If you know what my desk previously looked like, you’d notice that there was no scanner before. Around sometime mid 2008 we bought a Canon scanner and an Epson printer – made it easy for design work when people asked for hard copy. The printer is placed on another table on the left.

So basically I have my Fujitsu A3110 Lifebook, a Wacom Intuos3 graphic tablet, and Sonic Gear speakers with the subwoofer placed underneath the desk (where Micah loves to sleep next to, I’m afraid). On the right side of the desk is the old mouse and the pig-shaped wrist pad  so that I don’t get bruised wrist while working, and then there’s my Sony Ericsson W300i mobile.

I think the clear, somewhat yellowish liquid in the mug is actually some herbal drink I take due to the current swollen gum that I’m suffering from – wisdom teeth is growing and it’s giving me a pain in the arse. Which explains the blister of tablets lying there – those are Cataplam – it contains diclofenac potassium and although I’ve worked for 1.6 years in a pharmaceutical company I have no idea at all what it means, except that it reduces the pain and it makes me feel sleepy – schweet! The rest of the stuff on the right side are pens and brushes and oh, this old make-up brush that I end up using to clean my keyboard instead.

On the left side of the table is my Canon scanner, some CMS manual book, my headphones and a bottle of vitamin C tablets.

So that’s all folks! Nothing special really – but I love my desk mostly because it’s L-shaped and curved inside – I hate sharp edges inward or outward!

I’m tagging Anita, Ecky, Chenchen, Toni, Tere616, and Woelank.  Show us your workstation, peeps!

I was pleased to have been given the honor to do so, as I’ve been a loyal reader to her blog.

I remember it was early 2008 when I stumbled upon her blog (which was still hosted at Blogspot at the time) and since then, it had been one of the few blogs that I visited on a daily basis – not only were her postings very interesting and thought-provoking, but they also depicted of what sort of person she was; bold and classy, yet smart and kindhearted, not to mention sexy as hell!

The topics that she discussed always gave me the itch to comment (couldn’t help myself, more like), and most times I secretly wished I could’ve had come up with those topics whilst murmuring silently, “Now why didn’t I think of that?”

Anita had always been the one with kind manners, so in return she came to visit my blog as well and soon we had become friends, until the day we finally met up – did I tell you that she looked better in person?

The Header Designs

Here are the blog headers that I came up with, in which she got to choose out of the three alternatives;

She loved how the words “Finally Woken” was associated with a butterfly. It was her wedding invites that gave me the idea to incorporate the butterfly to it, because I thought it suited the whole meaning of the words – a butterfly finally awaken from its cocoon.

She also liked the swirls which gave out a romantic mood to it but she wanted something less graphical, so I suggested using a silhouette of a girl, and in my mind I was thinking of a girl lying down on her stomach with her laptop casually opened in front of her.

I actually asked my beau to take photos of me lying down on the bed with the laptop and everything,  but since the photos were much too embarrassing to be shown, I could only give you a toned down, illustrated version of one of the photos, in which you can view here.

The result of the header with the silhouetted girl was this.

Notice how the girl in the picture is bare feet, and Anita suggested her to have a different hairdo; like her hair being tied into a pony tail or being let down to fall on her shoulders, but in the end we decided that the messy, scrunched up hair looked best, because it was effortlessly sexy and relaxed.

Nevertheless, some people responded that the girl actually look naked (for the record, she was not naked, she was just wearing a really tight bodysuit)- but that was what I liked about it because it described Anita as the cheeky, sexy geek that you always imagine!

In the end, Anita asked for the final addition for the girl to wear stilettos to soften down the “naked” image, and she decided to use the header in white, gray and pink hues instead. The final result – as you can see from her own blog too – is this.

Apart from a blog header, she also asked me to design a 125×125 pixel icon for comments etc., which was the first thing that I came up with, before the whole header was finalized.

I was glad that Anita was satisfied with the logo – it was nice having her as a client because she was easy to please, and designing the header had always been fun, especially when the client was happy!

For those of you who want to get to know more of Anita, visit her blog at Finally-woken.com, she will always welcome you with open arms!

This is my workspace, the place where I draw, chat and write!

I really love my desk. I found it at Ace Hardware at the nearby mall and it was the only one left – I just had to have it! I’d been looking for an L-shaped desk that curved in like this, and Ace even gave me a discount for it – sweet. I also had the slide-out table refitted so it sat further out thus having the Intuos’ working area in full view whenever I’m using it.

My milky white Fujitsu is my pride and joy and I love it to bits, except that it has cacky battery life, it’s practically plugged in to the power outlet most of the time. AMD processors, enough said.

The Wacom Intuos3 was a birthday gift from himself – champion! – since he knew how much I’d wanted it but I was too much of a tight-ass to buy it myself. I’ve tried using it to create illustrations with the well-known illustration programs but somehow I always end up coming back to Flash, as you can see some of the results in my portfolio.

The speakers were also from himself – he felt sorry for me having to put on headphones all the time then and resulting in me having earaches, that he ended up buying a new set for me. They were vay good, and vay loud and I simply love the sub woofer, especially when I’m listening to trance.

Yes, himself spoils me rotten it’s almost disgusting, but hey, I’m not complaining!

Last but not least, I cannot work without my wrist pad. If you don’t know what that is, it’s that piggy-looking pink-colored squishy thing on the right, next to the mouse.  I had one at work (before I resigned) in a shape of a hippo but I gave it to one of my work colleagues as a goodbye present (she really wanted it) and then one of the administrators from my team gave another one for me in a shape of a pig – God love her.

Final words: The desk is usually in a shambles. So imagine it cluttered with used tissues and dirty plates and mugs – but hey, artists are supposed to be messy, right?

I’m taking a 2-weeks hiatus to focus on my illustration work – don’t worry, this is not an excuse to escape from the recent blog-bashing tragedy that has befallen this poor blog of mine.

I’ve changed my blog theme (again), and it seems that this hunt for the perfect theme will be a long and winding one, but this one might be it! Here’s hoping.

This template might solve the problem that I’ve heard from several people, who’ve told me that the page took quite a while to load up, and that ain’t good for my loyal blog visitors *seriously having some blog celebrity syndrome here, I wonder how I caught that one from*

To make things up for my absence, here are some wallpapers I’ve made in my spare time, just click on the images to download. They’re made to fit laptop users’ dimension (1280×768 pixels), so for PC users… don’t worry they still work – hopefully. Cheers!

Ok, fine, I’ll start with myself.

Yes, I photoshopped my profile photos at Facebook, Friendster, instant messengers and many other internet personas that I own in the world wide web. And let me assure you, it’s addictive. I’ve even started photoshopping my beau’s photos before I post them online.

Got a huge zit with a yellow head right at the tip of your nose? Don’t worry – use the clone tool. Imperfect skin with enlarged pores? Whatever the blur tool is there for if it isn’t to make you look like you have flawless model-like complexion?

How about wanting a skin tone that is less yellow and more pink-ish? Play around with the hues and saturation, and voila! Instant glam skin that makes you look like you’ve spent all day in the tanning salon.

Facial skin tones looking too pale to your liking? Draw a rough shape with the lasso tool, drop a circular pink gradient on a new layer, position them on both cheeks, set the transparency to about 40% and there you go; natural blush-on like you’ve just had rampant sex with your boyfriend.

Yes, Photoshop is marvelous. There’s nothing that Photoshop can’t do these days – even an ugly ass photo can still look good with a little bit of editing here and there. There’s no need to starve yourself for that photo shoot yet – for the program can shed your weight out as much as you like. You can simply lose 20 kg without even trying anything. The computer does all the work – and we will stay beautiful in the virtual world, forever, and ever, until people see us in real life and stare in confusion like they’ve been duped, because they notice something different and yet they can’t quite put their finger on it.

But Photoshop can also kill you. It can make you look to die for, or it can also make you look dead. Or to be exact, strangely disproportionate.

1. Gwyneth

I’m giving you five seconds to stare before you go, “Haaaang on a secondddddd……”

2. Eva Mendes

This one takes only two seconds before you start thinking about penguins in a catsuit.

3. Mexican Maxim model

This one’s a no brainer. I wonder how all of her internal organs could fit into that super tiny waist of hers.

4. Kimora Lee

Tada!! Instant weight loss. Tolja Photoshop rules.

Thanks for Ingki who had given me the link to the site in which all those pictures are taken from. They are courtesy of Photoshop Disaster, and if you would like to see more hideous photos, just follow the link and prepare yourself for some Photoshop nastiness.

On the other hand; isn’t it a relief that even famous people like Gwyneth need to be Photoshopped or if need, have her body replaced by someone else’s?

To end this post, here’s a little virtual liposuction procedure that can be done via Photoshop.