Horrible anatomy is horrible.
Yi Sang from Limbus Company.
Dr Spicy died of a broken heart. Literally and figuratively.
(Nevermind, just revive him again. Get back to work!)
I had fun painting this. Changed my method of painting from lighter to darker, rather than darker to lighter.
Looking forward to trying this again in future paintings.
Sinclair is for headpats and giving sweets during lunch time.
He functions as the emotional support mascot for the team.
Don is for bullying.
She screams into my ear every morning when I come to collect enkephalin.
Disclaimer: I love all my employees equally. Most of the time. Better than I treat my clerks anyway.
Pre-uptie: You keep running out of boolets, what’s the point? Bench.
Post-uptie: Captain Myo would be proud.
Originally posted here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqe3aFvPMU4/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
It’s 2023!
It’s been forever and I have been unexpectedly busy – don’t get me wrong, contrary to popular belief, I am lazy but I’m not that lazy that I don’t want to work.
Let’s just say that the internet connection at my house isn’t that good. Yeah, let’s go with that.
Twoset had a concert the other day! For their 4 million subscribers and it was fantastic. Everyone did a great job but I heard there were some controversies and copy strikes and stuff after the event, or something very absurd. Anyway I did fanart for them so there’s that.
And also for his friend. Both of them performed, so it’s only fair.
Then I played video games and drew fanart (again) and stuff. Like Cuno from Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium is a great game by the way. It’s the greatest game I have ever read – yeeaaa, it plays like a visual novel but not so visual novel-ly. For one, I am impressed with the art direction. If you have the chance, get the Final Cut version where every line is voiced – honestly, the voiceover is one of the greatest thing about the game. Well, actually, everything is great- what’s not good about it is that I think the game is too short but I have no suggestion as to what to pad it to make it longer. It’s unfortunate with what happened to the studio because I really wanted to support more games from them.
Please please please just try and play the game, I’m begging you – you don’t even have to play it, just listen to it, click here and there and just do whatever you want – play it blind. That’s the best way to play it, I swear. Watching a Let’s Play does not do it justice as the story unfolds and people treat you based on your own choices. It’s very confusing at the start, like you don’t even know what’s going on, why you’re here and why you are the way you are – but that’s the point, you’ll see why as you progress through the game and piece the puzzle together. This is one of the few games which actually made me laugh out loud while playing because of how absurd some of the situations are but then within the same hour, you would cry at how sad, cruel and nihilistic the world can be. Other games have comedy – but it’s just comedy where I go ‘heh, yea, okay, that’s kind funny I guess’. The thought cabinet ‘The Precarious World’ is one of those short speeches that you listen to which just strikes something in your heart to just keep moving forward in life, no matter what happens.
In my last post, I spoke about how I’m waiting for my results for my NRMP 2022 Match. And yeah well, I didn’t get a spot. Obviously. And that was it. All that effort, time, money down the drain, and I don’t want to play a game that the chances will just reduce year after year. It’s not cheap either for me to try annually. I was in a massive slump and didn’t feel like doing anything – just living. But after playing this game, I eventually got to come to terms to my failure with hopes that this opens up chances elsewhere.
I also tried drawing food – so there’s that. not very good at it yet – but I’m trying.
Also, I tried to recolour one of my ye olde drawings which I did in the past. At the time, I wanted to colour it many many times, but I didn’t have enough skill. Now I assume I have? Tapi camtu lah – wish I could add in more detail and make it pop up more – but I don’t think there’s anything else that I can do to make it better rather than cluttered and worse. I did put in a lot of effort – that I can assure you.
And finally, Phosphophyllite from houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous – one of my favourite anime that I watched a few years ago and every year- every year– I wish they made a second season. Out of impatience I have read the manga in advance and hooo boyy we in deep deep depression now guys!
Anyway I can’t type anymore because I think the page is lagging with all the images that I uploaded. I actually wanted to talk about AI art etc but I don’t think I can with the lag that I’m experiencing. AI art bad, stop stealing other people’s art, prompting and writing words into a generator is not artistic -etc. Yeah, that’s my argument. But I don’t want to argue now.
Oh, and I also played Signalis. That was fun.
Thanks and have a nice day~
No stealing, by the way.
大家好。好久不见。
It’s September and I have to say, this year’s Independence Day celebration is the most underwhelming celebration for as long as I can remember. And I understand why, the current economy isn’t holding up too well – the government is stuck between saving lives or saving the economy. It’s kind of tone deaf to tell the citizens to hang flags in support of Independence day celebration when they could barely afford rice for dinner, but at the same time, this might (and this is a massive ‘might’) help distract people from continuous despair? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here.
My brother asked me what would I do in such a situation; whats the decision that I would make? The general populace tends to complain and criticize about every decision the government undertakes, so what would you favour: health or economy? Since I come from a medical background, securing the health of the populace is of utmost importance, and therefore I do agree if someone tells me that I am biased. But I do understand that without supporting the economy, you will have a bunch of healthy people who would starve. So it both boils down to a lose-lose situation. My only answer is that I’m glad I’m not a politician.
And cannibalism is not an option.
Onto more important things, I know I wanted to be more productive with buying a sketchbook. And I do say I have been more productive than ever before for the past few weeks. If I’m not sketching in the book, I will be sketching on the computer. But recent events have hampered this progress – more like I’m curbing myself and giving all sorts of excuses but oh well. The 2022 NRMP Match is coming soon and to say that I am stressed out like crazy is an understatement. I am literally freaking out about something which hasn’t even happened yet and about my future when it is really something that I can’t control. And I need to tell myself this everyday to calm myself before I binge eat cake and drink a gallon of tea as a coping mechanism.
Looking at the programs available for a specialty that I aim to join, what I thought was simple was actually more complicated than I thought it was. But I’m already one foot in and one foot out. I consulted my family; they told me to just go for it – in case it doesn’t work out, just shrug it off and move forward. The alternative is me regretting it years and years down the line and that thing haunts you in your sleep.
But at this most important time did I suddenly have doubts creeping into my mind about the future of the specialty that I wanted to join – which is pathology. Suddenly, I have the urge to pursue pediatrics. Pediatrics. That one field of medicine that I tried for years and years to run away from after I was forcefully incorporated into it after finishing housemanship. I will be lying to you if I tell you I don’t miss it. I do. But I think, and I’d like to hope this is true, that the thing that I miss was actually the camaraderie and the teamwork that we had where we ride and die together. Not the work itself.
I consulted a lot of people asking their opinions. And received mixed reviews. Each with their own pros and cons – which I won’t delve in here because I believe it is a sensitive issue. Each specialty fiercely defended themselves and say what they believe is true, and rightfully so. I believe that you should enjoy your work, because otherwise, it will be an absolute chore to wake up in the morning to face the endless grind. I asked the opinion of non-medical acquaintances and they told me (aside from prayer) to choose whichever makes me a better person.
I believe both fields make me a better person but in different ways.
You might be thinking – why am I asking other people’s opinion about what option should I choose for my own life. Sad cringe. Well, now that we’ve come to this part of this suddenly long blog segment and you are still reading, I’d like you to know that I am someone who never has an own opinion for myself and has always gone with the flow with whatever opportunity comes to me. Surprise, surprise. There are only a few decisions that I took in my life what was genuinely my own, and needless to say, some have said that I have some pretty dumb decision making capabilities because of my extreme naivety. One of them was deciding to do housemanship in Sabah to exert independence. And eh, it wasn’t bad bad but there are certain events in my life over there that I would pay money to erase it from my memory.
It amazes me how some doctors are already dead set on what to specialize in, even during undergraduate years. Maybe because I never chose to go to medical school in the first place, so I became pretty aloof about this? Like, how can you be so sure of yourself? I have always had the principle that so long as whatever I’m doing makes everyone happy, then I felt happy to do it. And I have always hold onto the principle that I need to experience what working in that particular field feels like because I know that what’s nice on paper does not translate well in real life. During housemanship years, you have an aim to just finish within the allotted time, but after leveling up into medical officer-tier due to sheer duration of service, suddenly that end game isn’t there anymore and you’re ‘free’ to choose what you want to specialize in.
(‘Free’ because, let’s be real, I never asked for this. And there are a lot of us who are forced to do something we don’t like. And let’s not go into the absolute mess of a situation which is ‘contract doctors’.)
But then it comes to a point of my life that I can’t help make the people around me happy without a significant blow to my own sanity. There’s only so much I can sing and dance for them before I have to stand my ground and tell them to piss off or I might just kick the bucket. The sleepless nights, the anxiety, the blaming, the finger pointing, the constant deflecting, the abuse of the victim card. That was what made me quit. Not the work. Bro, I was prepared to work hard – I never expected my life to be a bed of roses anyway – but stop it with the emotional manipulation. They told me that this is rooted everywhere, no matter where you go, this is the culture. But surely, the grass is greener on the other side?
And in the end, there are no answers to all of these questions no matter how long I think or ponder. Or rather, there are no right answers. All I can say is maybe I should start thinking of what makes me happy. Ironically, I don’t believe true happiness is ever achievable, but instead, only contentment and gratitude in what you have in your life.
Thanks for reading.
Hi.
Someone on the Internet convinced me to buy a sketchbook.
He made a good argument that even though we do digital art, sometimes there still is the need to practice with traditional and nothing beats plain ol’ pencil on paper. And there’s a finite number of times you can undo your mistakes, so you tend to be more careful when you draw. Also a sketchbook is just a sketchbook, not a piece of work, so you don’t have the pressure to perform unlike seeing a blank white canvas on a screen.
And I do agree. Because I remember a time when I had a sketchbook and I made an effort to fill up the pages. Doesn’t matter if it looks nice or just doodling. Maybe because I use a drawing tablet, sketching on a program is a bit difficult. And probably the main reason why I do not like lineart is because of how little control I have over my lines. And blank white canvases gives me anxiety.
And flipping through a sketchbook has a different feel than going through a digital gallery.
Anyway, Day 1 of life for moi sketchbook. It only has 20 or so pages. One hour of mechanical pencil on 135gsm paper with lots and lots of reference from pinterest.
Well, we’ll just have to see how motivated I am, haha.
Thanks for viewing.
Oho. I can write mandarin using the mobile app.
Antarticite from Houseki no Kuni/Land of the lustrous. The anime is just very beautiful to watch while the manga is just a rabbit hole for depression.
Well, a good kind of depression, but still, it’s depressing and the protagonist is very relatable the more you get to know them.
I know the hair shine is a bit too much. I don’t know how to make a believable stone-gem-jewel hair, I’ll try again soon. And do more research on how to make it more believable.
Thanks for viewing!
I got quarantined again today.
This is the second time actually, the first one was last year because I was in short (a few minutes) close contact with a person who was Rona positive. This time, I was in contact with a person who was in contact with someone Rona positive.
And you know what? The entire day, I was A-okay but once I received the above news yesterday evening, immediately I had sore throat.
Like, immediately immediately sore throat. <(-_-;). I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
But at least, so long as the intermediate person isn’t positive, then I shouldn’t need a nasal swab – because that procedure is paaaaaainful.
So today is an impromptu work from home day. Bossku advised me to stay at home and use up my annual leave for it because by definition, I’m not a confirmed case. Which is fair. And to be completely honest with you, I don’t feel working from home, or online classes are that effective. I mean, just look at me, it’s 9 am and instead of work, I’m updating my blog.
I actually wanted to update since June. June. I kept saying I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow.
Now it’s August.
I’ll up some of my drawings and WIPs in a bit because I just realized that it’s on my other computer and I can’t be bothered to turn off this computer, hook up the other computer and then upload, and then turn off that computer and use this computer, because this computer has all my stuff to start my work. Also, this computer cannot write Simplified Chinese :(
Procrastination at it’s finest.
‘Aight, I’m done with the morning work, time to upload some stuff.
This was done way way way back in March I believe, using CSP. But I wanted to edit it a bit before I posted it but then I keep putting it off because CSP. Keeps. Crashingggggg. Not only that, during the work in progress, I accidentally overwrite a work with a backup old file and had to recolour a massive portion of the drawing. Wanna cryyyy. It was one of the most frustrating things ever. And when it gets too frustrating, I just put it on the back burner and gave up. In the end, I didn’t edit anything at all hahaha. By the way, this was a concept art about Falla, one of my really prehistoric OC donut steel and the overarching plot concerning her going on in my head.
This is fan art of Lowell from Project Moon’s Library of Ruina. (I realize that I actually spend more time drawing fan art rather than play the game). I need a lot of catching up to do but between gaming and drawing, I will always prioritize the latter because inspiration and motivation to draw doesn’t come always but I can play video games anytime. I already have the idea that I want his cape/coat to float to the top and then slap a bunch of oriental pattern on it. That was the plan and I believe the plan worked well (^_^). And that pose though – it was actually referenced from a dancing kpop guy who I didn’t even bother to know who.
‘Iron Lotus’ was something which I didn’t really expect to enjoy; first time I heard it it felt very out of place but after a while I came to appreciate it.
And finally Tiphereth and Tiphereth from Project Moon’s Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina. I can write a bit more about this one because it’s more recent. The initial sketch was a fugly composition of both Lobcorp Tiphereths. But boy Tiph looks dead and girl Tiph looks like she wants to kill you.
So I revamped the whole thing, tried to find something with a bit more of a dynamic pose. Looked up photos on pinterest and the internet in general, etc. and finally settled on the final pose. And the problem with that is that I did the pose first, and the perspective later – which we will come to in a bit. Then came the colouring.
Tiph’s Floor of Natural Sciences isn’t yellow. It’s GOLD. And gold (as well as silver, or anything that is shiny shiny for that matter) is a colour that I struggle to imitate. Even blonde hair is something which I struggle to colour, as evidenced by the lack of blonde OCs that I have. My usual tactic of using purple as a base didn’t work for once – I had to scrap the whole thing and use brown-red. And the problem with brown is that, in my hands, it turns muddy fast. And, yeah, I combined the subject with the background during the initial base colour stage and lived to regret it horribly. The cleanup was not fun at all.
And then came the perspective.
If there’s one thing I hate most, it is perspective and drawing anything that resembles an object which is non-organic. And it becomes a massive headache when I never learn my lesson, draw characters first and force perspective on them later. In order to make boy Tiph fit sitting on the dead robot, the two point perspective which I got was (1) in the picture and (2) out of the picture.
And when I wanted to colour in the tiles, I was like, wait a minute, why does the tiles not look like perfects squares? So I kept redoing the guidelines and wire frames again and again and again, about five (5) times because I’m positive I messed up a basic two point perspective somewhere and made the tiles rectangle-ish. Then finally, I just went with the flow, added some value to the tiles and it finally looked square-ish. And I kept extending, extending, extending the canvas and now the actual size is > 4000 pixels x 5000 pixels (@_@).
Yes, SAI, Photoshop and CSP crashed a lot. More so when I have two of them opened at the same time.
The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that Paintool SAI has a built in perspective guideline which you can use to align your lines with easily. Otherwise, having to redraw lines by yourself using the shift key will make me give up all together. Also, Tiphereth’s battle theme in Library of Ruina just really suits her entire plot and really pushed me to complete the piece. Actually, all the patron librarians have very nice battle themes, but I wish Netzie just had more beer.
Oh and about the massive watermarks.
Hmm, I know that I’m kinda unknown so who cares whether someone steals my art or whatever, the watermark makes it even uglier. But I’m not going to take any chances and I don’t want to deal with it in the future when someone does steal my stuff, claim it’s theirs and sells it. It already happened to a family member of mine (well, not art precisely, but something else) and plagiarism is really really frustrating to deal with.
I’ll be straight honest here – WordPress’ block system for writing does not appeal to me one bit. I don’t know how to revert back to the old system.
Thanks for reading. That was a kinda long, comprehensive post. Have a nice day.
The computer at my workplace turned into a disaster and I couldn’t do any work at all. Harddisk rosak, motherboard rosak, everything rosak. And at that point of time, I wonder why I even received the computer as a work computer in the first place when it was so defective.
At this point of my life, I really don’t care if my lines are clean at all. Seeing clean lines of other people’s work looks amazing but drawing clean lines myself gives me a sense of … ickyness? Like its too clean and empty looking.
Also, infant warmers are cozy =)
The number of times I’ve slept like this while waiting for that ‘BABY OUT’ is…. Ugh. I’ve even slept under baby warmers when I was an anesth resident while waiting for the surgeon who forever cannot find the appendix. If I’m not head banging at the ventilator, then I’m hibernating at the open hood infant warmers. I know some will argue that it’s ‘not sterile‘ but you can always discard the layer of napkins for a fresh sterile one.
Also, you think the one doing the surgery is very sterile meh? Look at all these wound breakdowns.
Also, if baby ever gets colonized by my skin flora, I can bet that they will be a super baby – with all this ESBL, MRSA, VRSA, CRE, VRE etc.
It’s a joke. Stop getting so pissed off.
Thank you very much and have a nice day~
This time we’ll talk about infusion feeding and safe increments.
Honestly though, I don’t expect house officers to know about safe increments but if they do, then that’s a thumbs up from me. Because I myself was never taught how to calculate safe increments when I was in residency and I only knew how to calculate it when I become a medical officer.
But it certainly helps if you know the concept.
I’m to lazy to write any more questions but I’ll type it here so that you can practice and understand how to calculate in other settings.
Answer for Question (1): use current weight of 0.91 kg
Answer for Question (2) – Use birth weight of 3.2 kg
Answer for Question (3) – Use birth weight of 1.1 kg
Answer for Question (4) – Use birth weight of 1.1 kg
Again: different centres employ different protocols. Some centres use a range of 15 – 30 cc/kg/day for safe increment, some even go as high as 40 cc/kg/d. It depends on the practice.
Also, in the centre which I used to practice, a feeding of TF 120 cc/kg/d is considered full feeding. Which means, at this amount of milk, the baby is unlikely to get hypoglycemia, so you don’t need to top off the remaining 30cc/kg/d with intravenous fluid. Because placing a baby on intravenous fluid requires canulation for IV access, you will need to poke the baby just for fluids (which will only be used for one day give or take) which is painful and stressful to them! And what are the chances that you can get access with a single attempt? We try to minimize blood taking and line setting as much as possible in babies and children.
In fact, again, in the centre where I used to practice, if the IV line is not working, even at a TF of 100cc/kg/day, we would not recanulate (unless baby requires a line for antibiotics or other medications) but we will prefer to check the serum glucose regularly because it is less painful then attempting cannulation. This is provided that the baby has no previous issues with sugar control.
Again, and I stress it again: Follow your hospital’s protocol.
The fun starts when we begin calculating total parenteral nutrition (TPN).
*Rubs hands menacingly*
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