My Desktop for the season

Not so much Christmas spirit as it is just me being goofy. Merry Christmas, folks.

Film Review: Big Man Japan

Big Man Japan (2007)

Film Review By Nabeel "Touya" Mohammed

I've just seen a big film.

And boy WHAT a big film. Equal parts drama, comedy, farce, parody and action, Big Man Japan is my favorite movie of the year that quite possibly no one else will see.

Big Man Japan (aka Dai Nipponjin) stars, and is written and directed by, Hitoshi Matsumoto. He plays Masaru Daisatō, who seems, at first, to be the subject of a documentary. A camera follws him around a typical day in his depressing and dejecting bachelor's life as we are slowly clued in that Daisato is not only famous, but infamous as graffiti litters his house and rocks are routinely thrown through his windows. What has Daisato done to earn the ire of the populace?

He grows to the size of a building and battles monsters.

Yeah.

You read that right.

Daisato is the latest in a 4 generation long dynasty of monster busting big men. Starting in world war 2, his family line has been given the trait of growing to gargantuan proportions when imbued with electricity (it also has the side effect of making his hair stand on end) which he uses to protect Japan from the odd monster invasion.

Aside from this, Daisato is an introverted, unhappy and desperate man. His manager drives a new car while he takes the train, his wife and child want nothing to do with him and he provokes a feeling of mild indifference bordering on irritation from the Japanese people who see him as little more than a symbol of a hamhanded and kitch era. His rather unique job gives him no solace from this either, as his only weapon is a pathetically trim iron club and he is forced to wear sponsorship signs on his chest and back to make his meager monthly salary.

In his private life, Daisato finds a quiet and curious fascination with things that grow. Subtly, he

finds kinship in the mundanities of things like soft brown seeds which get bigger in water. The calmness of the scene is broken suddenly by Daisato being called away to fight a giant monster with an eyeball in it's crotch.

Yeah.

Truly though, it's a movie that hits both it's highs and lows with equal intensity and shouldn't be

missed by anyone with an appreiciation for the truly kitch aethetics of a bygone era and the sad rote with which they fit into today's society. The true icing on the cake however, is an ending that makes very little logical sense, but leaves the rest of the previous plot open for wide interpretation, and should be analysed by everyone from students of sociology and politics to fans of tokuatsu and kaiju movies.

Matsumoto took five years to make this movie and it's brilliant in it's absurdity. I urge everyone who is a fan of Japanese culture and films which question the human condition to seek out this wonderful film and give it a heartfelt viewing. Once you are able to see this elephant from all sides, you will not be dissapointed. As Watchmen was to the American comic superhero, so is Big Man Japan to Japan's past age of monster movies and costumed rangers.

Also, eyes for crotches. Yes.

Vangelust

Nathan Explosion

Doodling at work again

Bored at work

Decided to experiment a bit. Initial sketch done in sai, inks done in illustrator and finished in photoshop with a brush I've never used before. Thoughts?

Design progress

There's a new update over at the blog for my new show.

Dude Wait What Comics

Follow me on twitter.

Follow me on twitter now:

http://www.twitter.com/TF_Touya


Yeah.... O_O

My desktop at work.

When I get bored at work....I draw myself a new desktop.

(The windows skin is Broken Aero. It inspired me to come up with the doodle.)

Thanks to all my new followers

Wow up to six followers now. I hadn't even began advertising yet. :D

Okay, just to let you all know, by January, I'm doing the plotting stages for an animated series on Youtube, you can follow the devblog at dudewaitwhatcomics.blogspot.com.

(Yeah, I know there's nothing there yet, but you can always follow now and by Jan that's where all the interesting dev sketches and promo art is going to be found).

And seeing as I have followers now, I'll be working on actually posting more stuff soon.

Thanks for tuning in!

-Touya

Just messing around in Artrage

Just brainstorming a new logo design

For Hi Lo supermarkets, a local grocery chain. They didn't ask for this or anything, but they've been using the same logo since the 70's so I figured a bit of an update was in order.

Here's the old one:

And my redesign:

I went with much cleaner lines, glossy edges, minimalist fonts, heavy use of negative space for that breathy, expansive feel and bright colours for basic eyecatching. Doubt they'll like it though.

EDDIE RIGGS

no commission...just wanted to draw.

My feelings on the 100 sketch marathon I'm doing

A sketch for a friend's fanfic

Friend of mine asked me to help him visualise a character for a Beast Wars fic. I doodled this while we talked.

On becoming more professional with the whole blog thing

I'm doing a bit of housecleaning here. I've stopped using the damn thing as an image dump and I'm gonna start using it for unfinished sketches and art for folks who don't wanna have to sign up for my Furaffinity page or DA page.