No Pain No Gain

This speech is what I am going to listen to, every morning when I walk to the train station.


Recently we been extremely inspired by the whole Bar Brothers regime and their videos. And almost everyday doing our feeble chin ups in the gym or in the dark playground near own home. We can't do any muscle ups right now but damn! I so wanna get the strength to do that one day.

I think for anyone that has a desk job and trap in a stressful work life. It is easy to just be a slob, grow fat and not do anything physically.

And we both been there, those times rewarding hardwork in office by going into feasting mode, spending the nights with 3 day alterac valley session MMO playing.
Yes games and food are great source of pleasure and rewards. But the real world is out there, those experiences will add up and create depth in your thoughts and art.

I respect anyone that has grit up and take the pain to move forward. You can see it in their eyes, the way they speak. Some mutual humility, in it. Maybe that is why so many people have been visiting their local playgrounds to do the chinups and dips. Brothers and sisters without borders, race and language, encouraging one another to be better, do better, look better.

My regime now would be to increase my cardio to a consistent 5km run.
Get my 2.5km swim regime to below 1hour.
and cycle much more.
Gym at least twice a week
Enter Open class for Hiphop or Jazz
Eat healthier (hardest of them all )

Goals = enter triathlons in 2013  ( if the world has not end this year :P)
Be a better dancer, be more flexible
Cut my weight to 68kg
No tummy! no united nations

May not be the best, nor the fittest. But at least I try :)
Penning it down in this blog so I can track my progress. 
No Pain No Gain. No Excuses.
Same in art, exercise, life.
OSU! TATAKAE!

Requiem

lets talk about "Requiem of the Three Kingdoms". Having grown up with novels and comic about this piece of chinese history. I have found that even in history a potentially boring subject, one can find drama and heroes to root for or to loathe.

I intend to tell a different story of this Three Kingdoms, although they do follow the sequence of events but the characters will  have a very different feel and original texture to them. So do buy the anthology, as it is kinda of the prologue as the plot continues online. The story of three kings, from three clans, and three different destinies.

Exploration

So one of the great dilemma for me when drawing and painting is locking down the style. I realize I tend to be very loose in my style. Here are some examples. I love playing with colors and usually I try to achieve a certain feeling from my works than think of a certain "style" i should follow.

I love this process as it allows me to dwell more of the creative exploration than follow rigid rules as one would do if it was a job and then priorities like speed and production takes over.

Here are some of my stuff.

       

Guan Yu, btw the Guan Yu in  "Requiem" will not look like this heh

 

Christmas Card

Zeng stuff

 < The Yellow Monkeys> 

is a story about Monkeys and Apes, Primates living together.

and how they co-exist with each other decades after the great war.

I can't really talk much about the story (spoilers).

But...I am willing to tell you abit of my influences 

the mythology of it is loosely based on < Monkey king> or Sun wu kong story, 

my "cubicle" for one Saturday,while working on

I'm  a lover of our modern day street culture, hiphop, music etc. My art style isn't so much of a Superhero thingy, I'm more influenced by people like Mike mignola-Hellboy, or the duo that did Skydoll , Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa.
Anime inspirations would probably be Miyazaki's films, Shinichiro Watanabe animes.. more towards the classics. 

Here's some of my WIP

Besides the anthology I do have another comic that is online.
Ahgirl and Monkey !
http://ahgirlandmonkey.blogspot.sg/  << click here !
A little house cleaning monkey with a master that bullies loves it

 Besides drawing my Webcomic I do try to do some other forms of illustrations...

 

Mucha inspired style but with a twist 

"under the sea" 

 

 illustration inspired by a song..

 I do abit of photography too..

well that's all for now , will show you guys more stuff in future.

-Zeng

Just Eat

So one thing living in Singapore is that everything revolves around food. Food glorious food. A foodie myself, I have to exercise doubly hard so I can be a glutton keep the tradition alive. Here are some of my shares.

Roast Pork

Fish no chips

Local delights, Dry Mee Siam ( cooked by my good friend's mum )

DimSum

Mum's home cook chicken curry :D

Chendol drink ( looks like green worms hehe)

 Last but not least, the best soba I ever ate in my life.

Deep inside the maze that is Tokyo Station

We dance!

        Dance was something that was introduced to me a few years back, and after all this years

 I'm still really thankful I tried out that one dance course that showed me how much

fun it really is....

   

On a personal level, Dance has many parallels to what I do as an animator/artist.

"The mirror doesn't lie" 

I remember someone telling me that, and it really stuck to me,

it's like no matter how many times you tell yourself that you're the most talented 

dancer/artist. It really doesn't mean anything if you can't prove it in real life.

you have to show what you can do and not just say/talk about it.

and that's something I really love. 

anyways throughout my years of dancing (still CMI level)

I met some legends of dance along the way here's a few of them :3 

 

Tatsuo!! The reason I've got into House dance was checking out his stuff

in youtube and freaking blew my mind away, I mean the way this guy

moves, he's like water! twisting and spinning effortlessly in the Dance floor.

>>>TATSUO HOUSE DANCE<<<

Another Superbly skilled over 9000 House dancer, Hiro!
 Photo taken with my bro, Ren, after the workshop conducted at Dance Meets.

Tyrone 'the Bone' Proctor! 

Legendary dancer, Choreographer

teaching me to really listen to the music and feel it! Waack! 

Brooklyn Terry!

with his ever giving knowledge of the culture itself 

http://www.thebrooklynbomber.com/story  

check out his story here!

Even though I'm not really a Dancer per se I do draw alot of inspiration from the people who teach it and just by letting go and just dance : )

visit Oschool if you wanna give it a try! 

by far the best dance school I've been to.

http://oschool.com.sg/home.php 

JAPAN the land of wonder and magic

Waiting for sushi at Tsukiji

So one of our most favourite things, is inspiration and THE place to get that is the motherland Japan.
There is something magical from the stories, anime, games from this fine place. It is hard to explain. But watching Ghibli films kinda hit the nail on that magic factor.

We were lucky enough to visit Ghibli Museum and some exhibitions when we holiday there the past few years.

no that is not a totoro toy, it is big ass totoro, beside that gigantic poster

the other 2 guys on our right, are our best friends for nearly closing to 20years
yes we are not so young anymore  :(

Fox statues at Inari Shrine, part of my inspiration for the Fox clan within
"Requiem of the Three Kingdom"

Odaiba Onsen, a tourist friendly Onsen in Tokyo

Leaving the Ghibli Museum for Mitaka station at Sunset. This moment was sad and magical at the same time.