An online friend of mine, from way back during the mIRC days, Weiling (not you, fiz!), was doing an art project for her course in NTU, which I found to be very interesting and fun. She posted letters to strangers (well, mostly strangers - hurr), with self-addressed, stamped envelopes and a letter of request and instructions. The gist of the letter is basically an introduction of herself and her art project, where she needed strangers to send back her envelopes with a written secret of theirs; she would then take photographs of her interpretation of these secrets, using herself as the model, and these photographs will be her final art project. All secrets will be kept anonymous, of course.

Interesting idea, no? Kinda like Post Secret, but less global, and visualised through the eyes of just one person.

Why can't I have projects like this? :(

Anyway, one of the secrets she received read "I'm really not, not a gay. I'm just a tranny." She took her photographs, but then she complained to me that she didn't look like a tranny. I offered to trannify her in Photoshop. Haha.

After some editing, here's the trannified Weiling!

And here's the before and after of this photograph.

Heh. For those who are curious on what I actually did. Here's the rundown :

1. Let's start with the super obvious. The bloody red lips. Our conversation started off with Weiling saying she had taken the shots, but she didn't "look like a tranny at all!" She sent me the photograph and I commented that her lips were too feminine and she must wear dark red lipstick, and gaudy eyeshadow in loud colours, to portray the stereotypical transsexual. Haha. She said she didn't have any of those, so I added them. :D
   
   
2. As mentioned above, the eyeshadow. I don't know if any transsexuals actually wear this kind of make up, but the media has been quite persuasive in relating this kind of image, no?
   
   
3. I added some shadows to her cheekbones, to give it more definition. Weiling already has a very strong jawline, but I made it look more manly. Hur. :P
   
   
4. She requested that I give her a subtle adam's apple, so I did! It was originally slightly more obvious, but I toned it down a bit more in the end.
   
   
5. Her fake nails were made slightly darker in shade, but I don't think it's very obvious. I wanted to make it blood red again, but that made it look too fake, so I kept a bit closer to the original colour.
   
   
6. Erm, this was a last minute add when I edited the photograph for this blog entry, but I brightened up the eyes a bit. The final copy I gave her had pretty much just black spots for the eyes.
   
   
7. I also did some minor pimple removal, not shown in the Before image. :P

Weiling claimed in her blog that this is her favourite out of all the secrets she photographed. Woot. :D

I had sent her a secret for her project, but she wasn't happy with her interpretation of it, and so she discarded it. :( I had an idea of how to shoot my secret, and I was quite excited about actually making it happen, but she wasn't keen on going all the way to the location I had suggested. :(

Maybe one day I'll make it happen anyway and I'll blog about it! :D

Now, who's going to be my model...? Hrmm...