Brian Lai’s Mind-Boggling Color Inverted Drawings

Brian Lai, a brilliant Malaysian artist, has invented his own technique of drawing called ‘Invert Art’. Using the technique, he is able to make rough sketches materialize into full-fledged realistic drawings, when the colors are inverted using a Photoshop filter.

Lai has created a time-lapse video to demonstrate exactly how he creates these drawings. He first sketches and shades ‘normally’. Then, he completes the drawing by shading it inversely. After this, he takes a photograph of the drawing (he’s in some of the pictures too), and inverts the colors in Photoshop. The details appear, almost magically.

Some of the pictures on the internet of Lai’s work show how he’s successfully used his technique to make a drawing of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. At first, I thought he was holding up a real poster of the movie. Only when I read about his technique, did I realize it was a drawing.

Lai is talented; he has a keen eye that allows him to translate normal images into inverted ones. He does need some time though, to adjust the tone and shading details of his work. For complex images like the Wolverine one, he had an inverted image of a photograph for reference.

 

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Vince Low – Malaysian Artist Makes Celebrity Portraits from Scribbles

For the average illustrator, scribbling isn’t the best way to create realistic-looking portraits. But then again, Vince Low isn’t your average illustrator. The Malaysian artist somehow manages to produce impeccable portraits of some of Hollywood’s greatest actors using only childish scribbles. The lead illustrator of Malaysian advertising agency, Grey, Vince Low has an impressive portfolio of stunning artworks, but his latest portrait series, called Faces, is particularly eye-catching. That’s because the stunning depictions of stars like Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith or Leonardo Di Caprio were all done exclusively with scribbles on blank white canvases. Most people would have a hard time capturing their unique features using classic drawing techniques, but he creates highly accurate facial representation just by overlapping thousands of swirling lines. Amazing or what? Vince Low’s scribbled masterpieces reminded me of Russian artistic duo Sergei and Vyacheslav Savelyv who use the same technique to create incredibly detailed images.

 

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I-City Shah Alam, Nighttime wonderland

i-City, one of the latest high-tech attractions of Malaysia, can best be described as an unconventional mix of Oriental style and the latest in lighting technology. Located in the city of Shah Alam, i-City is a one-of-a-kind theme-park where all the main attractions are made of plastic and millions of bright LED lights, during the day, i-City’s artificial forest of maple and pine trees really comes to life at night. Made out of plastic and fitted with colorful LEDs, they put on a light show unlike any other.

Inaugurated in early 2010, Shah Alam‘s i-City has already become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Malaysia. From rows upon rows of LED-made Chinese lanterns, to LED peacocks, flamingos and LED cherry blossoms, i-City offers a variety of unique sights that are sure to amaze anyone who visits here. Though nothing compares to the look and smell of real trees, the colorful display of i-City’s magical forest is proof of the wonderful things man can create if he puts his mind to it.Now sit back and check out a set of mind-blowing photos taken in i-City, at night.

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Alain Robert The Spiderman Climbs The Petronas Towers KLCC

Malaysians especially those in Kuala Lumpur would have been shocked by the news about Alain Robert ‘The Spiderman’. Why? Because he climbed the Petronas Towers or the KLCC building on last Tuesday September 1st 2009. Many people argue why did we detain him as he gave the free publicity to Malaysia without asking even for 1 cent from Malaysian government.

Robert or his full name, Alain Robert Phillipe, 47 is a French and even the French government regards him as disabled etc. He started to climb at the of 12 and since then he has climbed 85 buildings around the world including the skyscrapers like Empire State Building in New York (1,250 feet), Sears Tower in Chicago (1,453 feet), Taipei 101, Taiwan (1,667 feet) and Jin Mao in Shanghai, China (1,378 feet).

Most of the climbing he did were done without consent and these made him to be detained for intrusion charges.

When the Petronas Towers in construction was fully completed in the late 90, Robert and this building got the world’s attention as the Petronas Twin Tower in Kuala Lumpur was the world’s highest building then.

in 1997, a year before that towers were officially open, he climbed to the level 60 of that building without being noticed.

Recently on last Tuesday, September 1st 2009, just a day after Malaysians celebrated their nation’s 52th birthday, Robert was claimed to start climbing Petronas Towers at 6 am and he managed to reach the highest point of that building. The next day he was charged in the Magistrate Court that can put him into the jail for 6 months (maximum) or need to pay Rm3,000 (maximum) or both of them.

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Dress from 4,000 Tea Bags

The latest in bizarre dresses has arrived. After paper napkins, newspapers, and even condoms, we now have a dress made of tea bags. This one was made by a 16-year-old from Kuala Lumpur, and she used a whopping 4,000 tea bags to create her masterpiece. She won the top prize at the Green Awards 2011 held in Kuala Lumpur in October.

Suraya Mohd Zairin is a science student from SMK Bukit Jelutong, Shah Alam. She says that she chose to make a dress out of tea bags because they were easily available to her. With the help of her friends, she was able to collect the 4,000 bags and then it took her three months to complete the dress. The theme followed by the budding designer was 'flowers', because their shapes have always mesmerized her.

Suraya says that people tend to take flowers for granted, and through her dress she wanted to highlight the significance of nature, especially that of flowers. She was the youngest contestant in the category, and never expected to win. Needless to say, she was quite shocked when her name was announced as the winner. The two categories of the award where wildly creative and totally active. She received RM4000, which is approximately $1,700, along with a trophy, for her efforts.

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Malaysia Langkawi Sky Bridge

Langkawi Sky Bridge is a 125 metres (410 ft) curved pedestrian cable-stayed bridge in Malaysia. It is located 700 metres (2,300 ft) above sea level at the peak of Gunung Mat Chinchang on Pulau Langkawi, an island in the Langkawi archipelago in Kedah. The bridge was built crooked on purpose to offer a beautiful view of the chasm beneath and of the sea and neighboring islands. It has 2 triangular platforms at each end, offering views of the landscape from different angles and also shelter for those who have a problem with the shaking of the bridge. The constructors took all the necessary precautions, building an excellent protection system, so don’t worry you’re safe.

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Hygiene-Obsessed Woman Washed Her Hands 300 Times a Day

40-year-old Julia Abdullah, from Malaysia, was obsessed with her self-cleaning rituals. Her bizarre behavior started 20 years ago, but it gradually got worse to the point where she was washing her hands up to 300 times a day, spending 5 hours in the shower and shampooing her hair 25 times per day.Julia first noticed something was amiss two decades ago. She was working as a laboratory technician, and often handled urine and stool culture samples, as well as blood samples for HIV tests.

She started spending increasingly more time on washing her hands, for fear of contamination, and although she suspected she had developed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), she didn’t seek help. ”I thought I could will myself off the washing,” Julia remembers, but her condition only got worse. She eventually lost her job as her obsession caused her to be constantly late for work, and needed to find other ways to pay her rapidly increasing house utility bills. At one point the woman became so desperate that she started scavenging through her neighbors’ trash looking for stuff she could sell. In a short period of time she amassed a collection of junk that occupied the two-room flat she shared with her mom. The hoarding got so bad that her mother had to sleep at the stairwell as there was no ventilation or natural light in the flat. ”It finally got too much for me to bear. I got so angry that I stopped bathing for three months,” Ms Julia told the Malaysia Chronicle, but her obsessive-washing habits were hardly cured.

“I called the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH) hotline in 2009. I was almost driven to the point of suicide,” Julia Abdullah says, and they helped her get life back on track. Only her condition worsened a year later, after she missed some of her treatment appointments. She was again going through two bottles of shampoo and 21 bars of soap per day. She was so exhausted that she didn’t have the time or energy for anything else. Luckily, her SAMH counsellors intervened and admitted her to the Institute of Mental Health,for 22 days. Now Julia Abdullah says she has regained control of her life, but agreed to tell of her struggle in a photography exhibition called Picture My World, which is organised by IMH to raise awareness of mental illness, as part of its World Mental Health Day activities.

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Malaysia’s Unique Oil Rig Hotel

Once just another oil rig used to pollute the ocean, Malaysia’s Seaventures Dive Resort is now one of the most popular diving spots in the Pacific Ocean.

The waters surrounding an oil rig are probably the last place you’d imagine to find such an amazing array of coral reefs, and a diverse marine life, made up of hundreds of species of colorful tropical fish, sea turtles and other marvelous creatures. But this particular oil rig is actually a hotel where divers from around the world book rooms, so they can be close to Sipadan Island, known for its incredibly beautiful underwater scenery.

The oil rig sitting in the Celebes Sea is owned by Suzette Harris, an Singaporean business woman whose father in law bought the metal monster, in 1988. She says in Singapore you can buy a used oil rig, just as easy as you would an old boat. After buying it, he had it towed to Borneo waters and started this unique diving hotel. While they tried painting it in lively colors, to give it a welcoming look, there’s just so much you can do with an oil rig, and visitors should not expect five-star accommodations. The rooms are tidy but tiny, there’s hardly any closet space and the air smells from the oil powering the generators. The food isn’t exactly gourmet either, but tourists who stay at the oil rig hotel, don’t care much about these details. To them it’s all about being at the heart of the Coral Triangle, an area with a rich marine diversity.

Seaventures Dive Resort may not be as luxurious as I’m sure many other hotels in Malaysia, but it’s unique setting, and the fact that it’s the only oil rig hotel in the world, make it one of the world’s most popular tourist resorts.

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Mind-Blowing Portrait Created from Thousands of Coffee Stains

Just weeks after she took the Internet by storm with her incredible portrait of Yao Ming, created only with a basketball and red paint, Malaysian artist Hong Yi strikes again, this time with a realistic rendition of Taiwanese singer Jay Chou made with coffee stains.

The young artist begins her unusual creative process by taking a sip of coffee. Like most of us, she spills some of it in the small saucer and that apparently inspires her to use the dirty bottom of the cup to start a sepia tone masterpiece. At first the coffee cup stains look just like the ones you can spot on table cloths in cheap restaurants, but as she progresses, her work starts to take shape. First you can make out the outline of the head, then the nose and mouth, the eyes, and before you know it you’re staring at a realistic portrait of Jay Chou made with coffee stains, and struggling to lift your jaw off the floor.

Hong Yi, who also goes by the nickname “Red”, said “My painting is meant to look like a sepia-toned old photograph to capture the essence of this story”. She spent around 12 hours on this incredible piece, because not only did she paint the whole thing with just a coffee cup, but the had to get the coffee mixture just perfect, as the ring stains were permanent the moment they touched the canvas.

For someone like me, who can’t paint a decent portrait with the best paintbrush money can’t buy, this kind of masterpiece is simply awe-inspiring, and I just can’t wait to see what this amazing artist comes up with next.

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Scandal of Shirley the chain-smoking orangutan in Malaysian horror zoo

Chain-smoking all day in her cramped enclosure, lighting the next cigarette from the stump of the last one, Shirley the orangutan cuts a pitiful figure. She has no problem feeding her habit – visitors chuck her their butts, blatantly ignoring the no smoking signs while zoo officials look the other way.

They also hurl drinks cans and other rubbish at Shirley, 25, laughing as she chews on plastic food wrappings or reaches through the bars to beg for another cigarette. Her plight is one of the most horrific examples of animals caged in cruelty in Malaysia, a country which has some of the worst zoos in the world.

The scandal includes crocodiles in enclosures without water, giraffes with bloody sores on their legs, and lions and tigers trapped in tiny cages too small for them to turn around in.But it is Shirley who brings home the full horror of the grim conditions in the government-monitored zoos.She shares her enclosure at a zoo in Johor Baru with another orangutan called Abu. A law was passed last October to clean up zoos like these. But with only weeks to go before the June deadline, it is clear that rule is being ignored.

Recent pictures show that Shirley is still getting hold of fags, despite barriers being erected by the zoo authorities. Nobody knows how she became addicted to cigarettes – she is even picky about which brands she smokes – but her keepers do little to stop visitors from feeding her habit. Last week, an investigation of 10 zoos in Malaysia found animals being kept in dirty, small, bare enclosures.

Some had no clean drinking water or water to swim in. Others were being made to perform, despite a ban by wildlife ministry Perhilitan.Nature Alert, based in Britain, is working to change things. The voluntary non-profit organisation has raised many cases of cruel zoo conditions with the Malaysian government – including exposing one zoo which was illegally obtaining orangutans.

Boss Sean Whyte said: “They are among the worst zoos in the world. In Malaysia’s case they have no excuse. It is a wealthy country. It is really grim. “A new law came into effect last October. They gave the zoos six months to get up to standard, but no one has any expectation that anything will really change without publicity. “The government makes promise after promise. They never keep any of them, but I will hold their feet to the fire until they do.“I can understand different cultures, but this is purely people exploiting wildlife for financial gain illegally. Malaysia is a hub for the illegal trade in animals. Those orangutans have been in zoos approved of by the government. “I advise anyone visiting Malaysia to stay away from zoos – or risk becoming deeply upset at what they see.”

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Cartoonist Turns Ordinary Styrofoam Cups into Original Artworks

Malaysian-born artist Cheeming Boey uses a simple sharpie pen to turn simple Styrofoam cups into unique works of art that sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Styrofoam cups don’t usually attract a lot of attention, unless they’re mentioned in discussions about environment pollution. They’re cheap and disposable, so no one really cares about them. Neither did Cheeming Boey, until six years ago, when he discovered they could be used as an original canvas for his sharpie doodles. He was in little coffee shop, in Irvine, California, when he got the urge to draw, but found himself without a piece of paper. So he just grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the trash can and unleashed his artistic talent. The result surprised Boey himself, and the artist immediately realized he was up to something.

“I’m often asked, ‘Why don’t you draw on something more solid – like a ceramic cup? Yes, Styrofoam is kind of flimsy but it’s strong in other ways,” he told the OC Register. “When you drop it, it never cracks.” So he stuck to his new-found canvas, and soon, sharpie-drawn Styrofoam cups started piling up on his shelf at work. His friends and colleagues were amazed, but then one of them said “Sure, they’re nice, but who’d pay money for that?” You should NEVER tell a stubborn person that no one’s going to buy their stuff, because they will eventually prove you wrong. Boey vowed to become the Styrofoam Cup King, and now his impressive artworks sell for hundreds of dollars, sometimes even thousands.

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The Breathtaking Glass Temple of Johor Bahru – A Shining Wonder of Malaysia

In the city of Johor Bahru, close to Malaysia’s southern border with Singapore, lies one of the world’s most amazing pieces of architecture – a Hindu Temple covered almost entirely with glass. It’s called the Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman temple, and it’s one of the must see attractions of Malaysia.

Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman is one of the oldest temples in the state of Johor. It started out as a small shelter, built in 1922, and grew steadily over the years, but its true expansion started in 1991, when the current chief priest, Sri Sinnathamby Sivasamy, inherited the administration of the temple from his father. He became the driving force of this once humble hut, and committed himself to turning it into a beautiful Hindu place of worship. Despite facing many challenges, Sivasamy managed to expand and completely rebuild the temple in just five years, and in 1996 it was reopened to the public. Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman had already transformed into an impressive display of Malaysian architecture, but it would soon become a truly unique Hindu sanctuary, unlike any other.

Guru Sri Sinnathamby Sivasamy was traveling to Bangkok in a Thai rickshaw when he got the idea of turning the Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman temple into a shining marvel. While he was gazing at the surroundings, his attention was suddenly captured by a shimmering light in the distance. Curious about its source, the Hindu priest decided to follow the light and eventually discovered it was actually a glass artwork placed at the entrance of a temple. That’s when he decided he was going to use the same material to make his temple shine in the sunlight. Between 2008 and 2009, Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman was almost entirely covered with colorful pieces of glass both on the inside and on the outside. While there are a few other temples partially decorated with glass, at least 90% of this particular one is decorated with a beautiful-yet-fragile glass mosaics.

The unique temple is embellished with 300,000 pieces of red, blue, yellow, green, purple and white glass, including its floors, pillars and walls. There are large crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and their light reflected on the glass surroundings can be quite blinding at first, but once your eyes get used to it, you’ll end up admiring the surreal effect. Apparently, the renovation process of Arulmigu Sri Rajakaliamman temple cost 3 million ringgits (around $1 million), funds raised from donations and community programs. The glass sanctuary is fully air-conditioned and can accommodate 1,500 devotees.

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