I’ve been traveling for almost 2 months after finishing visual effects work on a yet to be released film project, first a couple of weeks in my hometown of Singapore and then 2 weeks in Tokyo before returning to Vancouver. As usual the jetlag is starting to kick in, but I’ve already started to sort through and edit the many photographs I’ve taken, so stay tuned for more coming soon. It has been a good many years ( more than a decade if my memories serves me well ) since I had the opportunity to visit Tokyo during the Sakura season, and they are just as mesmerizing as I remember. The blossomin ..read more

Some pictures of Criterion Collection’s 4K release for Chilean/Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar’s critically acclaimed gothic supernatural psychological horrorThe Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman. I kinda feel this movie was rather underrated and also overlooked at the box-office during its initial release because just 2 years ago (1999) another supernatural film called The Sixth Sense had a similar twist ending, but I really really like the super moody lighting and cinematography of this one. This 2 disc set comes with a 4K UHD presentation on one disc and the regular blu-ray + suppl ..read more

Noriyoshi Ikeya (池谷仙克) is a Japanese art director who has been involved in the art and character design for several television programs, including Tsuburaya Productions and Senkosha Productions. Ikeya was born in 1940 and, after graduating from Musashino Art University, was invited by his senior Narita Toru, to join Tsuburaya Productions. He took on various roles such as stage design, special art assistant, art direction, and mechanical design. Between him and his senpai Narita Toru, both of them have created some of the most impressionable and iconic kaijus for Ultraman, including Takkong, A ..read more

I’ve recently had a renewed interest and new found respect for New Zealand director Jan Campion after first watching her 2021 film The Power Of The Dog, and then subsequently the re-visiting of her critically acclaimed movie The Piano (1993) after acquiring the Criterion Collection 4K print. While I have not seen all the movies in her filmography ( the only other ones been In The Cut and Bright Star, the latter of which I really enjoyed ), there is enough accumulated interest on my end to want to learn more about her filmmaking techniques and processes, and this book seems like a good candida ..read more

Henri-Paul Motte (13 December 1846 – 1 April 1922) was a French painter from Paris, who specialised in history painting and historical genre. Motte was a pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme and began to exhibit at the Paris Salon from 1874 onwards. The painting Le cheval de Troie (The Trojan horse) was the artist’s début at the Salon, and was acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum in 2011. In 1892 he was made a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. He won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle (1900). He is best known for his work of the Siege of La Rochelle ( first image below ), a depiction of Cardinal ..read more

Hometown Roads is the second postcard book by Mateusz Urbanowicz ! ( read my review for the first book here ) It includes 24 postcards selected from the book “Tokyo at Night” published in 2019 and “Okuradashi – Uncollected Works 2010-2021” published in 2022, which depicts nostalgic scenery of Japan. In addition, the book also includes illustrations that are published for the first time. Mateusz Urbanowicz is a Polish illustrator based in Tokyo, Japan. He previously worked as a background artist at Comix Wave, the studio behind Shinkai Makoto’s anime films and have contributed to renowned titl ..read more

Hiroki Mafuyu (ひろき真冬) is a Japanese manga artist/illustrator. I happened across a few panels of his comic art on twitter and was quickly taken with his detailed rendering style as well as the elegant drawings of his human characters. I started immediately to search if he has any published art books, and luckily enough for me there is – Apples is a sci-fi graphic novel collection showcasing several of the artist’s short manga stories, many of them painted in full color. Perhaps it is the artist’s choice of subject matter or drawing/rendering style, but for me his work reads more like a Europea ..read more

I worked on this Spider-Verse animated short film around the summer of 2022, while I was also working on Spider-Man : Across The Spiderverse. There was a short lull as the up-stream departments were still working on shots that we could light and render, so some of were roped in to help out on this animated short ! It was a really fun project to work on, especially because the team was just amazing, and I dare say the end product looks pretty amazing as well ! I’m so glad it is finally getting an offical release; watch the film below – And here’s some additional background information on the ..read more

A huge depository of art showcasing demons and all manners of devilry from antiquated manuscripts right up to modern day portrayals in cinema is definitely up my alley; as I’m a big folklore/mythology and fantasy art person and the subject matter is always interesting to me. Ed Simon’s Pandemonium: The Illustrated History of Demonology presents—for the first time—Satan’s family tree, providing a history and analysis of his fellow fallen angels from Asmodeus to Ziminiar. Throughout the book, there are short entries on individual demons, but Pandemonium is more than just a visual encyclopedia ..read more

My knowledge and understanding of American sci-fi/horror writer H.P. Lovecraft‘s widely influential Cthulhu Mythos has always been very limited, having come across his creations through references in video games like Quake/Fallout 4 as well as Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics. This large format illustrated novel for his Call Of Cthulhu by Francois Baranger seemed like the perfect medium/format for me to learn more about it without having to actually read his books (yet), and the beautiful art work is a big plus as well. Book synopsis – Boston, 1926. Francis Thurston goes through documents left b ..read more