Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Singularity December 2010
Singularity December 2010
and scientists
1 December 2010
Singularity • December 2010
4 Hand-drawn digital art
Interview with Matt Pearce, digital artist and illustrator.
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from the editor
As we wind down to the end of the year 2010, I think about dreams. Big
dreams. Have you thought about yours?
What did you plan to accomplish this year? Have you succeeded? Have you
failed? Have you acted and done anything in the first place?
This isn't a chastisement. I believe if you truly want something, you'll find a
way to obtain it. That's your motivation right there. I haven't achieved
some of the goals I set (such as universal popularity of Singularity
*cough*), but the last couple of weeks gave me an abrupt turn of personal
goals. I have a deadline, but it's not the end of the year. And I'm
determined to make something happen before that personal deadline. I'm
drawing energy from that big dream of mine.
Speaking of drawing, I'm pleased to present to you an interview with Matt
Pearce, a digital artist and illustrator. His art makes me smile when I look at
them.
We have a large collection of photos in this issue, from Iron Man to stamps
to old Singapore to cosplayers. I hope you enjoy this issue, and I'll see you
next year.
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Hand-drawn
digital art
with Matt Pearce
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Tell us a little about yourself. How did you come to be an illustrator?
I’ve always loved drawing and painting, it was the one thing I did well at
school. I knew then that it was a creative career I wanted to pursue, and I
never really considered anything else. I studied a diploma in design at the
West Surrey School Art and Design, I then went on to complete a degree in
Graphic Design at Leeds Metropolitan University and graduated in 1995!!!
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k?
u ach ieve that loo
n atu re to it. How do yo
f rough and freeform
ok o
o m y o u r illu strations, a lo
feelin g fr
I get a "raw" I think there is a tendency to rely on computers
doing a lot of the work for you, and this can
sometimes mean that the artist’s personality is
often lost or watered down.
The hardest environment I find to develop a consistent style is 3D, when you get it right it can look really good,
and there’s the advantage of being able to use lighting tools, camera and rendering techniques. I have discovered
Electric Rain’s excellent bit of software called Swift 3D. It allows you to draw a flat vector shape in Flash or
Illustrator and import that flat shape into Swift 3D and extrude the shape to create 3D objects, doing it this way
I’ve found that all the little imperfections that add character to an illustration are carried over to the 3D
modelling process and hopefully create the ‘raw’ hand crafted look to my work.
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How do you come up with an illustration (framing, characters, and objects)? Is there a
concept you want to portray, or a feeling you want to evoke?
The main reaction or feeling I try to evoke is a smile. Pure and simple.
The best piece of advice is to stick at it, never give up; I had a terrible start to my career.
These are exciting times to be a digital artist, there are so many more possibilities to get
your work out there and get your work seen.
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I thank Matt Pearce for the interview, and the use of his images and
photos. You can find out more about Matt at www.mattpearce.co.uk
One of the digital tools that Matt uses is Swift 3D, which is produced by
Electric Rain. You can find out more at www.erain.com
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Singapore Philatelic Museum of Iron Man, and photos taken by G. R. Lambert. There will thus be 3
sections, composed mostly of photos. We’ll visit the Iron Man exhibition,
We are going to visit the Singapore Philatelic Museum (www.spm.org.sg), then the museum itself, then end off with photos taken by Lambert.
frozen in time at the start of November that is. You’re going to get a treat. All photos here taken with an iPhone 3G. Bluriness and shakiness are my
Other than the stamp exhibits in the museum, there was a special exhibition fault. Let the journey begin.
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My suspicion is that
most visitors came
for this exhibition...
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The red Iron Man apparently
had real hair used! I think the
modeler used his own hair.
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We have a new element, people...
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I don’t think I’ve seen this version of Iron Man before...
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These are 2 of the most unusual versions I’ve seen.
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And next, we check out the “normal” exhibits in
Singapore Philatelic Museum.
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So stamps signify that the package they
were attached to were “paid with love”?
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I look cooler than Daniel Radcliffe, don’t I?
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That would be me in the reflections. This section of the
museum had pullout contraptions containing stamps from
different countries in different years.
Due to the lighting and position of the contraptions, it’s really
hard to get a good photo.
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Postage must be really expensive if this is the entire letter...
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These were the old postboxes in Singapore.
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The mailman’s uniform.
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Calculated manually?!?!
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That’s a lot of equipment to send and process mail, isn’t it?
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Is that how post offices
of old look like?
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It may look like it, but physically
there’s no Chinese dude there…
It’s just really photorealistic.
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On the right, we have
Russian, German and Belgian
post boxes respectively.
More post boxes coming up.
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Don’t bother going to the site. I checked, and it seems
defunct. Your best bet is to use the Wayback Machine and
see how it looked like in the past. Yeah, no more Jedi mail...
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Here’s something
to think about:
According to my
friend, in the early
days of Singapore,
a Japanese woman
in Singapore was
most likely selling
her body as a
means of living.
According to that
same friend, they
had competition
from Hainanese
boys…
I will leave it to you
if you want to
verify that piece of
Singapore history.
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I believe 5 cents in Singapore 1908 is a lot of money...
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I don’t think the road was even paved… Is that a trishaw on the right?
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Horse carriages gave way to human-powered trishaws.
Because horses, well, leave… stuff on the ground...
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I think this was a kampong (Malay village) during a flood. But the children
don’t seem to care… At least I think they’re having fun swimming...
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And that ends the visit to the Singapore Philatelic Museum. It’s
situated at
23-B Coleman Street, Singapore 179807
Find out more at the website www.spm.org.sg
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Have the magazine sent to your email
inbox every month by subscribing at
polymathprogrammer.com/singularity
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Cosplay at Anime Festival Asia
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The hat looks
cute, what
can I say...
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This is Sephiroth, from the video game Final Fantasy VII.
The muscles are not a costume. This guy did serious work
in the gym… We also have another Sephiroth on the right.
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Vampires at a ball?
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I can’t do bokeh effects,
but I have Paint.NET...
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She was very sporting, making sure the guns were spread
awesomely on the floor. Then she struck me a pose.
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DON’T SHOOT ME!!!
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Ninjas!!
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Pirate!
OMG!
Damsel in Distress!
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This is one cool dude...
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Check out the headsets!
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I didn’t do any special effects. That’s an honest-
to-goodness lightsaber wielded by a Jedi
knight, my friend. Don’t mess with his Force.
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But wait! There were more cosplayers outside the exhibition hall!
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Characters from the video
game Final Fantasy XIII.
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It’s ok. Just ignore me. I’m just
That’s Tifa (FF VII) on the far left.
taking photos with a cute girl.
Fang from FF XIII. She even got the faded l’Cie mark on the right arm. It’s A classic pose for Lightning from FF XIII. Ooh, what big sword you have… Her
faded for a reason. You’ll have to play the game or read about it l’Cie mark is on her chest, so don’t strain your eyes.
somewhere...
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Hey, get out of the way, Naruto!
Hey, don’t give me
the finger, buster!
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Ok, there’s more coverage of Final Fantasy characters simply because I’m
more familiar with the video game series. And because the lighting
outside of the exhibition hall is better.
The spirit of cosplay is to clothe yourself in the character you’re
portraying as close as possible. You are also to immerse yourself in how
the character would behave, adopting noticeable mannerisms if
applicable. Tattoos (usually fake), weapons (non-lethal of course), props,
Hope from FF XIII. His l’Cie clothing, hair (especially colour), stances and poses. I just find these
mark is concealed in the particular cosplayers more interesting because I know who they’re
yellow bandana on his left portraying.
wrist. His weapon of
choice is the boomerang.
And then I met this bubbly girl...
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This is Rikku from the
Final Fantasy X-2 version.
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If you enjoyed this issue of Singularity, feel free to share
the magazine through email, blog or other means. You’re
given the right to print and distribute the magazine
electronically provided you don’t change any of the
content or charge for it.
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