Gems

I'm finally done with engineering, and my, what a journey it has been. These four years saw a substantial transformation in me. It has changed me from a not-so-confident, not-so-friendly, big-time nerd to a confident, friendly, carefree person. These four years have taught me many lessons of life. It has taught me what friendship really means, thanks to the amazing friends I've made. They've accepted me for me, and have been with me through thick and thin. It's only been a few days since I haven't seen them but I'm already missing them so much.

Here's what I've learnt from the precious gems I've found here:

Amritha - The person who has irritated me the most. The person I fought with the most (after my sister). Our opinions and interests are so completely different, so totally against each other, but there was never a day when we argued about them. My partner in crime. My Siamese twin. She's been there for me all through. She has this uncanny ability to sense when I'm in need of moral support. My best friend.

Deepa - The only person I've met who has the same opinions as I do. People call her a kid, probably because she looks like one, but wait until you are in need of advice. When it comes to seeking advice, she was the person I always went to. She's the one who educated me about boys and their way of thinking :P When it comes to pulling my leg, she has no equal. She's the reason I lost my nerdy qualities for good. She taught me how to enjoy life. She taught me to let go. My best friend. Amritha, Deepa and me were inseparable and were called 'the trio' of the class.

Rashmita - If there's one person who literally took care of me like a mother, that's her. She has this talent of making her point with her sarcastic but endearing sense of humour. It's from her I learnt the importance and how-to of socialising; the learning is still on. If I do have a sense of humour, then all the credit goes to this girl.

Crystal - The defintion of "crazy". Roommate of only six months, a friend from three years. We've had amazing discussions on almost every topic we could think of -- life - the pleasures and pain, religion, world, cultures, arts, music, books, food, science, theatre, people, history, the universe, boys, crushes, love, marriage, dreams, internet, blogging, ghosts, family, friends, movies, the future, secret desires, food, clothes, make-up :P the list will never end. It's from her I've learnt to do what I believe in. It's from her I've learnt that it's ok to be a little crazy and weird.

Sonia - A baby in its true sense. Just like how babies don't care what you think and do things they feel like, Sony is this sweet little 20 year old baby. If someone has to learn caring and sharing, then it has to learnt from Sony.

Bhavna - She'll do anything for her friends. She made me win a silly bet at the cost of her falling sick, only because she wanted her friend to win it. She treats my vices as virtues. I've learnt from her what is to believe in yourself, to believe that nothing is impossible.

Maitreyi - I've realised from her how nice it is to be able to talk in your mothertongue. I'm a little jealous of her in this regard. Listening to her talk in Telugu (unfortunately, we've never conversed in Telugu) I've realised how much I loved and missed talking in my mothertongue.

Arsheed - The guy who's oblivious to the fact that he was responsible to get me out of my shell. We've never had major conversations, but the little thoughtful things he's done for me will never be forgotten. Showed me how little things can make a big difference.

Gowtham - I don't know how and why we're friends. I've never fought with any other guy like I've fought with him. He has irritated me to wit's end, but at the end of the day he's been there for me. He has made me realise what I expect from life and also, what I don't want in life.

Life's lessons

Here's what life's experiences have taught me:

• Hardwork always pays
• Nothing you study goes to waste
• When you lose, don't lose the lesson
• Everything happens for a good reason
• Little things can make a big difference
• If you don't believe you can, no matter how hard you try, you just can't do it
• There's something to learn from every person and every experience
• If you don't love yourself, no one can love you
• More than the destination, it's the journey that's more important
• There's no harm in trying
• Talking bad about someone is not going to do you or that person any good
• Patience and perseverance are key to achieve anything
• Live life for yourself
  

Personalized!

I love colours. I love typography. I love myself. I love my name. The result? See for yourself :DIt had been my desktop wallpaper for a really long time. A totally personalized desktop wallpaper!

Artwork goes digital

My 21st birthday gift from my parents was the best ever! It was a USB tablet and from then on it was bye bye to artwork on a book. My artwork went digital. Though drawing and painting digitally has lot many advantages over the conventional style, it is far more challenging to draw and paint. It's not very easy, requires a hell lot of patience and perseverance to come up with a decent work of art.

I suck at digital painting (you'll see very soon) and can manage to come up with a decent outline of a picture. My first love when it comes to drawing is the human form. So the day I had enough time to spend some quality time with my tablet, the first thing I found was fashion magazine. I opened it and looked for pictures to draw. I drew many out of which a few are being posted here.

The hair and the eyes are the hardest thing to paint. I suck at both. I tried painting one and you yourself can be witness to how much I suck at it. I tried the hair. They look like strings attached to the head. So I didn't bother to try the eyes. The others are just outlines for me to paint on, but for now that's more than enough :P

Muses

I watched the movie Hercules a few months ago, and I loved the animation, the look of the characters and the colour combination used. A book and a pencil immediately appear on the table and I spent hours appreciating and drawing the Muses (and their expressions) -

Baby HerculesBaby Pegasus

Artwork - Animals

I drew these from a book, though animation courses require you to be able to draw looking at animals from real-life.

Self Portrait

A year ago, before placements could happen, I was thinking of alternative courses to do if I didn't get placed, out of which animation was one of them. What rubbish! That's a lie. Animation was the only thing on my mind. I so badly wanted to get into animation, that I started looking at animation courses and degrees all over the world. I read the pre-requisites to join an animation course, and one of the colleges in the USA (Ringling Institute, if I remember right) asked for a self-portrait. Not that I would join the college, but the pre-requisite sounds like a very professional thing to do. I thought that was something I should be able to do after the course, not before. It almost sounded like an impossible thing for me. Then came the night when I decided that I'd do it. I opened a notebook at 11:30 p.m. and with a mirror in front of me I started sketching. At around 1 a.m. I came up with this.
Of course, it doesn't completely look like me (it was my first attempt, after all, at drawing a portrait from real-life), but a semblance of me exists. The most notable flaws are the eyes (they're too large.. someone even called them frog eyes :P), and the expression (that wasn't the expression I had that night :P). The face should've been a little longer too. All in all, I was very happy with the result, and was confident that I'd make it through the admission process had I sent in my artwork.

The Last Layout

This is probably the last timetable layout of my life, unless of course I join a course with classes from 9 to 5. This is the last for my engineering course though.

Inspired by all the cool typography I've been seeing on websites, banners, magazines and design websites.

Tagged

I've been tagged yet again, this time by this little powerhouse called Divlish. This is for you, Devilish Diu! ;)

Aw crap, your iPod's jammed on one song! And you won't be able to get it fixed for a week! What song do you hope to christ it's stuck on?
This song from the Disney classic, Cinderella - "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo". It's such an adorable song!

You learn that your new cable package has the Anytime Movie Channel! Which movie do you immediately flick to?
Madagascar, anytime anywhere.

You walk in the front door and smell dinner cooking! What makes you go, "Oooh, I like that!"?
Chocolate!! Yummm.. I love what my mum makes! She's awesome! Oh yes, I'm capable of having only chocolate (lots of it, of course) for dinner.

What's your favourite season?
I so love the rains. The best part of the whole thing is dancing in the first rains of the season. I miss that so much now.

What's your favourite word?
My favourite word is 'Colour'. I don't know why, but I love it. In terms of word usage, these days I've been using a lot of 'rubbish'. What rubbish! ;)

And your least favourite?
My least favourite word is the word 'mess'. I dislike all kinds of 'mess'. A hosteller would know better. Of course, there are a lot of words I really 'hate'.

If you could be anything in the world when you grow up, what would you be?
A character animator. Everybody knows that! ;)

What's your pet peeve? C'mon, you can tell us! What makes you go, "ARGH!!!!"?
I 'argh' (in my head) when girls gossip. Who cares what she wore the other day?

And finally... Which celeb makes you go all fluttery and swoony whenever you see a picture of them?
Oooh.. Alan Rickman and Antonio Banderas and Meg Ryan!

Great! Now it's your turn to tag some of your friends for this thing!
Tina; Josh Harrow; Amritha and Deepa (if you girls ever start a blog of your own, though I probably know all your answers to the questions ;) )

< hr /> designs

I participated in the divider contest on Smashing Magazine few weeks ago. I sent five entries, out of which four made it to the website, though it didn't make it to the top 25. Not that I ever expected mine to make it there; I'm just an amateur and would never stand a chance against so many professional graphic designers that participated. I'm happy that mine even made it to their website. It boosted my morale and confidence. Just getting selected among the 1000 designs that they received is good enough for me.

Here are the four designs that made it:

And the one that didn't make it (I'm assuming it was because it was too big for a divider):

If anybody wants to use my designs, they may do so without any restrictions whatsoever, that is why these designs were made.

Read more about it, or see more amazing dividers here: [Smashing Magazine]

Painted Umbrella

This idea was originally my sister's, who once told me that she would buy a white umbrella and paint on it. I loved the idea and looked for a white umbrella high and low, in vain. All I could find was this colour, whatever the colour is called. So I sat down to draw one evening, and painted it the next evening with silk paint I had in my room.Unfortunately, for me, I never got to use the umbrella, because everytime I wanted to go out and use it, the rains somehow seemed to know that I was going out, and it would stop raining.

EGO by Sebastian Baptista

Gosh, you have to see this. One of the awesomest videos I've ever seen! There is no limit to creativity, is there? I love typography, and this is how typography was used by Sebastian Baptista in his 40 second video on YouTube.

Time-table layouts

Here are the four time-table layouts I made for this semester. Now, which one do I choose?