Thursday, October 1, 2009

Blue Tooth Bear



I saw this on Gizmodo and after watching the video I realized that if I had to use one of these I'd never be able to take any phone call seriously again. Then again there's no doubt this would be a hit with kids so I'm surprised there aren't tons of them on the market already.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Cat Piano

Here's an animated short film that's certainly worth your time.

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.



I saw this posted yesterday on io9 and I absolutely loved it. Not only are the artwork and animation quality top notch but the poem that makes up the narrative is really good and the performance of the narrator is spot on. I tried listening to it again without watching the animation and I realized how satisfying the poem itself really is.

Also you can check out the film's official website.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Got Holes In Your Brickwork?

Why not just patch them up with Legos?








Er, well okay apparently these aren't really serious attempts to repair old buildings with Legos but rather some sort of art project. Check out their website and view more photos at Dispatchwork.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Denture Pixel Art?

What a strange subject for pixel art.


Here are the pixels at 300%

The artwork was done by *BubuJane at DeviantArt. Be sure to check out BubuJane's Gallery for more pixel art.

Monday, August 24, 2009

8-Bit Trip - Lego Music Video

Legos again so soon? Well after watching this video how could I not post it?



To say this is pretty cool would be one heck of an understatement.

First saw it on Gizmodo.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Voltron Legos!

I saw this at io9 yesterday. Sweet!
















Be sure to visit the creator's Flickr page and see the whole set!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

What kind of sadist uses a whip?

Simon Bellmont! That's what kind.



Absolutely hilarious Castlevania bit from Robot Chicken via Kotaku.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Nathan Fillion in "PG Porn"

Okay this is actually pretty funny (and no there is no actual porn, it's called PG for a reason). Basically it's a series of short videos that mock the absurd situations, bad acting, cinematography, and editing of stereotypical porn films. Besides having Nathan Fillion from Firefly in it perhaps the greatest thing about this video is the glorious star wipe featured within! They didn't just do a regular star wipe, oh no, even though that would have been enough. They did a star wipe into a four way split screen! And here I was thinking the only time I'd see Nathan Fillion in anything with a star wipe would be in a cheesy fan made Firefly music video.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Flying Pizza Kitty



It's Flying Pizza Kitty! From flyingpizzakitty.com, the best site about a flying cat on the internet by Ben. I'm not sure what else to say. I found a site full of 8-bit style art and animated gifs all about this little orange low res kitty. Some of the pop culture references in it are pretty funny.

Here we find Flying Pizza Kitty battling David Lo-Pan from Big Trouble in Little China:


Kind of cute actually.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

My 2009 Trek Soho



Just a little video overview of my new bike. I did the video in one take so I wouldn't have to edit it so try and bear with all the "um"s as I try to think of what to say next during the recording. :P

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Ender's Game Fanart



Didn't expect to find this one tonight. It's an anime style fan art depiction of a scene from the novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Well done ~rubendevela!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Awesome Pixel Animation Video



Wooooow!

Rad pixel Art by Niina Koivusalo and Ville Konttinen. Sweet chip music and vocals by Leeni.

Be sure to check out Leeni's website too:
http://leeni.us/

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Paul Robertson

Well considering all the attention I give to pixel art and especially my enthusiasm for strange and unique pixel art it occurred to me that it's a little strange that I haven't mentioned a towering giant in the world of strange and unique pixel art and animations; Paul Robertson. You see Paul Robertson is a highly talented artist and animator with a truly idiosyncratic style and eccentric tastes to say the least. His work tends to range from the absurd to utterly obscene.

I guess the main reason I haven't posted about is because most of what I have been posting have been recent discoveries for me (or recent creations). I first discovered Paul's work when I saw Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 sometime in 2006. I downloaded it from this site because someone somewhere on the internet had made such a big deal over how cool it was. I don't remember who but I certainly did remember the video. It was highly entertaining but also violent and grotesque as well with exploding zombies being dismembered by the hundreds in a black and white display of pixelated gore. Clearly meant to resemble and pay homage to video games the movie is full of humor and strange little details. Some of the more grotesque moments even made me feel a little uncomfortable (like should I be enjoying this?) and come to think of it now I doubt I'd seen anything quite like it before.


Scene from Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006


I don't specifically remember when but quite some time passed before I knowingly ran into any more of Paul Robertson's work. When it did finally pop up again it was usually introduced on a blog or a forum as "something done by that guy who did the Pirate Baby Cabana Fight Thing". Eventually I went on to discover his other animations, illustrations, animated gifs, and even professional commercials that he worked on and most of it is outstanding work and, well, completely bizarre.


Paul Robertson's The Magic Touch


I could probably sit here and catalog Robertson's work for half the night from his insane pixel massacres such as the aforementioned Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 or his violent and outrageous masterpiece Kings of Power 4 Billion % (available for download here) to the more cool and quirky stuff like Do The Whirlwind and The Magic Touch (posted above) and more but I think I'll leave it to you to discover more if you're interested and you haven't already. Besides, I didn't set out to make a compendium of Paul Robertson's work with this post, I just wanted to highlight one of my favorite pixel artists and spotlight a little corner of his crazy world. :P



Paul Robertson's Live Journal
Paul Robertson's Deviant Art Profile
(these may contain offensive content)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Pixel art college webpage = awesome!

I just saw a post about this on Kotaku labeled The Bestest College Webpage Ever and I think I may have to agree with them.

Just go to the college's website here and you'll shortly be presented with a little retro styled video game-like land of animated people on a fanciful and colorful 8-bit college campus.


YAY! :D


You can scroll around the landscape just by moving your mouse cursor near the edge of the screen to reveal more and you'll see little guys doing things like rock climbing and playing sports and uh, hiding in a box . . .

Here are some full resolution detail shots:






And here is one of the little people
blown up to double resolution:


Monday, June 22, 2009

Hexstatic - Ninja Tune

NIIIIIINNNNNJAAAAAAA!!!!!


This is an awesome music video by Hexstatic using video footage and audio samples from a 1987 film titled The Ninja Showdown. If you like this sort of thing and you haven't heard of Hexstatic before I highly recommend checking them out for their often quirky yet grooving funky electro sounds and interesting music videos.

As for the ninja movie itself? I haven't seen it but it looks too corny to be true. Surely one of those 'so bad it's good' gems? Who knows, I may have to look into it but here is the plot summary from IMDB:
"A ruthless gang of Ninja marauders, a kidnapped maiden and a young man seeking vengeance set the stage for "The Ninja Showdown." Warlord boss Jing and his evil band of Purple Ninjas are unstoppable-hihgly trained assassins who ravage a peaceful town. But when the outlaw Ninjas abduct his girl, a wrathful Tony unleashes a furious assault with the help of Ninja Master Gordon. Together, these two men lay waste to Jing's army in a shattering battle to secure their honor and rescue the town from the clutches of a greedy and oppressive tyrant."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Front Mission



Wow, I've been playing Front Mission for the first time and it's pretty darn good and I'm wondering "How did I miss this?". Well I guess it's no wonder considering Square Enix (Square Soft at the time) never saw fit to publish the original game in the U.S. for the SuperNES and all I can say is it's a shame.


BOOM!


So there have been other Front Mission games that did make it stateside including a revamped release of the original for the Nintendo DS and Front Mission 3 and 4 for the PlayStation 2 and while the series isn't exactly the most obscure it's far from the forefront of mainstream gaming. I suppose if it were then Square would actually have plans to publish Front Mission 5 in the U.S. but as of writing this they do not.


Just look at those beautiful low res pictures! Pixel art in action.


Front Mission was originally released for the Super Famicom in Japan back in 1995 and it's a turn based strategy game in which you command an Oceania Community Union (OCU) mercenary unit in a war against the United States of the New Continent (USN) forces set on the fictional Huffman Island. But really with out getting too much into the politics or explaining all of the game's factions let's just get to the fun part; mechs! Apparently the principal fighting vehicle in this war are giant mechs (essentially walking tanks). At least that's what you'll be using and mostly dealing with during your campaign.



A large part of the game consists of customizing your team's mechs and making sure your unit is well rounded and the each mech is well suited to it's pilot's abilities. You can have mechs that specialize in long distance combat that mostly use missiles or grenade launchers, mechs that are heavy brawlers that basically use hand-to-hand combat, mechs that specialize in using 'close range' weapons such as machine guns or rifles, or balanced mechs that do well in a little bit of both close range and long range. In fact most of your close range mechs will probably have some form of long range attack for most of the game.

Even though the amount of customization you can do is fairly comprehensive it never really feels overwhelming once you get a feel for it. This is probably because you're only really setting them up to fulfill only 3 or maybe 4 roles in combat. That may not sound like much but it's actually just about right in my opinion. This is a good game to pick up if you want a decent amount of depth to the strategy but don't want to deal with something super complex that will eat up hours in just the planning phase of how you set up your team. I've played 'tactics' style strategy games where it does get to be rather overwhelming to set up all of your characters and if you put the game down for a while and pick it back up a few months later you really feel lost because you forgot what you were doing with your two dozen or so characters and whatnot.



As for the strategy game play itself it's pretty good. It certainly isn't the most difficult I've encountered but there are some missions that pose a decent challenge. You'll probably be fairly familiar with how the enemy AI behaves by the time you've progressed a good way through the game which will provide you with a distinct advantage in the face of superior firepower but even so a good grasp for tactics and planning how you will accomplish your goals is the most important key to victory. Just spreading your forces out and attacking at random is going to lead you into trouble. It really helps to know what each of your mechs is capable of so you can have them properly support one another in combat.

And once again I feel like the depth is just about right in terms of game play as well. It's a good introduction to this type of turn based strategy gaming or it could serve as a good strategy game for when you don't feel like getting into something so complicated it takes months to slough through. This is the type of game that if you play it for the first hour or so you'll likely come back until you finish it rather than getting bored and abandoning it half way through.



I definitely recommend this game to any strategy fan who gets a chance to play it. In addition to the solid game play and well managed depth it's a well polished game with a nice sense of atmosphere and aesthetics.

Now if only Square would get on that American release of Front Mission 5. I've heard it's probably one of the best in the series according to many.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Pixel art dealing with sex?

Another isometric pixel scene found on DeviantArt. Honestly this is kind of awesome. Apparently it was in GQ Magazine in a sex drive article. At least that's what I gather from the description.

Most likely this would've been spread out on the page background with text in front, but not having seen the article itself that's just my guess.

Aside from the unique subject matter this is a master piece in it's charming style and detail, from little Star Wars and Street Fighter action figures to the angry looking vacuum cleaner.

I kind of wish I could read the article just to see if there's an explanation for why the couple might be hanging out in the attic or the basement. Kinky?

As usual with pixel art you've gotta view it at full size to see it as it was intended.

(Click on the image to view in DeviantArt)


Here are some detail shots at double the normal resolution:




Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Atari ST can still rock your socks



So I've mentioned before that I love pixel art so it may just stand to reason that I love chiptune music as well. I mean as far as I'm concerned chiptunes are to music what pixel art is to digital illustration.

Okay maybe not quite but in a way they share a similar spirit of boiling things down to their retro essentials while still tending to have their own flare and originality.

Anyways, here is a tune composed and synthesized on a good old Atari ST computer system by cerror. Sounds awesome right? Well it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.









I love the sound of square waves in the morning. :)

OH GOD NO NOT AGAIN



File this under comics drawn in under five minutes.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Evil Dead Pixel Art



As I pointed out before I love pixel art. I also love the Evil Dead series so why not put them together? Well look at that! Somebody did!

This Evil Dead isometric pixel scene came from Army of Trolls which is the portfolio of artist Gary J Lucken and it's filled with pixel madness!

Friday, May 8, 2009

Star Trek! My Screen Is Too Big?

I find this Gizmodo article about the various sizes of the different Enterprise's strangely interesting.

Just How Big Is the Enterprise's Viewscreen?

Just How Big Is the Enterprise's Viewscreen?

It's certainly a different geek perspective than the usual warp bubbles and anti-matter technobabel. "Dude! How big is Captain Kirk's TV?"

Since I just finished seeing the new Star Trek movie it seems fitting of course. And how was the movie itself? Well I suppose I found it quite satisfying. :)

Neat!

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

What is it you may ask?

Well I found it on Gizmodo so here you go:
"Ever wonder what the path of a Roomba looks like as it cleans your house? It's an amazing combination of randomness and precision, as shown by this long-exposure shot.

The shot was taken by shutting off all the lights in the room for 30 minutes and taking a long exposure of the path the Roomba took while cleaning up. It's beautiful and surprising. I always assumed it worked with using some sort of grid, but that clearly isn't the case at all. [Doobybrain via The Daily What]"

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Font Fight?

Perhaps a true taste of geek humor, computer fonts are assigned personalities and we find out what happens when they square off against their rivals. :P



Oh the puns!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Impressive Pixel Castle

I'm a big fan of pixel art. I don't know what it is, maybe it brings out a sense of childlike nostalgia that combines the world building feel of building blocks such as Legos and the feeling of exploration and uniquely styled appearances from old video games.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic Image and video hosting by TinyPic Image and video hosting by TinyPic

In many ways scrolling across a well done large piece of pixel art is like looking at a detailed model train set and enjoying all the little details is part of what makes it so fun.

CLICK ON IT AND VIEW FULL SIZE! Otherwise there's no point. :P


Medieval Castle by ~docdoom on deviantART

Saturday, May 2, 2009

A Day In The City

This was filmed on one of my days off in late March 2009. I walked around my neighborhood and took the shuttle to Ikea then went to Piedmont Park.

Star Control 2 Fanart


New Alliance of Free Stars by *spacecoyote on deviantART

Wow. I was just looking around on Deviantart when I spotted this. I don't usually just stumble across Star Control 2 fanart let alone art this good. It's a great game and a legitimate free version called "The Ur-Quan Masters" is available, click the link here.

Friday, May 1, 2009

A Visit to North Georgia

Alright! First blogger post is a video post.

This was a trip to Anna Ruby Falls on April 25th 2009.