winter 2013

Above are some work in progress sketches and illustrations for the popular indigenous digital and board games company, Mad Rats. Do look out for their brilliant products in stores. Below are the illustrations for the much popular Chumbak. These illustrations are for their 2014 calender. A certain number of artists were short listed for the art works and i am proud to mention i was one of them.

A tiny adventure of She & Sui !!

A flash based art work, inspired by the Japanese Art during the Muromachi  Period and Azuchi Momoyama period. Art works of the formerly mentioned era has inspired visual styles for many contemporary animated series which are based on the oriental content.

Some of my favorite Indian Animators!!

Here is one of the characters created by one of my favorite Indian animators, Vibhav Kumerash. I will soon be adding more, so watch out for this post.

red..blue..green...

discrepancies

Never!!Never!! Loose...well that is how the song begins, for which i have created these characters. A friend is working on an animated music video, for which i was asked to create some characters. These are not the final ones as we do not want to ruin the surprise for you. Hope you like them. Photoshop and Flash !

I work on my painting, character design skill whenever i can. Here i experimented a bit with painting and tried some new brushes. I liked this character a lot and i have decided to work on a series of three concept art named Red, Blue and Green. Which is the next post. I will be updating it soon.

wonderful movies!!

Among the list of movies that have released this year yet, i will definitely put Monsters University on the top. More than any thing else it will be for , "nostalgia" reason. I was in the first year of my design school, which is 2001 when Monsters Inc. was in the cinemas, it was directed by Pete Docter and assistant directed by the likes of  David Silverman. I have been a fan of the characters Mike, Sully and the monster world ever since. To see my favorite characters on screen again more than a decade later made me ecstatic beyond description. It was wonderful to see Mike as kid and the awing journey of the two to their destination. I must say Dan Scanlon has done an impressive job with the film, though he has never worked on any of my favorite movies before this one. That being mentioned, it is no surprise i took time out and created an art work. All done in Photoshop. i also added two frames of the working stage hope it is helpful.

Below are some designs and screen shots of the opening credit animation of a upcoming Tamil film. I will be uploading the video soon. It was grueling and delightful at the same time to finish this project on time.

Kalyan Samayal Saadham Credit&Opener.mp4 from PRADEEP SONI on Vimeo.

in transition...

Every now and then i manage some time to read a chapter or two of the book, "Angel of Darkness", the grand murder mystery by Sidney Sheldon. Without doubt, it is a very gripping story. Among the countless extraordinary storytelling qualities of the author, the one which i cannot help mention is his ability to start a chapter which is completely oblivious of the narrative flow and then bring about a transition which links it  all. Speaking of transitions, the summers in Mumbai are nearing an end and the intimidating monsoons are taking subtle steps. Wonder what they are going to be like this time ?! Below is a sketch of some of my colleagues from my previous workplace. All flash.

Some sketches in flash. 

Life is sometime full of pleasant surprises. I submitted the above sketches as an artist to a lifestyle product company and they used it for their T Shirt. I got a free T Shirt too!! Yippeee!! 

A work flow of how i converted my amazing yet depressing table into an awesome one.

new story..new post..

Often mentioned as the "Master Story Teller", Sidney Sheldon has been, a part of my life since i was a child. I had not been a great lover of thick and non illustrated books back then or someone who would meticulously notice the show credits. Else, i would have known that the show with an ancient Jeannie and an astronaut, which entertained me for a while, known as, "I Dream of Jeannie", was created by him. "Angel of the Dark", apparently not one of his best creations, an averagely rated novel by him, is the first one i have come across. Things have definitely flared up in the story, but i suppose i will be writing about it in my upcoming posts.

Above is an illustration i created for my sister's business venture. All flash !

An exploration illustration. All flash !

Some vector illustrations for a print project.

HAPPY !! 2013 :)

"The Aviral" 

A very very happy new year to all of you. Hope this is your best year ever. As per the Chinese culture this is the year of the water snake. And as per the characteristics of the animal he does not settle for mediocrity. That being said, predictions for the year are that of achievements and reaching new horizons.Well, i recently re read one my favorite science fiction writer H. G. Wells's, "The Time Machine". "The Time Machine", apart from being a groundbreaking work of science fiction introducing the intriguing idea of time travel, also comments on the current social structure and and it's repercussion on the future. It, very fascinatingly describes the evolution of the humans into two different species, "The Eloi" and the ,"Morlocks". I wouldn't go on writing about the story any further as you may not have read the book.  Very often the morphing of the human stereotypes into fictional characters reminded me of the allegory by George Orwell, "The Animal Farm", which again is another great novel, and maybe i will write about it someday again when i am re reading it or making an illustration inspired by it. Above is the caricature of one my college senior and friend Aviral Saxena http://www.facebook.com/aviral.saxena . He is a magnificent and brilliant graphic designer and an artist. Below that is a tiny tutorial of how to go about making, "The Aviral". 

My year started with a little encouragement as the brilliant "Creative Gaga Magazine", featured some of my recent works. I want to thank them and i hope to do a lot more and better work in future. http://www.facebook.com/CreativeGaga?fref=ts