My Art - Dark Knight Rises

painted with Sketchbook Pro on my iPad - Bane, the man who broke the Bat

painted with Sketchbook Pro on my Bamboo Fun tablet - "girl's gotta eat" - Selina Kyle

One of my highly anticipated movie hit the screen last week - Dark Knight Rises. Went online, grabbed a few reference pics and started painting away... the only thing missing? Batman... that could come.

Mirrors Georgetown - Mural paintings 2012

one of many, from Armenian street. Almost missed this one as I was searching for the famous painting below, this is a bit more subtle but nice nevertheless

Mirrors Georgetown 2012 - a collection of mural arts around Georgetown Penang in conjunction with Georgetown Festival 2012 by international artist Ernest Zacharevic.

They are slowly painting this throughout the city in June - July 2012.

More info could be found here…
http://georgetownfestival.com/node/99

this is the most famous piece of them all at the moment and I can see why

another angle, noticed that the bicycle is actually embedded into the wall.. :)

 more to come as I collect more of them.. :)

Belkin stride 360 slim backpack

The picture showed the front compartment used to store some sort of eReader. I wouldn't bet my money on it to store my iPad. Not that it would fit but, nah, a slight accidental press on it and there goes the screen

Okay, been wanting a nice and simple backpack to replace my current Sony one which I got from free. Not that it's bad or anything but I just want something much padded with sponge for extra comfort and simple design.

Requirements:-
1) simple design
2) smallest design for a backpack (to fit a laptop, I found this 14")
3) enough space for me to fit my Macbook Air, charger, cables, perhaps mouse even, water bottle
4) cheap/affordable enough

Today I simply went in to one of the local IT hardware store and browsed around. Found this backpack from Belkin (the brand I like for accessories and backpack/pouches). Took out the stuffed papers inside and check out all the compartments, was happy with it and the price is not too bad (RM170).

The size is just right, 14", although my Macbook Air is 13" but it'll do.

nice and simple frontal design, chose gray color instead of black for that added special touch

this is actually interesting, I found out when I look at the little paper thing attached to the backpack. It's actually magnetic earbud holder which can technically latch your earbuds like so. I have a small problem with one of the magnets though as the position is the same as my earphone's so they reflect each other but the right side one seems fine. I don't really mind as I have yet to see the practical use of it. Perhaps when I travel a lot eventually. We'll see but it's a nice touch

there, the main attraction itself. Nice and tight, warm and fuzzy inside, there is however missing piece which I tend to look forward to to latch on and secure the notebook but lately when I compare most of the laptop bags, they do not feature this anymore so I would have thought it's the current trend. 

Overall, currently satisfied. I'll put it through it's paces and see how it does in the coming weeks/months.

Street Art @ Gurney Plaza - 2012

I've always been facinated by street art, typically the ones that people painted on the floor and resembled something 3D. 
I had the chance to witness this first hand today. 
The painting is now on displayed at the entrace of Gurney Plaza (the one facing sea side). 
To get the best viewing angle to simulate the 3D picture, stand in front of the painting facing into the entrance. There's 1 X marked on the floor, just stand there, position yourself in such a way that the "wall" with the window that the boy is looking out, is horizontally straight to you. 
If you see it correctly, it will simulate that the entrance floor leading to the plaza is actually an apartment and Spiderman is crawling out from it on the left. 
Very very nifty!
Bravo to the painter(s)!

This is the best view that I can capture so far. Notice the wall of the apartment window is facing you straight? this is needed for the illusion to work. =) I loved the nice touch that Spiderman's fingers are reaching out to grab the ledge of the floor, I mean roof.

The view from right

Another view from left, see Spidey is all but distorted...

A view at the back of the piece... looks like pyramid to me

If something, these interesting 3D street art showed us 1 thing. Things can appeared differently if you look at them from a different perspective.

Cheers and have a nice day ahead. =)

P/S: Credits go to the 30 fine students from The One Academy who put up this absolutely amazing piece for our eyes... hopefully more to come in the famous landmarks across Penang. :)
Good job guys!!!

Lego 6867 - Cosmic Cube Escape set simple review

Actually saw this Lego set on their website which I would frequent once a while to see what's new. The moment I saw Ironman's minifig, I knew I must collect at least 1 and I glad I did.

Read on to find out... 

The complete casts with the truck

The truck itself is not my main highlight. I only want the minifig, but heck, paying full price for just Ironman fig is a bit far fetch and overkill even for me. hahahhaa... so I just had to assemble the whole thing. 

The truck itself actually has a nice deep blue color scheme and as you can see from the couple of pics below, they come with some small stickers for you to put on which has the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo and some graphic textures on the bonnet.

It's a sturdy looking truck with big rubbery tires which feels nice and adds a bit of bulk to it. the top of the roof doesn't open by some hatch piece but you have to take the whole thing off which is a small bummer.

You can position Hawkeye inside as the driver according to the set but I think 2 other characters should be ok as well.

There's a small mechanism at the back of the truck which  the back of the set tells you to press the red piece at the end which can lift the piece up at a small angle and throws whoever that's standing (minifig's leg connected to 1 circle piece protruding out) but I tried it and he won't fly off) Guess that's a good thing, it only fancies kids

 

These I presume is some sort of missile thingy which has a small warning sign on the instruction booklet to be careful when playing with it. I don't see the harm, the missile just connects and held by the grey piece which is quite tight and I tested, it can't really fly off at all. It would come off slowly... 

Again, not a bad looking truck at all

ahh.... the main highlight. Ironman - simulates flying/hovering with 2 blue transparent piece. 2 small circular blue piece to be put on top of his hands (note, you have to put it on the flushed portion which is normally facing up and hence have to twist them downwards) to simulate flight stabilizers. Loki in the middle with his big horns helmet and nice textured cape which is quite stiff I must say and the boring cosmic cube (it's named Tesseract in the movie, they should have made something nicer to enhance the collective values) and last but not least, Hawkeye with cool shades on him and nice hairdo, sporting a bow. 

1 interesting note, aside from Loki's head, Tony Stark and Hawkeye both sports 2 faces printed on them, you can twist and turn to reveal them, usually 1 with normal/cool looks and 1 more aggressive/combat mode. nice touch...

Tada! The neat thing, Ironman's mask actually opens up to reveal his face. What a very nice implementation, I would have been happy if they just give me a simple Ironman helmet but this is a very very nice touch.

Well, that's it. Hope you find this brief review interesting and would go out and grab your own set. I would be aiming at Captain America's motorcycle set.