Fantasy Garden

I'VE BEEN IN A FANTASY ART MOOD as you can see in the above image. Originally, I was planning to create something different - something more modern. Going through my photo collection, I saw this photo I took last year of JuLeZz's sister during a Hari Raya photoshoot session. Tweak here, tweak there - and what did I end up with? Another fantasy art.

A lot of brushes and brush techniques went into the above piece - mostly dodging, burning and erasing certain parts to create the desired effect, something different than my usual style. I ended up loving the result and so I shared it (see facebook fan page).

One thing that annoys me at the moment though, my images seems to look a bit dark and sharp when I upload it on Picasa. Best that you go ahead to facebook to see how I intended the image to look like.

Sky High

I'VE BEEN TRYING HARD to keep practising my photoshop skills and get back to where I was before - back when I used to just design something from scratch - everything 100% photoshop. These days, I even need to go online and get some inspiration before I could even begin a piece. The results? I always end up with not 100% happy with the product but not entirely despised at the results as well. The most important part though is that I do see that I have been improving.

The above photomanipulation is my latest work on a photo I took of my fellow SEEDS members. The photo was originally taken on a flyover (after I parked safely on the side of course) and is a combination of a few stock photos I've collected the past few years. I apologize though that I can't remember who the photos were from (I really should keep a record of it).

The tiny planet was created by myself with a meadow stock photo after which I also added that single tree on it, also a stock photo. The little rainbow however was made by myself on photoshop itself. Easy job. This piece took me about an hour and a half to create - adjusting the lighting took most of my time.

PS: I miss working with the Oliver! casts and crew. Even though I've got a lot of work, it feels like I've got a lot of free time compared to the amount of time I dedicated on directing Oliver!.

Facebook post here

To A New Life With Another

I'VE BEEN BUSY WITH SEEDS this past few months. A lot of time was dedicated and sacrificed just to make sure that our production went well - and I have to say, I was amazed at the end product. I'll blog about that soon.

Today though, I would like to dedicate this post to this long awaited time where my brother is getting married. I wish him all the best and may he live a happy married life.

Photo: Taken during his Berzikir/Bebedak ceremony. See Facebook or Flickr for a better quality photo

Back To New Old School

AN INSPIRATION IS A STRONG TOOL for motivation. When you are interested in something and you see others who do well in them really do do well, it gives you that drive to want to be at the same level or do better. Unless of course if you are a jealous douchebag who just wants to trample on someone else's success (or steal them in some cases) or your self-esteem level is at an all time low, watching others do their magic I guess just doesn't cut it for you.

Going back to the topic, as you can see from the previous posts (here and here) I've been posting a lot on food. Our home-cooked food to be specific. Well, mostly JuLeZz's work. But my point being, I've never been so motivated to work on food this much before and it's all because of all the amazing food photos I've seen plus the food channels on TV.

Heck, I'm come to pray upon the wonders of TV (again). For years, I've ignored the device but now, it has come to a point where I'd have it in the background even while playing games on the PS3! But I do not stop there - I take it a step further - recording. I don't surf through channels - I surf through the schedules and when I find something I like (or a title that sounds interesting - mostly on Travel and AFC) I hit the record button. Now, only over a month later since we got our little digital magical device (little here being too over ambitious - Astro Max is huge!), we've recorded almost 20hours of TV shows. And I'm loving how you can just skip through the commercials while watching a recorded episode, the reason why I left TV for the internet to begin with anyway. But now, I can save all my hard disk space for my photos instead of downloaded TV episodes.

Next stop, Astro Beyond. HD is everything today!

Photo: Apple Brown Rice (inspired by 'Chef At Home' - we love that show) and Yoghurt Chicken (not actual name - I just can't remember what it's called).

Bolognaise & Meatballs

NO MORE BUYING READY MADE MEATBALLS. Everything was home made from scratch, except for the pasta of course.

Two food blog posts in a row! Wow...

Food, Glorious Food

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD~ I seem to be watching Asian Food and the Travel channels a lot these days, mostly finding tips on how to create my own dish. JuLeZz makes really good food all the time and I always want to be there in the kitchen to help lessen her work. Sometimes I love to cook and even more so now that I'm so inspired after watching these TV channels. Even more addictive with the fact that we've got Astro Max which means that I can record a lot of food episodes I might miss.

Funny thing is, now that we're in the middle of producing Oliver! (see previous post), the song "Food, Glorious Food" always sings itself in my head, which makes me want to watch the channels more, cook some more and, inevitably, eat some more (or in this case, eat more).

Back to the topic at hand. Because of all these glorious food we've been watching, this month we decided to have home cooked meal - and we've started. I didn't get to take a photo of the yoghurt roasted chicken we had the day before yesterday but after the event we had in the kitchen yesterday, I thought I should keep a record of the meals we have this month. With that, we begin our first adventure into the culinary art kingdom!

Photo: JuLeZz made the Frittata while I the garlic bread.