My first Illustration Friday submission for 3 weeks and I’m late for it. It’s almost time for the next topic to come up. This week’s topic is “Lost”… and there’s only one thing that came up in my mind when I heard of the topic: One of my favourite TV shows on the air right now. Media: Digital painting using Photoshop, with image references from screencaps of season 1 episode 4 “Walkabout”. Click on the image on the right to expand it.
Continue readingAuthor Archive: hisham
Voyage of the Flying Couch
Here’s a single piece of artwork that I came up on a whim in about 2 hours. A girl’s adventures to faraway lands on her flying couch. Imagine the possibilities. Maybe there’s an actual story to be written there somewhere, and made into a book. I shall ruminate on it on my armchair.
Continue readingDoomsday Scenarios Galore
Are you feeling too cheerful or happy? Are you feeling that you’ve had enough feeling on top of the world? Are you sick of everyone telling you “The sun is shining! The birds are singing! Everything is smelling of roses!”? Then check out Exit Mundi, the website that catalogues the various ways the world and/or the entire universe may end, from scientific and religious standpoints. It’ll sure to wipe that smile off your face. How do you like to read about the accidental extinction of the human race? For example, what happens if genetically engineered crop (actually created in a lab named Epicyte in San Diego in 2002) designed to be a contraceptive, escapes into the real world and are accidentally planted in farms all over the world? We’ll all be eating food that induces infertility by killing all sperm cells. If you’re interested in space-based threats, what if a […]
Continue readingArabic Star Names and Science Fiction
I’ve known for quite some time that major star names used in science are Arabic in origin, a testimony to the work of Muslim astronomers between the 9th and the 12th centuries, but I’ve never found an extensive list of current star names and their Arabic origin until I stumbled across the Jordanian Astronomical Society’s website with its great Arabic Star Names page. Since I read and watch a lot of science fiction, I found it interesting that some of the names have appeared in contemporary SF. Not the well-known ones like Betelgeuse or Vega or Rigel, I’m talking about the not so well known star names. Referring the the JAS list in the link above: #133 Rukbat is the star which Anne McCaffrey’s Pern revolves around. It’s known as Alpha Sagittarii, so she did her homework by referring it to be in the “Sagittarius sector” although in the wiki […]
Continue readingSerenity Appreciation Entry
[[image:serenityposter.jpg:Serenity Movie Poster:left:0]]Once upon a time, Joss Whedon created a science fiction TV show called Firefly that had great characters, a fantastic millieux and a witty script. It got cancelled by Fox Network. Then its DVD sold faster than hotcakes. Fans wrote to revive the show. So, he wrestled the rights of the show from Fox and transferred it to Universal. One thing led to another, last Friday saw the release of Serenity, the motion picture continuation of the TV series Firefly, was released to critical acclaim. I can’t wait to watch this because I was also won over by Firefly when TV3 showed it last year, on Wednesday night 12.30 am… sometimes pre-empting it for several weeks for football, or pushing it even further to 1.30 am. But the bad news is there is not a trace of Serenity appearing in Malaysian theaters any time soon. Hopefully we’ll get […]
Continue readingIt’s Ramadhan
Starting today, I’m fasting for 30 days from dawn til dusk. A happy Ramadhan to all readers, and happy fasting to all Muslim readers. Sahur this morning, before dawn, we had rice with eggs and cabbages, while watching the Smallville season premiere, as Irfan slept. I have an idea for another book, after looking at a random picture on deviantArt… it would be about kids spending the night camping, and the whole story would take place at night. The blues and the grays of the picture I saw was compelling. Now to come up with an actual story, suited for kids. Childhood camp-outs are awesome. By the way, I updated some large artwork into my deviantArt page. Yeah, I have a deviantArt page. I left it untended for exactly a year and a month. I’ll be uploading large-sized images there and link them from there, or elsewhere, to save on […]
Continue readingI Hate People T-shirts
Chris and Derek over at CCDO are selling their world-famous* “I Hate People” t-shirt on the blog. Read the entry here. Then buy it! 😉 * Okay, I exaggerate. [[image:chris-tshirt-bigger.jpg:Awesome T-shirt:center:0]]
Continue readingPassing On A Meme (or Yikes! I’ve Been Tagged!!)
Thanks to Lilian over at iFantabulous, I’ve been tagged. So here’s I am letting the meme pass through me, allowing the idea to propagate and converting it into the text on this page that you’re reading. So here goes: Where I was 10 years ago Working in Terengganu. 5 days on, 5 days off. On my days off I saw movie masterpieces (yeah, right!) such as Mortal Kombat and Power Rangers the Movie. Nowadays I’m more picky about the quality of the movies I watch. For example, earlier this year I saw Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Zing! Where I was 5 years ago Getting married to the greatest wife ever. Where I was 1 year ago I stopped working for a book publisher and went freelancing. It was a chilling thought then. And it still is a chilling thought now. Where I was yesterday Giving my “European Renaissance” powerpoint presentation in […]
Continue reading
Blog Glitch Fixed
The entire week was crazy as far as this blog was concerned. First I couldn’t log onto the backend admin section with my correct password. (Even Sila couldn’t do it with her user account.) And after 10 tries my own blog banned my IP. Brilliant, eh? I went to the Pivot Support Forums for help. Griswald there, told me to download the pv_cfg_settings.php file from the server, remove the 2 IP addresses in the php code and change the installed variable to “0”. That done, I had to register myself as the Superadmin first, then try to sort out the rest later. Later, it seemed that the database files of each blog entries weren’t being detected by the index.php file. The center column was empty. The Recent Entries block was empty. The Last Comments block was empty. What was wrong? Checking the admin section, I found out that the Categories […]
Continue reading
Worlds of the Enteague Sector
In 1989, my father bought me two books that started me into Star Wars role playing game: West End Games’ Star Wars The Roleplaying Game rulebook and the Star Wars Sourcebook. My first campaign (and the longest I gamemastered) was my “Strikeforce Enteague” campaign. The players were characters of a Rebel Alliance strike team that consisted of mostly fringer types, and it took place in a sector of the galaxy I created I ultimately named the Enteague Sector (thought sometimes their adventures took them as far as Coruscant which at that time was only referred to as Imperial City.) Here I am 16 years later, and I’ve finally finished a project I started almost 2 years ago: a pdf mini-sourcebook formatted for the SWRPG called Worlds of the Enteague Sector. It’s not extensive as WEG‘s The Planets Collection or WOTC‘s Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds. There is a front […]
Continue reading
Future Player’s Companion: Tomorrow’s Hero
Apart from Future Player’s Companion: Tomorrow’s Hero, the second of three books released by The Game Mechanics, being released and on sale at RPGnow.com, I’ve also took my old gallery at Geocities, modified it, gave it a proper banner, updated some details and relocated it here at Hishgraphics.com. The Hishgraphics Gallery can be found at http://www.hishgraphics.com/gallery. In the meantime, here are three four of the artwork from Future Players’ Companion, Volume 2. Click on… to view them.
Continue reading
Irfan Cuts His Cake and Eats It Too
“I want to eat the Happy Birthday Cake!” Irfan begged for hours after seeing the number three-shaped vanilla cake with the Tigger-esque toon on it. He wasn’t getting it until everyone arrived of course. There were, yet to arrive, his Mak Long and Ayah Long, and his Cik Eda and her roommates. So all day long, he staked out the cake box on the dinner table. More than once, you’ll see this happening and then the cry in the background, “IRFAN!!!” The box opens, much to Irfan’s delight. The cake had support by french fries, chicken curry, roti jala, chicken fingers and watermelon. Finally it was time to cut the cake. Irfan goes nuts. Irfan cuts the cake, aided by his parents. You can just see how happy he was. Now, Irfan’s probably thinking, “Wait! Why is the cake going to other people? I wan’t one.” And he lived happily […]
Continue reading
HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY IRFAN!
The two new grandmothers, September 2002. Three years ago, Irfan Shafiq was born at Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. Within that three years, he’s given not just his mother and I a lot of joy, but a lot of other people in our extended family as well. We’ll be cutting cake in the next few hours, so we’ll have pictures of that soon. In the meantime, enjoy the announcement of Irfan’s birth (link dead) in the Star Wars Artists’ Guild forums from 3 years ago.
Continue readingYaaar! Ye Scurvy Swabs!
Since Sep 19th was Talk Like A Pirate Day, something annually celebrated by Star Wars Artists’ Guild as long as we have been online, I’d thought I’d celebrate by retranslating this entire paragraph in pirate speak, cause you know, you can never have too much of pirate speak… especially during boardroom meetings, being rude at traffic jams and at the supermarket checkout. Translation: Arrr, since Sep 19th was Talk Like A Pirate Day, somethin’ annually celebrated by the sea dogs at Star Wars Artists’ Guild as long as we’ve been sailin’ the seven seas, I’d thought I’d celebrate by retranslatin’ this entire paragraph in pirate speak, cause you know, you can ne’er have too much o’ pirate speak… especially durin’ boardroom raids, wavin’ yon cutlass at traffic jams and at the scurvy supermarket checkout. Ye’ll ne’er get me buried booty! – Mad Sam Bonney (Illustrator, SWAG) P.S. Yaaaarrrggh!!!
Continue readingNavcomputer.com is ROTS Complete
As far as positions of movie planets are concerned, the incredibly detailed galaxy map of the Star Wars universe is complete. Webmaster Eric Przybylski has also done a great job placing the planets of the EU in the massive map he made, with inserts of the Corellian Sector and the Si’klaata Cluster, among others. Also included are several smaller maps of sectors such as Kuat, Kathol, Brak and Elrood. Check out Navcomputer.com if you want to know how far it is from Hoth to Bespin (the Millennium Falcon‘s flight in The Empire Strikes Back), and where Polis Massa (where Luke and Leia were born) is located in relation to the volcanic world of Mustafar (where Vader was immolated); or if you’re hardcore what route did Quinlan Vos take to relocate his clone army from Saleucami to Boz Pity (as mentioned in passing in Revenge of the Sith); or if you’re […]
Continue reading
Illustration Friday: Escape
Escape is the topic of this week’s Illustration Friday. Two convicts sneak out stealthily of a watery tunnel near a prison from which they’ve just broken out. All they have to do is make it undetected into the woods. But how will they avoid from being beamed by a searchlight?
Continue reading