Jason Mraz. Where do i begin?

What was meant to be a post birthday present, turned into a spectacular experience that’s permanently etched in my head. That man was born to perform. Tickets were sold out almost 4 days after sales were commenced, but i have a lil secret to tell you. That, at the end of this . . . → Read More: Jason Mraz – Singapore 2009]]>

Jason Mraz. Where do i begin?

What was meant to be a post birthday present, turned into a spectacular experience that’s permanently etched in my head. That man was born to perform.
Tickets were sold out almost 4 days after sales were commenced, but i have a lil secret to tell you. That, at the end of this entry.

Mraz sang some of my favourite tunes like Who Needs Shelter and Mr Curiosity, apart from his other radio friendly hits. Too bad he didn’t sing Please Don’t Tell Her. I would love to hear that live. And Plane and Bella Luna…
Beautiful Mess was beautifully rendered and it was bloody beautiful i tell ‘ya.
I observed that the crowd were more riled up with his radio hits, but not hyped at all with his other album tracks.

Who’s Joyce Chua again? Or was it Chia? I don’t know. She and Mraz did a duet for yes, that song, “Lucky“.
I shall not comment on her performance/stage persona/chemistry but her stylist is in deep trouble i bet. Just look at the photo will you? Tell me what on earth is that…thing?!

And oh, because of the ‘full house’ , the missus and i didnt manage to sit beside each other. Instead, we were given tickets one row apart. I didn’t mind. But hey, LOTS of people decided not to turn up (o’rly?) on our block so the missus and i enjoyed the show side by side, shouting like teenage groupies. Ah, bliss..
So for those who didn’t get any tickets, i know how you feel. (especially Noi hehehe)

So that’s the end of the show. Next up, the battle of the carpark! It took me 30′ish minutes to get out of that damned carpark because some people were not clever enough to give way and basically be considerate. Bah humbug. Supper by the east coast beach made up for it. Yummeh~

Jason Mraz, good job and gimme gimme gimme a high 5! Come back soon.

That’s what the koala is saying while having a drink courtesy of the  firefighter with a big heart. What really touches me is the koala holding his hand. Argh. Too cute.

If you have some to spare, they need it.

Click here to view the . . . → Read More: God Bless You]]>

“May God bless you”

That’s what the koala is saying while having a drink courtesy of the  firefighter with a big heart.
What really touches me is the koala holding his hand. Argh. Too cute.

If you have some to spare, they need it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cookieeeeeeee! Om nom nom nom nommmmm

Clever nom creations by . . . → Read More: Creative Cupcakes]]>

Cookieeeeeeee! Om nom nom nom nommmmm

Clever nom creations by Nick D

Agency: Armstrong & Asociados, Santiago Creative Director: Marcelo Quintana Art Director: Nicolás Fracchia Copywriter: Philip Honeyman Illustrator: Ricardo Hitschfield Photographer: . . . → Read More: Canon’s inbuilt tripod]]>

Agency: Armstrong & Asociados, Santiago
Creative Director: Marcelo Quintana
Art Director: Nicolás Fracchia
Copywriter: Philip Honeyman
Illustrator: Ricardo Hitschfield
Photographer: Colin Anderson

Vichy Sunblock literally blocks the sun!

Agency: JUNG von . . . → Read More: Super Sunblock]]>

Vichy Sunblock literally blocks the sun!

Agency: JUNG von MATT, Berlin

E2 is a rescued cat from Zouk. Don’t ask why. Ok ok, the brother works at Zouk, and he rescued E2 one day cos apparently SPCA was doing their rounds. (and you know what they might do next) I don’t really know her age, . . . → Read More: E2]]> We have a kitten and her name is E2. Don’t ask why.

E2 is a rescued cat from Zouk. Don’t ask why.
Ok ok, the brother works at Zouk, and he rescued E2 one day cos apparently SPCA was doing their rounds. (and you know what they might do next) I don’t really know her age, but my best bet would be somewhere around 5 months. E2 was brought home quietly in a Dom Perignon (haha!) box, cos mom wasn’t a fan of pets.

We never had pets before. Oh well, except for the gerbil who ran away. Mom was never a fan of pets. Did i say that already? Oh, yeah.

E2 became part of the family on July 9th. I came back from work (3am dammit!!) and there was a kitten in the house! How excited i was! I remember asking Nad for tips on keeping a cat. Mom’s initial plan was to keep her till she’s big enough to fend for herself. Eventually, we grew attached to her and we treated E2 like part of the family.

Curiosity killed the cat, so the saying goes. Being young and very curious, it was natural for E2 to try out new things. Today she decided to learn about height. And it was not a good lesson.

E2 fell from the 12th storey…but she survived. Oh my God! Emotions were pouring out this morning… and the vet said this incident was a miracle. A miracle indeed! She is warded for 3 days in the pet hospital and there were no broken bones. We are hoping for the best.

I am thankful for her nine lives. Never will i leave my sights off her again. Never.

We miss you E2. We love you. Get well soon, i bought you your favourite mackerel and chicken.

E2 from Mr Malique on Vimeo.

UPDATE

E2 is back home! Yay!
She’s fine but very quiet.
On antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication.
Vet said 2 weeks hardcore resting. No climbing, no naughty things. Mom called me up and said “The vet gave E2 2 weeks MC, no need to go school!” Hahah..
And she lets me pet her more now…good girl! Sayang dia!

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to lose your head – the safe way! As usual, I will start off with the basics, and then suggest how you could carry on from there. Let’s get started.

Setting up for this photo manipulation is quite similar to the previous (and now rather famous!) cloning tutorial, in . . . → Read More: Tutorial : How To Lose Your Head!]]>

In this tutorial, I will teach you how to lose your head – the safe way! As usual, I will start off with the basics, and then suggest how you could carry on from there. Let’s get started.

Setting up for this photo manipulation is quite similar to the previous (and now rather famous!) cloning tutorial, in which you need a camera (obviously), a tripod (or just a steady place to put your camera) and 2 photographs of the same scene, one with your model (or yourself) in it, and one without.

For this tutorial, I will be using these 2 photographs below. I had accidentally shifted the camera a teeny bit when I was taking these shots, but the difference is almost negligible, so these images can still be used. But for those of you trying this out for the first time, and have never done the cloning tutorial before, remember not to move your tripod and camera in between shots, ya?

Just to reiterate from the cloning tutorial, this is so you will get a consistent look (distance of scene from camera, angle, et cetera) for both your photographs, as this is crucial for the photo manipulation to work.

The 2 photographs :

The second photograph, which I’ve mentioned before that I like to call the blank template, is only necessary for the parts you’d like to be invisible, but enough with words, let’s get to the steps.

Step 1:

1. Bring both the photographs into Photoshop. If possible, work with the highest resolution photographs that you can get your hands on. This will allow you to work on the more minute details, to make your finished product more realistic.

   Move the image with the blank scene to the top, above the image with the model. In my example, my blank scene is named Blank and the one with the model is named Model. You may name your layers whatever you choose (or not name them at all), but I will be using these names in this tutorial to make things easier to understand.

2. Add a layer mask to the Blank layer.
    

3. Fill the layer mask that you have just added to the Blank layer with the colour black.
    

4. Click on the Brush tool (shortcut button : B), and make sure that the foreground colour is white.
    

5. While the layer mask of the Blank layer is still selected, and using a brush size of your liking, start brushing away on the head. What this does is cover the bottom layer, which is my Model layer, with the top layer, which is my Blank layer, making it look as though the head of the model is transparent.

   In the image above, I showed a feathered brush of size 20. In reality, I alternate between different sizes and I use a small solid brush to get the edges of the head which touches the shirt. For intricate selection, I use paths as well.

   To know more, jump over to my previous tutorial on how to do precise selections.

Step 2:

At this point, you should have an interesting headless image, like so :

Some people are happy to stop here, but we are not, are we? Oh no, of course we’re not. Let’s recreate the back of that shirt.

1. First we have to create a base colour for the back of the shirt. I used Photoshop’s Eyedropper tool (shortcut button : I) and chose a colour from the shirt. While we know that the shirt is black in colour, the Eyedropper tool would tell us exactly which specific shade of black a part of the shirt is. This is more important for clothes of other colours rather than black. Black is relatively easy to fake.

   Then, use a solid brush (as opposed to a feathered brush) to create the shape of the shirt. Use your judgement here, and decide what looks right to you. You can use an actual shirt as a reference.

   Optional :
    
   One sure way to get the shape and colour and such of the inner back of the shirt right… Is to actually take a photograph of the back of that shirt, and paste it in at this stage. I would recommend doing this if you’re creating a photo manipulation for prints larger than A4.

2. Next, we have to match the noise of that base colour to the noise of the photograph, otherwise, it will look very obviously fake since it would be of a solid colour, and would stand out from the rest of the image. What we’re looking for here is to make it look as realistic as possible.

   To add noise, select the layer with your base colour and click on Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Experiment with the noise amount to match the noise in your photograph. For the photograph I used here, the image wasn’t all that noisy, so I added about 2% noise.

   I had also decided to lighten the base a bit here since the black I originally chose blended way too well into the shadows. 

3. At this step, I began to add shadows to make the back of the shirt seem slightly less 2 dimensional. I played with the shadows a lot before I settled on this, subtle but yet you can tell there are shadows.

   To add shadows, you can use either use the Gradient tool (shortcut button : G) with a gradient that goes from black to transparent, or you can use a small feathered brush and brush in the shadows yourself. Play with the opacity of the layer until you are satisfied with the look of the shadows. 

4. And the finishing touch is adding of the shirt label and the seams of the collar.

   The shirt label is just a rectangular box which is filled with white, and with its opacity lowered. The seams were made by using the brush tool, and painting a line around the collar.

And that’s it! Pretty easy, no? The tricky part is to make it as realistic as possible. If you’re going to set up a photoshoot especially to try this tutorial, keep in mind to keep as much shadow away from the collar area. The final image below still looks a bit off (to me, at least) since there are heavy shadows around the neck area, when there isn’t supposed to be a head there to cast the shadow. Heh.

And here’s one more example.

Other cool things that can be done using this technique, along with properly posed photographs, include getting beheaded (place your head somewhere else in the photograph!) and becoming 100% invisible (clone out your arms, hands, and feet too!)! And if you’re like The Decapitator, you’d maybe want to leave the neck alone, and add some blood, flesh and bone! Heh.

Go on, then. Show us what you can do!

		This entry was published by mr malique’s co-author, Zul. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect mr malique’s opinions.
		Zul is a hobbyist-photographer, an engineer by education, but a web designer by profession. He can be found roaming the streets begging people to accept HTML into their hearts. Other times, he can be found not making much sense at zuldevil.com

It wasn’t fun at all. Just take a look at the picture. OMG.

I swear i’m not stepping into a hospital ever again. First, there wasn’t any wireless connection. So my ipod can’t connect to wifi and so i can’t check emails.  7 days without checking my inbox is hell i tell ‘ya! Sick people need to check . . . → Read More: 7 days, 7 nights.]]>

It wasn’t fun at all. Just take a look at the picture. OMG.

I swear i’m not stepping into a hospital ever again. First, there wasn’t any wireless connection. So my ipod can’t connect to wifi and so i can’t check emails.  7 days without checking my inbox is hell i tell ‘ya!
Sick people need to check emails too godammit! When i finally got home, i got 92 in my gmail inbox and 40+ in my work mail inbox. Wow.

Second, the food. Urgh. Let’s not go there.

Third, i was all alone. 6 beds in total, but im the only soul there. Kinda freaky at night, but i love it. hahha.

Today i end my hospitalization leave, back to work tomorrow (if i still have my job that is)
Pray hard for me people!

Hello and welcome to Ping.sg Forum. Please observe the rules or be prepared for the kitteh monsta!

Spotted a few days back, it was raining and caught this lorry somewhere near the office. Cool . . . → Read More: Welcome to Ping.sg Forum.]]>

Hello and welcome to Ping.sg Forum. Please observe the rules or be prepared for the kitteh monsta!

Spotted a few days back, it was raining and caught this lorry somewhere near the office. Cool aye?