In an earlier entry, I mentioned that I took manga classes when I was in junior college. However, I can’t remember if I did complete a comic strip by the end of the class and neither could I find any of the stuff I did during the course. [Note: Come to think of it, I had a lot more stuff that I drew inside my school textbooks]. However, I did manage to find the other stuff I did during that period.
WALKER
This period – the late teen years from junior college to national service could be the most stressful phase of growing up as I had to cope with a lot of changes, within myself and the environment. It’s a turning point for most of us, as the things you did during this period would set the course for your future. My pencils and drawing paper provided temporal relief. Till this moment, I hadn’t abandoned hopes to become a professional in the creative industry.
I continued drawing mechas. Compared to my secondary school days, I preferred drawing exo-suit/powered armour like those Landmates in Masamune Shirow’s manga Appleseed. I wanted to draw ‘realistic robots’.
I drew two variants of the ASURA power armour:
ASURA
The MMPAS-25B ASURA follows the design concept of Landmates – note the “exposed” master arm where the pilot slips his arm in to control the arms of the exo-suit. The sensor suit is housed in a dome that forms the “head” of the powered armour. It’s armed with a tri-barrel auto-cannon for area defence, and a grenade launcher on the secondary arms. The cavities on the side of the ‘calves’ are meant to house sidearms.
The mutli-armed powered armour was inspired by my fascination with Vedic/Buddhist mythologies – and this powered armour was supposed to take after the “Asuras”.
ASURA
This variant was probably a “proto-type”, an earlier concept of the Asura exo-suit. The sensor unit resembled that of the GUGES Landmates.
The following powered armour is a maritime platform, to be used for sub-surface warfare.
SQUID
The SQUID is like a diving armour that would sneak up to vessels or coastal installations to deliver fire or to jam communications. The term “SQUID” has the connotation of electronic warfare.
Most of my stories are conceived to take place on Earth in the near future or the post-apocalyptic future. Except for Star Wars and Battlestar Galatica, I’m not a big fan of space opera or hard SF that involved inter-stellar travel. Over in the anime/manga scene, “Legend of the Galactic Heroes” 「銀河英雄伝説」 was getting more and more popular. I didn’t read the manga or watch the anime, but I saw the screen caps of the space-faring vessels on magazines and that inspired a conception.
Jump Ship
This space vessel is a jump ship. I called it “The Beagle” for reasons I can’t recall. The unfurled cone around the ship is a solar-sail. This vessel is meant for strategic force projection, and is capable of hyperspace travel.
I also sketched the character designs of the crew manning this vessel:
Cast
It’s a multi-coloured mixture of Caucasian, Asian and Black people. I don’t think a complete story ever came out of these designs, but I remembered the opening followed the lines of a typical Gundam story: a hijackers making away with the prototype of a classified powered armour development project.
This powered armour series was probably my last few mecha designs for sci-fi. I started exploring dabbling in other subject matter and styles.
Cyberspace
In the sequence above, I tried imagine how “cyberspace” looked like, after a ‘Console Cowboy’ jacked-in to the Matrix. This happened in the pre-Internet age, before the prefix “cyber-” became a standard lexicon. I stuck to the sub-genre of cyberpunk for my diet of sci-fi literature.
I also tried my hand at parody of Chinese folk culture:
God of Wealth
Four Heavenly Kings
As I’ve said earlier, I like drawing Dragons.
Dragon, Troll and Gremlins
I didn’t know what inspired the trolls and gremlins. Sometimes, some of the stuff I draw ‘just happens’. It’s as if the lines take on a life of its own, and my left-hand just go with the flow.
Though I didn’t complete any comic during the manga class, I did some on my own applying techniques that I’ve learnt. This was one of the comic strip I drew (I did another but it’s on the back of some rough paper and the pencil marks had faded). Both of the strips I did were about the question of faith.
The Wolf & the Shepherd
This “The Wolf & the Shepherd” strip is incomplete. I didn’t get to the punch line of this comic. The thing that hit the Wolf’s head is the Shepherd’s staff. The flock of sheep decided to trade in their freedom so that they could receive the protection of the Shepherd. However, the Shepherd later herded all of the sheep and led them to the abattoir for the slaughter.
I don’t think I suffered from a ’spiritual’ crisis during this period, but I had a lot of meditation on religion and faith – because I noticed a lot of hypocrisy from those who were supposed to be holy or representation of goodness. The history of the Catholic Church, the Crusades, the Inquisition and Colonialism were some of the things that make me feel cynical about monotheistic faiths. And the same from the Buddhist circles – monks will deliver penance for a fee…this was also a period when I began listening to Marilyn Manson.
The goth culture was also sweeping across the manga/hobby scene. For those who remember “Sensational Model & Hobby“, I was blown away by the design concepts.
The F00L
The F00L was inspired by the Messianic interpretation of Card 0 of the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck.
Kurogane
“Kurogane” (鉄) was something random. I drew some lines and just let the pencil take itself where it wanted to go.
These designs were influenced by Yasushi Nirasawa (韮沢靖), an apprentice of Makoto Kobayashi (小林誠), as well as Keita Amemiya (雨宮 慶太)
I drew alot of angry looking characters – like the fearsome Buddhist deities on the Mandala.
Bozoku
That’s because I had alot of bottle up angst and rage during those years. A lot of unhappiness that I couldn’t express.
All the stress that I had to put up when I was drafted into the Army added fuel to the simmering fire. Fortunately, in the Officer Cadet School, all Cadets were supposed to keep a journal. So this personal log-book became my canvas.
I took liberty with the things that went into this journal, which was submitted to the Instructors for review. I had a good laugh when I re-read those entries. You could tell how much I loved the Army.
070495
I wrote this entry after I experienced my first “forced march”. We’re suddenly ‘turned out’ at around 5am during one of the mornings in “Hell Week”. We had to get from bed into skeletal battle order in an impossible time. It was an experience that I couldn’t forget, because it left my hyperventilating at the end of the fast-paced march and I was entangled in komskote hanging from one of the straps of my webbing that came loose. The drawing of that soldier summed up that feeling when I was on the march.
“My tears mingled with my sweat as longings for her mixed with thoughts of tiredness”. More about “her” in a while.
120495
It’s bad to be posted to a platoon with crazy instructors. It’s even worse when your buddy is an asshole.
I really felt helpless living in a regimented, communal environment.
030595
One of the worse thing that can happen to a Cadet is to be caught sleeping during lecture. That’s because the Instructor can make you sleep over in your barracks on Saturday and Sunday nights. Weekends were precious, and the “Z” monster was the bane of many Cadets. So during one of the lectures, I drew Ultra Punk – an Ultraman that could defeat Z monsters.
030595
Doodling in my journal kept me awake during those boring lectures.
050595
I tried to incorporate the teachings of Buddha in my journal, to remind myself that Suffering is a fact of life.
One of the externalities of being in the military, you acquire a new mother tongue known as Vulgar Language.
060595
I still remember this episode. My morale hit rock bottom when I was told I was chosen to perform Sunday guard duty. That weekend was very important to me, because it’s “her” birthday and I wanted to celebrate it for her before she left for Australia. However, one of my platoon mates agreed to do that duty for me.
170595
I can’t remember what ‘guilt’ I was suffering from.
There were days when you can’t help recall your ‘free’ life as a civilian – the days that were before your enlistment.
190595
I felt like thrashing up my bunk. I missed the days when I could play the taiko (I was a wa-taiko drummer for the Japanese Language and Culture Society back in JC)
I suffered from bouts of mild depression, as it was difficult adjusting to the demands of Officer Cadet School. I was never a student leader nor an athlete, why did I end up in OCS?
200595
I yearned for freedom.
It must have been a really boring lecture.
230595
This was a Gibson guitar playing goblin.
Towards the end of Tri-service course (the first trimester of the Officer Cadet Course), I drew caricatures of my instructors.
240595
The person on the left was our Company Warrant Officer, 1WO Oh Cheng Kah. He’s the nightmare of all Cadets, because he also happened to be the Wing Sergeant Major. Back then, OCS was divided into two Wings – Wing I and Wing II, and each wing was made up of four companies that were known as “company” (now they’re called “wings”). So, 1WO Oh isn’t just our CSM equivalent, he’s also the RSM. For those Cadets who passed through OCS during the late Pasir Labar days and during the early years of SAFTI MI would know him.
250595
This is what I thought about my instructors. From the stuff that I wrote, it felt rather gay in retrospect.
The vulgarity did not just get to my language, but my art, too.
220695
Haha, kena Sunday guard again. I didn’t draw enough middle fingers.
140795
All NS boys are horny toads.
After graduating from OCS, I stayed behind as an Instructor. It became my turn to torture Cadets. How did things look now since I’ve crossed over to the other side. Pretty scary, when you put a bunch of over enthusiasitc young Second Lieutenants fresh out of OCS back as Instructors. It got pretty close to “Lord of the Flies”.
I had more personal time as an Instructor, and more control over my own life. There’s some qualitative change in my lineworks too.
Scribbles
This was a blank worksheet and I just did some random doodlings. I’d wanted to draw a Buddha-looking Ultraman. I ended up creating a character called “Pyscho Sam”
I drew two short strips based on this psychopathic character:
Psycho Sam #1
Psycho Sam #2
I didn’t have the inspiration/attention span to continue developing this character.
….
Now. About “her”. She’s none other than this girl that I liked. She’s a Nanyang Girl who became the vice-president of the Chinese Language and Drama Cultural Society (CLDCS). I began developing a crush on her towards the end of J2. Compared to other crushes this became a full blown “falling in love” thing. She’s a really really nice girl, the type that you could bring home and show mom.
副会長
I drew pictures of her.
Happy together…on paper
This happened only in my dreams. I never held her hand. Tried, but failed miserably. [Note: I can't blame her. That's because I wore Pu-yi glasses, tucked in my t-shirt and sported a stupid hair cut.]
It was an unrequited relationship. She liked President of the society from our senior year, and she was too nice to say “no” to me. I had to say it for her. I remember it was a rainy Sunday – I asked her out for ice-cream at Prego’s. That was the second year of NS, I was already a commissioned officer. It was an awkward moment, and I could read her mind. I told her I knew she only wanted me as a friend and nothing more. When I woke up in my bunk the next day, I felt like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, who realised that he’s nothing but a toy.
When I look back, I felt that she’s chosen the right guy. They’re really made for each other in terms of character and disposition. She’s now happily married to the President and is now a mother of two kids.
