Site Enhancements, New Wallpaper

Now that the Wallpaper a Day feature has ended, all the sections of VarunAbhiram.com are up-to-date! Thanks all for the views and comments.

Since there will be few updates to the site from now on, I figured it's a good idea to add a panel showing the recent comments posted on the site — that way the site won't look totally dead; assuming of course, that people take the time to comment now and then.

I've also noticed on StatCounter that the Traditional Art section receives no views at all. Probably because it's the only section of the site that's not directly accessible from the main navigation panel. The drawings aren't great, but I'd like all sections of the site to have equal visibility. So in order to facilitate that, I plan to display the Traditional and Digital art together on the Artwork page, and add a filter to allow you to look at the sections individually. This will take some time to implement, as I'll have to avoid duplication of images that belong in both categories (the Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise images, for example). The RSS code and some of the other pages would also have to be appropriately modified. And hopefully I won't introduce any bugs in the process.

Anyway, while I ponder over what has to be done, have a look at this new wallpaper I made yesterday called "Corrosion" —



Before I wind up this post, a couple of articles/links that might be worth your time —

• Seven innocent gestures that can get you killed Overseas
  I'm not in the Middle East, so it's safe to give this article the Thumbs-up!
  
• We don't have an Energy problem, we have a Storage problem
  An interesting take on the rising oil prices issue.
• Beautiful Black and White Photography
  A collection of stunning black and white images.
  
• Internal Windows Vista SP1 Promotional Video
  I have absolutely no idea what they were thinking when they made this. And all these.
  
• I Will Derive!
  A parody of "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. Geeky fun.
  
  

Tom Cruise - Mission: Impossible 3

Yes, I finally get around to doing another drawing! My last drawing, if you remember, was of Charlize Theron (from Æon Flux) way back in 2006.

It was really hard drawing after such a long time. I tried drawing this picture of Avril Lavigne first, but I just couldn't get her eyes right. All that eye shadow and under-eye detail combined with my rusty drawing skills made it impossible to draw. And when the eyes aren't drawn properly, the whole face looks weird. And that's exactly what happened.

Anyway, so after a lot of searching for easy images to draw, I ended up with this poster of Tom Cruise from Mission: Impossible 3. Wasn't as easy to draw as I thought it would be, but at least the end result bears some resemblance to the original.




And I wasn't done with just the drawing. I decided to load it up in Paint Shop Pro and add some CG effects to it. Coincidently, I happened to stumble across this open source fractal flame editor called Apophysis, so I used that to render the blue smoke background. I then colorized the drawing to a grayish-brown and added the text and M:I 3 logo. This is the final result —



By the way, I now use a 19" Samsung 932NW monitor, so expect more widescreen images from now on. After all, what's the point of making these when I can't use them as wallpaper?