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Weekend Sketches 03-07

Did some sketches on some scenes from the upcoming Bergwin Tales series with an elephant in it. Armadillos ! Mother and child Below are some sketches that I did from my trip to Ipoh weeks ago, a city approximately 125 miles north of Kuala Lumpur. I love the cool gazebos that were crowned on the peak of the mountain ! It almost feels as if I'm on the research team for KUNG FU PANDA !! I also managed to go on a cave expedition at Gua Tempurung(located in the same city) on the same trip with my friends. Not so much of caving, but it was extremely beautiful inside. It was my first time ever exploring the depths of a cave and it was very important for me to stop,feel and understand the speleology of the cave, even if it means holding back my urge to sketch. It was dark anyway and I had to keep up with the tour, so yeah. I just love the intricacy of the cave and the mysteries it offers. I'll be back to the same cave again this coming July, hoping to go for the wet trail and I'm expecting something good out of it !

Oh, and on the other hand, my sketchbook series passed its ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY, which fell on 9th of May 2011 !! Yayyyy !!!! It actually didn't occur to me that this would continue to become a habit of me keeping them in order and marking dates on them, just like how an author would date his series of story books !

Didn't think that I'd make it in the beginning but I now have a total of 10 books ! Still falling short of 2 books though, as it was meant to be a book a month kinda thing, but anyway, I'm still glad it lasted this long, and this is how it's going to be for life !

Here's a photo to mark my little Sketchbooks one year anniversary !! (Two of them are sitting at the CalArts office now) Over the past one year, I went everywhere with these little guys, learned and grew with them. They mean a whole lot more to me than just papers from the woods. They're my guide, my close friends at heart and I'm blessed to have them with me.

Thank You !!! Love you guys !!!
Posted by Yon at 7:35 AM 4 comments: 
Lion King Broadway ( May 21st, 2011 )

Okay, now before I forget what to write down over here like I did after returning from all the previous trips, I'd like to tell you what I thought of "The Lion King" Broadway show that I went to see together with my friends at Marina Bay Sands Theater, Singapore on the 21st of May 2011(I'm a week late !!)

We were waiting for a shuttle bus to take us to the theater at Marina Bay and it's about 20 minutes before the show officially starts and we were running out of time, so we took the Cab instead, and we made it just in time before the show starts at 2pm.

Everyone who walked into the theater were carved with happy smiles on their faces, each and everyone of them happily and excitingly taking their seats and I was wondering if our seats would do the legendary Broadway show justice. I thought the seats where we(me & my friends)were seated were okay, we had the view size of the performers at the size of our index finger (If I'm not mistaken).

The show opened to a wondrous cheering,clapping and whistling amongst the audience which quickly swept across the entire theater like a Mexican wave when the audiences were greeted with "The Circle Of Life" at the beginning. It was beautiful and every costume and props were so rich in colors and details. The show then went on entrancing the audience throughout the whole show.

All performers were very well-prepared in their respective roles and I certainly had fun watching them, despite the fact that some of the performers were local Singaporeans which could mean that they would have less time preparing for their roles compared to the original casts.

Set Designs, costumes and props were all so beautifully done, each crafted exquisitely introducing African tribal art that were quickly and easily recognized. Special effects that were used in certain scenes were superb as well.

My favorite characters in the whole show would be the giraffes , zebras, antelopes, hyenas, and Rafiki. Each were cleverly designed to work with the human mechanism in alignment with the movement of the animals and they were very believable.

And now, for the part that I didn't enjoy so much, are the extra scenes that I thought didn't quite contribute to the integrity of the original story, but appeared to have prolonged the duration of the show.

I also felt that Timon's design were a little out of place it feels like a plush toy in comparison to all the other character's design that are filled with the richness of African tribal art.

Finally, of course, our seat didn't quite do the show justice. There were a lot of scenes that would have been so much better If we were not seated so high up far away, especially in the scene at Pride Rock where Rafiki held Simba out in his hands, showing him to all the other animals below. Looking at Pride Rock from the bottom, rather than the top would make a vast difference to the viewer's eye. The impact just wasn't as great looking at it from bird's-eye view(or almost).

Still, I wouldn't deny that it was a good performance and all in all it was an enjoyable show if looking at it from a Broadway point of view, rather than putting it next to the original movie itself.

For those of you who are meaning to watch the Broadway version, don't have high expectations that you would get a handful of what you see from the movie. While most of the show stayed true to it's original plot in the movie, expect a little bit of minor changes and additional scenes that will occur throughout the show.

I'm glad I had the chance to watch it with some of my friends who are also huge fans of The Lion King and each has personal views on the show but I have to agree that it just wasn't as great as what I'd expected, but I would say it's still worth the watch !! You definitely cannot miss this if you love Broadway !!

To help with the visualization of how the whole show looks like, here is a trailer to the Broadway show.


So that's what I thought about the show, and now let's talk a little bit about SINGAPORE !!

It was a great trip, and I'm definitely going back there for these few things.

-Garrett popcorn
I've only started munching on Popcorn ever since my brother came back from Singapore with a packet of Garrett Popcorn. That was when I discovered that Popcorn could be such a delicacy. Seriously I've never ordered Popcorn at the movies before that, not even at home. Unfortunately I haven't been having lots of Popcorn over here cuz the one at the cinema sucks. It's like eating toasted crumpled paper.

We spent a great deal of time getting to this place and when I was finally standing outside, I was disappointed and I claimed to my friends, "That's it ?? It's so small.." Not until I get inside to see how huge the store is, and the amount of books they have on the film/video section over there are plentiful. It's really worth visiting just to go get certain books I can't get over here.(Except that they're expensive if you're shifting between dollars to ringgit)

-Movie Store
Here they sell movies that I can't find in Malaysia, especially those that are rare, like The Devil's Backbone, The Mist(With extra features)and a lot of other great films that come in a cheap and reasonable price, good for collection.

-Marina Bay Sands Theater
I'm on the lookout for upcoming shows that Marina Bay Sands Theater will have in the future, and I was actually excited when I got to know that Cirque Eloize will be performing at the theater this coming July, in collaboration with Cirque Du Soleil. I was disappointed when I found out that they'll be performing Cirque Eloize "ID", a circus performance with hip-hop music. Not my type of thing, but again, the theater is definitely worth to be on the lookout.

So that's it I guess. I'll be uploading some sketches I did over the past few weeks. I seriously haven't been lazing around, but I really used up most of my time to go out looking for books and inspiring subjects, studying movies and I promise that those lost weekends will be compensated with more wonderful artworks that are to come !!
Posted by Yon at 8:15 AM No comments: