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Just because the video games in the Mario Bros. franchise feature Mario and Luigi as good guys doesn’t mean that the other denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom don’t see them as total jerks.From their penchant for destroying brick structures to their cold blooded turtle kicking tactics, the Mario Bros. just might be the enemy after all.
These propaganda posters from the Mushroom Kingdom urge you to take action against the moustachioed plumbers, and they ask the question the Shy Guys are afraid to answer- “The Koopas are fighting, why aren’t you?”
Link –via Super Punch
In the world of fine art there’s always someone trying to radically change the game with their artwork. While this can lead to some innovative and interesting pieces, it can also turn things into one big mess, and forced innovation causes artists to lose sight of how important traditionalism can be to maintaining artistic integrity.
Enter Barry X Ball, a sculptor who’s decided to take it back to the old school by sculpting portraits and figures out of marble. He crafts these incredible works of art while paying attention to fine details, such as the natural flow of the veins in the marble and the retention of natural edges and form whenever possible.
You can check out a selection of Barry’s marble works at the link below, works which somehow manage to be traditionally beautiful and utterly surreal at the same time.
Link –via Beautiful Decay
What started as an art form practiced by prisoners and tramps has become a really cool way for crafty folks to show off their modeling skills by building awesome structures, and sculptural works of art, out of a million or so little pieces of wood and lots of glue.
Hit the link to peruse a gallery featuring eight matchstick art masterpieces, full of fine detail and fantastic constructs, just don’t light up anywhere near these highly flammable works of art or you can kiss them goodbye!
You might not know the name Wayne White, but you’re bound to have seen the works he has created over the last thirty years or so of his artistic career.
From stop motion animation, puppets and set design for PeeWee’s Playhouse, to music videos (Peter Gabriel’s Big Time and Smashing Pumpkins’ Tonight, Tonight) to his fine art series, which features 3-D text painted into classic lithographs.
Wayne White is an amazing artist, his talent is such that he’s left no artistic medium untouched, and there seems to be no limit to what Wayne can accomplish, so why has it taken so long for someone to make a documentary about him? Probably because all the money has been tied up in making supernatural teen love stories and Romcoms. Oh well, better late than never I suppose…
Sure it seems like a conceptual idea that would never work in real life, but this bathtub is actually completely functional, not to mention totally awesome -or at least, it would be if the creator actually finished the project. BoingBoing is trying to track down leads to find out if it was ever completed or not. If you have any information, share your knowledge in their comments section.
Link Via BoingBoing
You don’t often think of a garbage can as an art medium, but some artists do. And how nice is it to disguise an ugly-but-necessary object as something delightful? My favorite of the collection at WebUrbanist is this graffiti-embellish can by Job Willemsen and Tom v.d. Hurk in the Netherlands. Link
(Image source: Wooster Collective)
After seeing this great Star Wars version of Marcel Duchamp’s mechanically abstracted Nude Descending a Staircase, Irene Gallo wanted to see what other geek interpretations of classic artworks have been put out there. The resulting round up is quite enjoyable.
Link Via Geeks Are Sexy
We’ve featured a number of great art shows that took place at Gallery 1988 before, but that’s because they have so much awesomely geeky stuff go through there. Their most recent show, Multiplayer x2, focuses exclusively on classic games of the past including Castlevania, Mario and Pac Man. If you happen to be in LA before March 3, be sure check it out.
Link Via Laughing Squid
This might just be a better movie than both the Phantom Menace or The Adventures of Tin Tin. Would you go see it?
Grant Snider at Incidental Comics found the secret to making life a lot more artful, interesting, and …strange. Link -Thanks, Rich!
He’s so cuddly you might just be tempted to let your kids play with him, until they actually see the movie and suddenly start refusing to go to bed and having nightmares every day.
These Victorian style portraits of Star Wars characters by Terry Fan lead one to believe that C3PO is powered by steam, and that droids actually enjoy wearing three piece suits. Everyone knows that these things are untrue, of course, but it’s a romantic version of the Space Opera that hasn’t been fully explored yet, so let’s just go with it.
In this series you get Darth Vader looking quite dapper, Yoda with a top hat that somehow makes his head look even smaller (and his ears even bigger), C3apo as a gentleman about town and Boba Fett fresh from overseas service in the military. These portraits look like they were taken a long long time ago, in a place that’s not so far away after all…
Link –via Rampaged Reality
Artist Marcelo Gallegos has several lovely Valentine cards that stray from the normal hearts and flowers but still convey romance. This card depicting the elder god in love is my favorite. See the others at his Etsy store. Link -via Buzzfeed
Hill Valley of the future is such a wonderful place to live, or at least it is when created by Lego artist Alex Jones. He has even more cool movie sets on his Flickr page for the viewing enjoyment of any Lego enthusiast.
Link Via Geekologie
Who knew Sabotage was so perfectly written to become a venn diagram? Really though, sabotage should go into another bubble. After all, it’s sabotage.
Link Via Laughing Squid
Illustrator Tim Doyle had a rather clever premise in mind while creating the pieces for his debut art show “Unreal Estate”- give various locations from pop culture an artistic makeover. Here’s what Tim has to say about this series:
“Unreal Estate” is a collection of locations that many of us know and have been to on a weekly basis at times, but we can never actually visit. These places are in our memories- transmitted and entrenched there through a cathode-ray tube. Some of us have been going to these places for decades- some of these places were taken from us, way too soon.
Man, giving the Kwik-E-Mart a realistic edge makes it look even scummier than it does on The Simpsons!
If you’ve ever wondered what the Angry Birds look like after they take down those dastardly pigs, these illustrations by deviantARTist Scooterek should fill you in on what they look like after battle. Their medical bills must be through the roof, good thing their game is so popular!
Link –via Rampaged Reality
Scientists have known what is contained in the Earth’s core for about 75 years now, but that hasn’t stopped sci-fi authors and artists from doing some wild speculation of their own.
These images by Japanese sci-fi illustrators are really far out, and I’m sure you’ll agree that the Earth’s core would make the awesomest setting ever for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, or a great video game premise-Astronauts Vs. The Earths Core.
Just don’t go looking for science, because these sci-fi illustrations are mostly fiction.
My apologies to those of you who might actually like Twilight, but I’m sure you already know that there are plenty of others who would gladly carve up your sparkly vampires into beautiful planters. Since the link to the original source is broken, here’s one to a different tutorial to make your own.
I love to see Alex Pardee’s take on iconic characters because he always manages to wow me with his redesigns. From his perspective, the world is full of shifting facial features, sharp teeth and splattered edges.
It’s a fine mess when you think about it, and love or hate him you gotta admit-Alex Pardee is an original. Here’s his fresh look at superfolks who were getting a bit too big for their britches.
Everyone knows Ansel Adams was a master of landscape photography, a master of black and white naturalist photography, and one heck of an innovative artist. What most people don’t know, however, is that Ansel also enjoyed documenting life in the city through the lens of his view camera.
Flavorwire has posted a gallery of images that were commissioned by Fortune Magazine in the 1940s, in order to document Los Angeles’ aviation industry as only Ansel Adams could.
See what the City of Angels used to look like, compared to what it has become, by taking a fascinating trip back in time through these magnificent photos.
Suggested soundtrack music-Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, or Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition by The Merry Macs.
Link –image credit: Ansel Adams
If you’re releasing advanced copies of your new video game, you probably want to make sure everything is perfect, lest the reviewers critique you for something that won’t even be in the final version of the game. Of course, while you’re probably focusing most of your energy on the game itself, it’s generally a good idea to at least take a good look at the box art and spelling, lest you release “revelaitons” to the world.
Link Via The Consumerist
This incredibly cool sculpture is brought to you by the twisted mind of Ron English, an artist known for warping iconic figures into ironic statements (see Fat Tony and Dead Mickey), and who previously brought us an Obama-Lincoln mashup that was all the rage a few years back.
This time, Ron has brought us Obama hulking out, as he prepares for the upcoming election by saying “You vote for me or OBAMA SMASH!”
Alex Gross takes classic Victorian pictures and then repaints them into portraits of pop culture personalities like Aquaman, Bride of Frankenstein and Godzilla. His work will be exhibited at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in LA next month, so if you’re in town, stop by and support a great geek artist.
Laurent Craste has a serious problem with porcelain, and his knowledge of ceramics allows him to put a hurting on delicate pieces without letting them fall to pieces.
Warped and imaginative, he has come up with some great ways to bend porcelain to his will, and I wondered “how did he do that without cracking it?” many times as I checked out his site. Take a look for yourself, and see if you have any pity for porcelain.
Link –via Beautiful Decay
What happens when lawn gnomes get bitten in the zombie apocalypse? Apparently the gnomes get a hunger for flamingo flesh the way regular zombies start craving human brains.
Erin and Matt are big fans of Tim Burton’s Alice of Wonderland. How big? Big enough to theme their wedding after the film. Even if you weren’t a big fan of the movie yourself (or if you find it strange that Alice is marrying the Hatter), it’s still easy to appreciate the amazing level of details incorporated into the occasion.
Link Via The Mary Sue
Ever want to make your own sweet Cyclops visor? Well then head over to Lounge Geeks where you can learn how to make your own for less than $30. Now that’s a value for some sweet style.
While your teachers may have spread lies about planetary plates shifting and causing the continents to separate, Dan Meth is brave enough to share the truth with us. Pangaea occurred when the continents were cuddling with one another, but when tensions started to rise and the honeymoon phase ended, the happy group had no choice but to split up.
I don’t know about you guys, but I sure wouldn’t spend this gorgeous artwork on just anything. No, it would have to be on something awesome like a wookie cookie.
Link Via The Daily What
