After the fall of Virgin Comics and India’s Gotham Entertainment ,
Vimanika Comics is set to do a much better job with strong stories and stunning artwork. Can’t wait to check more of they stuff out.
Times interview with Karan Vir Arora, editor-in-chief of Vimanika Comics
Also check out Selling Books vs Promoting Indian Culture
Karna Statue crafted for the winner of the Sketch Karna contest winner
Born and raised in Toba, Japan, Yoskay Yamamoto moved to the United States at the age of 15. A self-trained illustrator, Yamamoto’s artistic tastes expanded as he fell in love with the urban culture of the West coast. Yamamoto discovered a way to fuse the two different cultural backgrounds together into his work. Yamamoto nostalgically blends pop iconic characters from his new Western home with traditional and mythical Japanese elements, balancing his Asian heritage with urban pop art.
I particularly like his carvings and sculpture work. Wonderful little characters which lend themselves to illustration rather well.
love this painting for its illustrative style and simple brush work, but forgot to take down the name of the artist
I think this is cared out of marble, i like the head and form
These make me smile, great figures
12 July 2010
Onto the last stage of the piece, the lotus. I started by first doing a paper rough to get an idea of size and how deep i wanted the lotus to be.
The paper lotus was reproduced with a heavy weight card and then covered in plaster of paris. The depth was about right but the shape was not as rounded as i hoped. Also i wanted the lotus leaves to be thinner. By the time i would have added clay, baked and sanded the leaves i recon they would have been crude and much larger.
Back to the drawing board and i found a bowl that was the right size to fit the cobras in.
You can faintly see the dividing lines on the green piece of paper underneath the bowl. This gives me a guide for the leaves to be placed. I then added the new leaves but i seem to have gotten the size wrong and never account for the overlapping. Thus i got to start the leaves again and this time i will have the chance to add more form and shape.
Once the leaves are all perfect and placed correctly i hope to lay the clay on-top of the bowl to retain the shape. If all goes well then some light sanding after baking. I just hope the leaves dont crack or break after baking and during the sanding stage.
21 July 2010
Started by making some template leaves and placing them around the outside of bowl to get the correct shape. Im hoping it will bake alright when i turn it upside down.
Made a minor mistake though as the leaves are about 2cm short and so when i place the cobras in them the final lotus the leaves will not cover as much of the body as id like. I also noticed i made a small mistake with the last leave as it does not overlap the first leave correctly. It should all look seamless. Im happy with the flow of these leaves I’m not looking for a perfect lotus but rather a lotus, flame, fire thing….
22 July 2010
I covered the bowl in some non stick spray and ended up dropping it, shattered to bits into the clay. Agh, now i need to find another bowl with the same radius and depth.
26 July 2010
Decided to redo the leaves and add a small indent for where each leaf sits into the next. Makes everything proportional. Also made a cardboard template to help get some consistency. Then placed each leaf flat on the table and transfered it to the bowl. Smoothed out any bumps and refined the tips. With a small dent in the bottom from another bowl to make sure all the pieces stuck together firmly.
05 August 2010
Whooooooooop!
Yip finally i think i have got a grasp of baking clay. No cracks and the clay came apart from he bowl with no problems. The tape on the bowl works as a guide for how long the laves have to be. Really happy with final result and the “swirl” effect.
Next some light sanding to get rid of some imperfections on he tips of the leaves. Then a coat of paint on the outside. Im not going to paint the inside yet as placing the cobras in and taking them out is going to cause the PVA paint to chip. Wish i had some airbrush equipment to do a thorough job.
08 August 2010
All 4 pieces
Current state of things.. 
Related Posts:
> The Boy – Work in progress
> The Boy/Cobras – Breakage and Restart
> The Boy / Cobras – Updated Photos
> The Boy / Cobras & Lotus Prototypes
Heres a few updated pics of how the sculpture is coming along. Full colour photos coming soon..
The above shot is the inside spiral of the cobras body/tail. Some of the paint has not dried properly and so earlier today i removed it with a little piece of sandpaper and tomorrow i will paint it again. The little black hole you see on the body is a place for the trident to sit in so it does not slip, see below.
After 3 coats of paint on both The Cobras and The Boy, he ended up squeezing into his rightful place. So i had to sand the edges of his legs down slightly and repaint, now he fits nice and snug with a little room to maneuver.
3 July 2010
These are some sketches from the last few days.
Left – Initial head sketch for the drawing below
Middle – Some quick sketches of the boys smile
Top Middle – Lotus leaf prototype draft (more on this later once the Cobras are perfect)
Right – Rough sketch
4 July 2010
A quick sketch i did in pen. Might look good as a tidy b/w vector.. Still need to add the trident in though.
Related Posts:
> The Boy – Work in progress
> The Boy/Cobras – Breakage and Restart
> The Boy / Cobras – Updated Photos
> The Boy / Cobras & Lotus Prototypes
So wish this was included in the Saatchi exhibition, The Empire Strikes Back.
I really want to know more about this piece. I want it.
Nice to see him progress from the stainless steel utensils.
Title : Cosmic Battle
Date(s) : 2009-2010
Material : bronze, paint, wire and lights
Faith Matters is Subodh Gupta’s first major solo show in Eastern Europe. For this exhibition, Gupta has created four new sculptures and a series of nine new paintings. With these new works, Gupta focuses on the shifting of national identity and cultural change.
> More images > http://www.thisistomorrow.info/viewArticle.aspx?artId=217
I spent about a month or two working on the first cobras back in Oct 09. Making a wireframe armature, adding detail and eventually sanding the clay down to a smooth surface. Heres how it was looking…
Iit looks like the wireframe was not build correctly and there were some weak spots resulting in some deep cracks where the heads met the body. I say deep crack but i eventually took the head off to see how weak it actually was.
That was around December 09. After having a break for a few weeks i sketching and planning round 2 of the Cobras. I also decided to make them a little taller than the previous version.
13 February 2010
I started by building a new wireframe and adding a few layers of paper mache to help strengthen the whole armature and hopefully reinforce any bits that might need extra support. I learned a great deal form the first ones about production and balance.
Last night I finished the paper mache part of the process and im really happy with the new form and spiral body. Getting the spiral right and having two extruding heads to support has been tough.
I think it’s safe to move onto the clay part of things now but i am a little nervous about how thick the cobra heads will turn out and if the armature will survive the vigorous sanding process later.
22 February 2010
Started adding the first layer of clay to the painted armature and tried to get it as smooth as possible. This processes took months in total to get the right form and smooth out any bumps.
In the pic below i tried adding a tongue but it made me little scare.
14 June 2010
It was difficult to get the back of the smaller cobras head smooth as there was very little space to work with in between the two. With the larger cobra it was also very difficult to get the form of its hood smoothed out in areas where i could barely get a finger in.
Final sculpted cobras before backing
15 June 2010
I baked the cobras for about 15mins and ended up with a few hairline cracks around the coiling body and cobras hoods. You can see some of the repair work on the back of the large cobra’s head below.
!8 June 2010
All cracks and breaks have been fixed and i have just finished a few coats of paint.
Got a little excited and started on a lotus prototype made out of paper.
Final repaired, sanded, 4 coats of base white, final sanding, finished Cobras
Sorry about the latest photos its a webcam photo as my camera is damaged, i hope to get some good quality pics up soon with additional notes on the process.
Would have been nice to have airbrushed the sculptures, but i just dont have the required equipment.
These sculptures have traveled over 3 continents over the last 2 months and in all taken a year on and off to get to this stage. Mostly my free time and some late evenings. Its all a little D.I.Y but learning as i go along.
Related Posts:
> The Boy – Work in progress
> The Boy/Cobras – Breakage and Restart
> The Boy / Cobras – Updated Photos
aAHAHAHAHA
