at least 1 or 2 stores where you can buy pirated DVDs. There is about 3 DVD shops near where I live, and about 2 close where I work, but also there is a lax in Intellectual Property laws.
The trouble is, the norm is often accepted as okay, so for the advertiser and consumer it seems to be ethical.

Vợ Chồng

I was rummaging around the internet for new techniques, then after a while, I decided to play around and come up with my own, and this is the final result, of a technique simulating comic books with halftone printing from the 80s.

California Fitness Buddies

California Fitness Buddies

A while ago I renewed my membership to California Fitness & Yoga Centers, I felt inspired to do some character designs based on the typical stereo types found in a Gym. You always have your token Meat Head, somebody that is just all muscle, then you have what I call a Fridge, normally a very short person, who when puts on too much muscle, there body expands to the sides, and then you have the hamster, who just does cardio, for almost hours on end.

Ghoul Butterfly

Butterfly Ghoul

I teach a subject called User Interaction Design and the main goal is to create an interface using basic flash, i spend a couple of weeks teaching them flash while they develop their interface graphics. The following animation was created from the first week of teaching flash.

I extended the original animation and created the sound track in the Apple application Garage Band

Học làm Bánh Tết với Phật Di Lặc và các Trẻ em

Learn to make Banh Tet with Laughing Buddha & Children

Inspired by my families Tet tradition of making Banh Tet, I created this Illustration, this year I helped with making Banh Tet, my job was to clean the Banana leafs that wrap around the Banh Tet. I also took photos of the whole process start to finish as next year I have to help make Banh Tet.

The main process of making Banh Tet
1. Clean Banana Leafs
2. Arrange two layers of Banana Leaf
3. Spread first layer of rice
4. Place filling in the centre
5. Place second layer of rice on top
6. Wrap up the Banh Tet
7. Boil for 24hrs

I plan at some stage to illustrate all the steps, as a small personal project, I find giving myself little projects helps me with refining my old skills as well as learn and practice new skills.

My wife was telling me that in my graphic my Banh Tet looks more like Banh Chung

Phật Di Lặc the Laughing Buddha

Laughing Buddha

I felt inspired the other day to create a character illustration in the style of my Ghouls Characters, I can’t say I am 100% I am infact Buddhist, but there are many things I agree with in Buddhism. For the design I tried to use some brush fonts but none of them matched the design, so I used my own font that I designed last year.