Category: Inspirational Designs

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Thought of You

Ryan Woodward, the director and animator of this piece, has magically captured the essence of style versus emotion. He portrays his characters in a surreal sense which draws the viewer deeper into the film.

Thought of You was born out of Ryan’s desires to connect several of his passions into one art piece. Figurative works, 2D animation, EFX animation, and contemporary dance. The theme revolves around an intimate relationship and it portrays this exceptionally.

“Rather than creating a narrative animated piece that communicates a well defined story, this piece allows for each individual who views it to to experience something unique and personal that touches their own sensibilities.”

You can also check out the “making of” from Ryan’s site listed below.

[via conteanimated.com]

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Awesomeness Eating and Drinking Inspirational Designs

What’s Tony Stark got there?

Well I was kicking back and watching some movies yesterday. Was watching Iron Man 2 and just for a brief moment, in a couple of scenes, Tony is downing some green muck from a beautiful flask. Kept wondering what the hell it was, is it metal?, is it battery operated? Mental note to self, google after movie.

Amazingly I wasn’t the only one interested in it as it returned a number of hits and some youtube vids. It’s the KOR water hydration vessel.  A beautiful piece of design by RKS, a design house, for KOR founders Eric Barnes & Paul Shustak.

Essentially it is just a water bottle for the iPhone generation, where carrying water on the move has became a necessity and an accessory nowadays. There’s a lot of facts on why this particular bottle is better than the run-of-the-mill ones, which I wont get into, but I love this product…..and so does Tony.

See more images after the jump.

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Cartoons & Comics Inspirational Designs Useful/Useless Info

Vintage Travel Posters for Comic Book Cities

Vintage Travel Posters for Comic Book Cities

Are you looking to travel somewhere different this holiday season? Tired of the mundane island paradise, bored of African safaris and weary of European coffee shops? Why not walk the streets of Gotham City, safe in the knowledge that batman is keeping watch! Why not visit Metropolis or keep an eye open for Spiderman in New York. Travel to any one of these amazing cities and we guarantee you will see your favourite super hero in action, even if we have to stage a bank break in. See all our exciting destinations after the jump.

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Arty Awesomeness Inspirational Designs Weirdness

Furniture Made from Russian Deep-Sea Mines

It is said that when life gives you lemons, you should punch it in the face make lemonade (but not without a license in America as this 7-year old found out). There’s a slightly different saying in Russia, about when life gives you old weapons of war, you should make housewares.

And this exactly what 51-year-old Estonian sculptor Mati Karmin does. In the coastal zone of northern Estonia, there are reportedly loads of rusty mine shells laying around. Made in the 1950s these deep-sea mines weighed over a tonne and housed 240 kg worth of explosives and we used to destroy submarines.  Karmin re-purposes these disused hunks of metal to make very functional bits of Steampunk furniture including desks, armchairs, fireplaces, swings, aquariums, chandeliers, and even a pram.

Have a look at some of his unconventional furniture after the jump.

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Arty Awesomeness Featured Inspirational Designs Weirdness

AJ Fosik’s Amazing Animal Sculptures

AJ Fosik’s animal sculptures are truly striking and remind me of the Sri Lankan devil masks that are used in dances to ward off evil spirits. What initially looked like papercraft to me is in fact wood and Fosik is able to work wonders with the material. He uses wood, paint, nails, and minimal help from his computer to create some very colourful, intricate, and hypnotic 3D pieces. Have a look at them after the jump.

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Awesomeness Inspirational Designs

The Domestic Transformer

With a population of over seven million people living in Hong Kong, space is a precious commodity. Architect Gary Chang played with the ideas of space (or the lack thereof) when he transformed the tiny tenement apartment that he used to share with his family into a fantastic, modern living space. Using an ingenious sliding wall system, he is able to create up to 24 different “rooms” in the apartment. He calls it the Domestic Transformer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak

As green as Chang’s redesign might be it didn’t come cheap – the apartment cost USD 45,000 to purchase but design changes added a further USD 218,000 to the bill.

[via GOOD]

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Animal Kingdom Arty Awesomeness Inspirational Designs Science & Technology Weirdness

Nick Veasey’s X-Ray Vision

Nick Veasey isn’t a traditional photographer. In the same vein as microscopist Alan Jaras who uses a scanning electron microsope to create a story about exploration, Veasey also makes uses of medical equipment to produce some unconventional art.

Veasey left the world of standard photography behind when he was asked to X-ray a cola can for a television show. Since then he has created X-ray photographs of everyday objects from mp3 players, toys, and clothes to all manner of plant life and animals. His experimentation has led to view the innards of larger subjects like motor vehicles, an office building, and even to capture the anatomy of a Boeing 777!

Veasey uses industrial x-ray machines and in the case of the airplane, 500 individual films were processed and then joined together on the computer to create the composite shot. For his “human” subjects, he has the option of using skeletons in rubber suits or cadavers. He reportedly has eight hours in which to pose and photograph the cadaver before rigor mortis sets in. I don’t know about you, but I find that a little macabre. In any case, the results are amazing to see. This is what he has to say about his art:

My work is real. X-Ray is an honest process. It shows things for what they are, what they are made of. I love that. It balances all that glossy, superficial bollocks. I’m real and straightforward. And so is my work.

Have a look at some of this most fascinating x-ray photographs after the jump.

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Arty Awesomeness Featured Inspirational Designs Movies Video Clips

The Birth of a Jedi: A Beautiful Painting in Time-Lapse

As you get older, you tend to lose the sense of awe and freedom you experienced as a child somewhere in mire of despair and cynicism that is adult life. I think artist Robert Burden feels that way, but in his paintings he likes to think back on his childhood days when the action figures he played with captivated his imagination. He says his with his paintings he wants to “renew my faded sense of awe”.

The Birth of a Jedi is an amazing 10ft x 7ft oil on canvas that took him over seven months to complete using action figures as his models. Iconic Star Wars figures adorn the borders of the painting with Luke and his Tauntaun as the centrepiece.

His seven months of effort have been condensed into a 2.42-minute time-lapse video. Check it out below.

Prior to this, Burden spent an inordinate amount of time painting a man-sized Voltron and He-Man’s fighting mount, Battle Cat. See those time-lapse videos after the jump.

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Arty Awesomeness Featured Gaming News Inspirational Designs

But is it Art?

The “video games as art” debate has been going on for a while. Popular film critic Roger Ebert has long stated that video games could never be art but after a several thousand comments, he had to rethink this stance on the matter. He mentions this in his journal.

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.

I may not know much about art but I do know what I like. I think the creatives at video game companies, like artists, are from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. They too put so much time and love into making something that tries to leave an impression on you. And I appreciate their efforts as much as I would appreciate a Jackson Pollock, or Georges Seurat’s fine examples of pointillism, or Peter Paul Rubens’ baroque paintings.

Now a website dedicated to video game photography wonders whether screenshots from games could also be considered as an expression of art. Dead End Thrills say this is their type of photography.

An attempt to portray the drama, spectacle and beauty of games using angles and subjects beyond the player experience. The site’s mission is simple: to celebrate the medium, explore the unseen and fire the imagination.

Their most recent set of screenshots is taken from the surprisingly entertaining Transformers: War For Cybertron (our review is coming). Could these screenshots be art? Maybe, maybe not. But I like them and maybe you might like them too. Have a look at them after the jump.

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Arty Awesomeness Featured Inspirational Designs

Beautiful Papercraft Sculptures

British artist Richard Sweeney studied 3D design at university and graduated with a degree in awesomeness. Using a combination of hand-craft and CAD techniques, he takes takes papercraft to the next level with his most beautiful sculptural forms. Have a look at some of his “forms in paper” models after the jump.

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