Mumbai's Chawls..

..5 floors. 12x18x10 ft houses. Common toilets. Water in tanks. No privacy. No space. No time. Multi Religious. Middle Class. Kites. Ganapati Pujas Navratris and New Years. Govinda. Children Children Children. Bais. Lungis. Cricket. Black Walls. Nicknames. Kohli May Queens. Pigeons. Bollywood. PCO Booths. Barbers. Dogs and Cows. Pav Bhaji centers. Rubble. Cycles. Motor Bikes..
The oldest chawls of Mumbai were built between the World Wars by people who had made money in WW1. Originally modelled on army barracks, the large influx of mill workers into Mumbai flooded the tenements in the 70s and 80s. At first, it was inhabited only by mill workers but soon their families too joined them. Inspite of the lack of space, people did not move for a host of reasons: rising prices, proximity to down town Mumbai, proximity to work and the addictive community feeling that came with staying in chawls.

Pixel Art

The piece I'm working on now is on the chawls of Mumbai: corresponding life in the chawls to a game. A battle against time, a battle for space. Hence I'm using the gaming style.

I'm trying a style I've always wanted to do: Pixel Art. Pixel art is art drawn pixel by pixel and can be done on most graphics packages. Its quite time consuming, but the final effect looks great. The final result has a very video-game feel, 2d feel.

Technically, its based on an isometric grid: thats just like the stuff engineers work on. A little research on pixel art and i found that its like a whole universe of pixel artists out there. Pixel art uses the isometric view: an engineering technique that is a perspectiveless view. Everything is based on a diamond grid at an angle of 30 degrees. (on the comp, its at 26.565 degrees to be exact).

Photos from Worli...

Photos from Worli ... 2