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!

It baffles me why a person must use so many monitors at the same time, but maybe an expert programmer like Eru or an experienced 3D animator like Woelank could explain.

Anyways, here are the selected photos of my favorite workstations;

Check out the amount of monitors on this one! This guy must be minting it.

I love how almost everything is white and decorated with random pictures and tiny knick-knacks here and there. This is a very girly computer setup though.

This one has Intuos, so it’s gotta be a favorite, although to be honest I’m much more worried about one of the laptops being knocked over since the workstation is so close to the kitchen!

Glass table, monitor attached on the wall – very neat, with just enough amount of colors shining out.

Himself obviously loves this one just because it has a Korg MIDI controller which is the same type as his.

I bet by now you’re drooling – can’t really blame you, I was too. But we must, after all, go back to reality and realise that our own workstation only looks like this..

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?

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.

So I made a drawing instead. In the meantime, I’m back to Telkomnyet Instan. Don’t even ask how slow it is – I’m practically growing a beard just to load a page – any page – up. I’m going to give it another four days to go; in the meantime, it’s back to hunting for another ISPs. Jeez. The tedium.

It’s amazing how dependant I am to having unlimited internet connection that when it was seized out of me I feel as if a huge aspect of my life is missing. It’s not so much as having no internet connection at all but more like having a really fist-eatingly slow one as the only choice I have right now that I might as well just forget about it.

It makes me realize how used I was to having a fast connection that even a slow 31.2 kbps that Telkomnyet is offering is no longer an adequate rate for me.

Anyway, enjoy the picture, and forgive me for not having a good enough blog post to read but at least you have some thing to please your eyes!

*) Outlines created in Flash and coloured in Photoshop.