Painting and Mod

I know a lot of people are waiting patiently (some impatiently) for Hari Singh Nalwa. Believe me when I say that I want to finish it up and get it out, more than you guys! But it's going to take some time primarily because I am also working on a mod for AOE 3 on the side. I spent the past several days completely focused on the mod. I revisited the Mughal Bhumi unit to correct for team colours (which I will be sharing soon because he looks awesome!). After finishing him up, I began working on the the Sikh irregular and regular cavalry. Sikhs have four cavalry units. The French-trained Cuirrasiers, the Lancers, the Ghorchurra and camel swivel guns, Shutarnal. The former two are strictly melee units, use swords and spears and are good against infantry and artillery. The latter two are ranged units, they use a matchlock and are good against other cavalry units.

I feel that all of this work is putting a dent in my learning process. I mean it's great to spend hours painting each ring of a chain mail but it's not an effective way to learn and get better. For that I should be doing studies which I have not done since forever. The last time I did studies was for Bhai Bachittar Singh. I did some sketches of elephants to get a feel for them. After doing these sketches I felt like I understood elephants better than I did before. It is through doing studies that we learn. e.g. when we want to know ourselves, we meditate, we do simran. When we want to know nature, we read books and research papers. Studying is very important for growth and maturation. So the plan for the rest of this week and the upcoming week is to continue to paint that chain mail because I want to finish Hari Singh Nalwa and move on to other paintings I have planned!

I almost forgot to mention, Diablo 3 is coming out next Tuesday! I know I am going to be playing the Monk or Witch Doctor. XD

The Lazy One?

No more. I am blogging. And doing it now. Not much to say. I have been lazy and what is worse is I have been letting me be lazy.
Or maybe... maybe I feel like I am letting me be lazy but it's a diet or health issue, where my lack of energy is letting me be lazy and causing laziness in the first place. Let me explain. I lost 20 pounds after summer. I have been weight lifting and playing badminton this school year. I know right.. weight loss and weightlifting don't go hand in hand. Especially when one's weight is normal to begin with and they end up bordering on being underweight for their height and age. One ought to gain some weight. I don't think I am getting enough nutrition to accommodate these activities. Bloating and loss of appetite are not helping. How are you going to get nutrition when you are not eating because you feel full al lthe time? So a week ago I decided I am not going to let this happen to me. I did the much-needed research on my symptoms and found an appropriate solution. I decided to take Hajmola (yep, good ol' ayurvedic medicine), which I had stopped taking several years ago. I didn't even know we had some around the house. (Which Indian family doesn't?) It seemed to have worked. My appetite and bloating has returned to normal.

Or it maybe a psychological issue, relating to the changes in my environment, from a science environment to an artistic one. When I was in science, I would look forward to working on my art projects when I got home. After a whole day of biology, microorganisms, bacteria, metabolic systems and what not, the only thing on my mind would be how much time will I have to work on my project after doing the homework. Now when all my projects are art related, I am not looking forward to doing more art when I get home. I am just looking to relax and browse the internet and watch stupid Youtube videos.

Or both. Psychological issue causing the physical issue.

I don't know.

All I know is that I am not doing the things I want to be doing. I have not worked on the AOE 3 mod since Christmas break. I have not put as much effort into completing Hari Singh Nalwa, nor into completing the improved Baba Deep Singh.

Maybe rationalizing and explaining my laziness may not be the best solution. Maybe the best thing to do is to recognize the laziness or the excuses you make when you are lazy and to simply do the thing you are supposed to be doing.

Lazy? No more. I am drawing. And doing it now. Nothing is going to stop me.

AOE3 Mod - Nihangs and Tabinan Lancers

I ended up finishing the Nihang textures for all upgrades, Nihang, Veteran Nihang, Honored Nihang (the game is American, we decided to keep the Honored spelling as they were) and Legendary Nihang. Nihangs are still the only Sikh unit in the mod. After studying Sikh armies I found out they were always a mix of various ethnicity and religions e.g. Muslims dominated in the Sikh artillery. Only the Nihangs were completely Sikh in their make-up. Hence there will be two Nihang unit, the Chakram and this mod's Nihang. The latter is available for recruitment in the barracks, the former is only available through shipments as Chakram belongs to the Udasi sub-civ.
There have been changes from the last update on Nihang textures. For one their clothes will change colour according to the team colours. So if the team colour is blue their clothes will be blue but if the team colour is red their clothes will be red. I also gave them chain mail to wear underneath the Char Aina armour. And I re-textured the shield to look like an Indian Dhal.
From Left to right, 3 Nihangs, 3 Veteran Nihangs (gained chainmail and a shield) and 3 Honored Nihangs (gained char aina and a katar). In history most Nihangs would have been without much armour but what the heck they look awesome! Legendary Nihangs have the same textures as Honored Nihangs.



I began working on Mughals yesterday and ended up completing their Tabinan Lancer unit for all upgrades Veteran TL, Honored TL and Legendary TL. Mughals also had awesome cavalry archers. I have begun texturing their Tabinan Archers. Currently looking for ways to show their upgrades to Veteran and Honored. Mughals will retain India's elephants and Zamburak so I don't need to texture anything else for the Mughals. I am reworking their Bhumi militiamen unit, as the previous model did not allow for team colours to appear on the unit. This is important since their Dhal will not look like a blue bulls-eye as it did previously but more like the Nihang shield shown above, and so it will not have team colours. That means the team colours must appear on the unit somewhere.
I have asked my team partner to do a mod write-up, which will be a proper overview of the mod. it will present all Civilizations, their units, specialties, explorer units, etc. When it is ready I will publish it.


From left to right, Tabinan lancer, Disciplined tabinan Lancer and Honored Tabinan Lancer.

Oh and a Merry Christmas and Happy Gurpurab to all!





Legendary Nihangs invade enemy colony and are immediately met with resistance.

Legendary Tabinan Lancers destroy invading European artillery.

ROM 2: European and Indian Firearms

Last weekend we paid ROM a visit yet again. This time with a smaller sketch group we put our attention to the European firearms section.

I left this section after drawing several pistols and revolvers to draw Indian medieval guns: Toradar and the Afghani gun: Jezail. Let me tell you, looking at photos online and looking at actual guns in front of you are two totally different experiences. The latter is much more rich and vivid. "You had to be there" sort of thing. All the details on the guns are visible from the designs and embellishment to the marks and scratches that it accumulated over the years.

By the way, Toradar will be seen in my Hari Singh Nalwa painting, and Jezail appears with the Afghan musketeers in the Age of Empire 3 Mod I am working on.

There are always lots of children in the ROM. At one point, while I was studying the bedsheet/curtain motifs, a whole bunch of kids gathered around me to look at the designs I was studying. But never have I had a child look at my work so closely. While I was studying firearms in the European section, one Asian kid came up and literally hovered over my sketchbook to see what I was doing. He was so intrigued and fascinated by it! We also talked a little bit before I went back to my meditation.

We are filled with so much curiosity when we are children. We look at things and enjoy them simply through our senses without thinking about events from the past or worries of the future. We simply look and are satisfied by the act of looking. Fulfilled with any sense experience that comes our way.

Sheridan, ROM and Birds

Sheridan's been awesome so far. I am enjoying the experience of drawing for hours and hours everyday. I have been drawing from life, still life and boxes mostly.

The first week I just happened to stumble into like-minded people who (with intensity) wanted to get better at making art. We were sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch talking about art and artists mostly. We somehow got into a discussion of making a sketchgroup that would go around sketching things, people, environment, etc. While we were still discussing the details, I suggested that we get started without wasting precious time discussing it. Usually when you want to do something, you end up talking about it for hours and hours and when the time comes to actually do it, you are too tired to actually do it. If you still have the energy to do it sometimes you feel gratification for just having discussed it. You feel satisfied that you discussed the idea and think you can get away with delaying action. I was not going to let that happen to us.

So I said "Let's do it!" and we began sketching people in the cafeteria. I discovered that I really enjoyed doing this. Not only because some people are really cool and you get into interesting conversations with them while you sketch them but also because in the caf, people are talking, gesturing, going through series of facial expressions, eating lunch and moving around. These moving faces and hands are very difficult to draw... and I found I really enjoyed this challenge.

Yesterday, we took our sketchgroup to the Royal Ontario Museum to study things like dinosaurs, animals, birds and carpet motifs. Yes carpet motifs. For my Hari Singh Nalwa piece, I wanted to study Indian carpet, bedsheet and curtain motifs so I can make the painting look authentic. I want to have the painting look historically accurate and have a royal feel to it. After my study, I will paint similar designs onto the carpet and walls, which right now are the only major things that are left in the painting.

I studied the hanging bedsheet/curtain thing for an hour or so before moving on to birds and animals. People were walking by complimenting us and asking us question about our program and why we were drawing etc. Sometimes hovering too closely to look at the work... which sometimes got awkward... Good times. :)

Akali: Warrior Monk

I'll keep this one short since I want to keep a balanced post length on this blog.

I always wanted to do a female warrior inspired by Sikh aesthetics. I have painted several Akali-inspired males in a fantasy setting so I thought my next one should be a female. Luckily everything here just fell into place, the colours, pose, armour and everything. The male ones did not turn out as well as this one, which is why I did not upload them. However, they became a source of ideas and inspiration for me.

Inspired by Akali Snake Charmer piece, the idea came from a painting of one of those male Akalis, in whose background I had drawn a silhouette of an Akali with a really tall turban and armour spikes. So I cropped out the silhouette, enlarged it and started working on it.

This piece was obviously inspired by Akalis but Akali women never dress like this nor are they ever monks. This made it really exciting for me to work on it. I intended to push the fantasy style and context of this piece by adding armour pieces that are clearly unreal. It is not possible to fight in such large turbans either. (Hint: This is a fantasy piece NOT a historical one.)

This was a nice break from my Hari Singh Nalwa painting.


Click on the image to see the full version.

Painting Hari Singh Nalwa

Last month, I spent my time mostly working on Baba Deep Singh and all other works in progress. This month I did not work on other paintings, rather I studied Art (yes, it is something you have to study) and focused my attention completely towards Hari Singh Nalwa.

I have been making some changes to Hari Singh Nalwa. This painting just keeps getting better and more challenging. One could say it is growing up like a human child. It is currently a teenager, very difficult... at a stage where I must have a lot of patience with it.
For one I added some more canvas at the bottom, expanding the piece to show Hari Singh Nalwa's feet and the carpet below his feet, like in Ingres's Napoleon. That not only opened up the space, gave this teen some room to breathe but provided some opportunities to add in Indian carpets and other props like a shield and a musket.
Paintings start to "plateau off" (like a square-root graph, yay math!) after a while. The progress on them starts to slow down as more research is done and when more items and photographs are collected. This process itself makes the painting very valuable but this is where patience and persistence is necessary to keep the artist going. At this stage, the painting gets quite frustrating. Not only because of the additional research on small details but because the artist himself grows and his vision expands, at every new stage he has a better vision than he had before. So he continuously strives to turn the painting into his vision, and every time he thinks he's captured it, it escapes right before his eyes and becomes more magnificent. It is a never ending battle that I am also "fighting" with Baba Deep Singh Ji's painting.

I had stumbled across this video last year "In Praise of Steel". It was a recording of a presentation by historian Davinder Singh Toor. I thought it was very informative and quite entertaining to watch. I recommend it to anyone who does not know about Sikh history and also to those who think they know about Sikh history... to everyone really. In the video, he presented quite a lot of photos and paintings of Sikh related artifacts. And so when it came time to detail Hari Singh Nalwa, to work on the very minute but important bits, I felt I did not have enough resources, I contacted him and he was very generous to help me out with lots of references - these mind blowing close-up images of ancient Sikh weapons, helmets, armour and battle standards! I cannot thank him enough.

AWESOME!

Going back to Ingres's Napoleon. I think it is an awesome painting, the design decisions he made, truly add a majestic touch to Napoleon as he sits on the throne. Napoleon is made to look like an emperor. Indeed it was painted when Napoleon rose to the throne. With Hari Singh Nalwa, 'majestic' is good but he is a general and not at Maharaja Ranjit Singh's level. So I removed the throne I previously had. Also because I did not find a single image with Sikh thrones looking like that.

I also found an old painting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh on his throne (though not the throne most of us might be familiar with). Now what was special about this painting was that wall behind him, had a design painted on it. I am experimenting to see whether it will sit well behind Hari Singh Nalwa. Also there are some tricky shadows and lighting in Hari Singh Nalwa that I am constantly dealing with. The shadows overlap some complex structures. Another issue is painting accurate carpet designs and the other designs and patterns.

Hari Singh Nalwa's going to have some designer clothing. ;) I noticed a lot of rich, high status men did not wear bland single-colour clothes, rather they wore clothes with patterns. They wore rings, plumes, with ornate armour. Not to mention, ear-rings... Yes, high-status men of this era are seen to wear big loopy earrings. Not sure if this trend started from or before the Gurus times, it certainly seems that way from the artwork I am looking at from the 1800s.

Some people pointed out how Hari Singh Nalwa looked very old in the speed painting. They are in fact, correct. Hari Singh Nalwa was 46 when he died, around Guru Gobind Singh ji's age, who was 42. In Hari Singh Nalwa's paintings, his beard is shown to be very grey at 46, and I suspect that even Guru Gobind Singh ji's beard would be very grey... if it was, it is a major flaw in previous paintings of Guru Gobind Singh ji. Even in my own Machhiwara scene, he should really have a more grey beard. Another small bit of info I picked up along the way.

Anyways, here's a nice big sneak peek at Hari Singh Nalwa. A lot of the engravings on armour and other designs e.g. on the battle standard, are still incomplete. The kara, ear-rings and musket are also incomplete. I end up going through many shabads, songs, videos, breaks, going-out-and-never-coming-back-to-it-for-several-days... while I work on these things. It can pretty tricky trying to curve the pattern around the gauntlet, for instance.