My New Setup (which is all thanks to you ♥)

A different kind of post this time! I thought maybe it'd be interesting for you to see what I'm actually doing with the support I get from you ♥

As you know, my trusty old laptop self-destructed a while ago, which forced me to finally upgrade my hardware, and while it was still an unfortunate situation, it could not have happened at a better point in time, because I had just finished all preorder related work and the support on Patreon had been skyrocketing only a few weeks prior so I was suddenly in a very comfortable position to be able to upgrade my tools without having to sacrifice quality over monetary issues.

So, this isn't meant to flex on anyone, I simply want to be transparent on what your support has made possible for me, you can also give yourself the most gentle pat on the shoulder for achieving this!!! I would have none of the things I'm going to show you in detail in a minute, if it weren't for your support!

The image up there is what my work space looks right now. Over the last few months I mostly worked from my sofa, it was simply the most comfortable solution with my laptop. But now that I have a desktop PC again, it was time to move back to my actual desk. This might be a good thing in the long run, as it forces me to separate work from free time at least a little bit. I live in a one room apartment, so work and private life tend to blur into each other all the time, which is already normal because my job is pretty much on the internet, where I also live and breathe in my free time. So having at least a small place that's dedicated to the productive part of the day and a sofa/bed that is only used to rest and relax, will hopefully help me get to a mind set that doesn't require me to be productive 24/7.

I have also started a plant collection, the one on the far right is a Clivia which I've had for many years now, it doesn't care if I forget to water it for half a year, it's still healthy and happy and even growing new small clivia plants all the time. The one next to it is a Clusia Rosea Princess which I bought around two weeks ago and I love her very much. 

If I can manage to take good care of her for another 2 weeks then I am allowed to look for more plants 🌿

Now, some more pics...! (●´∀｀●)

The computer I bought is the Acer Predator Orion 3000, with 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1 SSD hard drive with 512GB and a regular one with 1TB. Processor and graphics card are pretty dope too, according to my research, but I don't wanna bore you with more specs LOL If you want to know more, feel free to ask! But so far it works fantasically! No more stuttering or lag even with a multitude of programs running, and I can play both Guild Wars 2 and Skyrim at highest graphic settings without any drops in perfomance. It is heavenly.

SUCH QUALITY ✨✨✨

The headphones that are attached to the PC are VTAKOL V9 Gaming headphones with a microphone attached! I liked their blue colour because it fit the Predator, haha. Also I've been using cheap earphones for the past year or so which kinda hurt my ears a little bit so I used this chance to get proper headphones again and I gotta say, these are really comfortable and soft, and also very flexible, you can pretty much wring them out like a wet washcloth if you want to.  Not sure why you'd want to, though, lol. It was important to me that the quality of the mic is decent too, because I'm going to need it for future streams. The sound seems to be holding up, from what I've been told.

Next up, monitor!

I decided on a BenQ BL2420PT 23.8 inch monitor, which seemed to be very decent quality for a super affordable price. You can pivot this thing in all angles and change the height, too, the material is super heavy and high quality and the colours are really nice, too. Definitely worth it. Also, visible on the screen are the newest versions of Adobe Photoshop and InDesign! I was hesitant to upgrade my Adobe programs because I'm not a fan of their subscription service but I had been working with CS3 for so long, that version came out in 2007!! And it hasn't been a good workflow for a long time, so I took that last step to become a slave to Adobe in the year 2019. And I have to say -  I do not regret it. The new Adobe Suite is incredible, it's so comfortable to work with, they improved both PS and InDesign so much, so in the end it was worth it. And it is definitely going to make my more graphic design-y tasks a lot faster and easier.

And, lastly, my new keyboard:

That's a pretty crappy picture, but here's a VIDEO INSTEAD of some of the 20+ party modes this thing has, lololol. I mainly wanted this because I can let it shine in all the colours of the rainbow, which is exactly what my gay heart desires at all times, but I gotta say it's a really good keyboard over all! It's been years since I last had a mechanical keyboard so it took a little bit to get used to writing on it, but now it feels really good :') Oh, and it's a Sharkoon Skiller Mech SGK3 gaming keyboard with red switches! For now I really love it, I hope the keys will hold up for a long time. At least the letters can't rub off as they're basically... burned into the keys instead of printed on?? And the base of the keyboard is some kind of metal, it's really heavy and it doesn't slide around on the desk at all!

My mouse and tablet have been in use for a long while, but I'll mention them anyway to complete the whole set! The mouse is a Rytaki R6 MMO mouse which I mainly got because it has 12 programmable buttons on the side, which is just spectacular for someone who plays PVP a lot and has to fire skills in godspeed at all times, haha.

And my tablet is the Wacom Cintiq 13HD, which has been in service for? 4 years now? I think? I'm not sure. Good quality, the screen is a bit scratched by now but everything still works, and I hope it'll continue to work for another 4 years at least.

And that's pretty much it! Thank you so much to all of you gemlins for making this possible for me. The 2+ years I've been self-employed now all of the Patreon money went right into rent and health insurance, having the opportunity to invest in my tiny business like this is something I didn't think would be possible after such a short amount of time. So I feel really lucky and really grateful. Working with this setup has already proven to be such a wildly different, positive experience from my setup before and I'm so happy and excited every morning when I sit down at the desk and get to work again :')))

I hope this was a little interesting and/or entertaining for you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask 💙💙💙