DeviantART member bandoodie looooooves Comic-Con! And who wouldn't? She's collected bags from it for several years and used them to create this dress that proclaims her geek identity. Then, of course, she wore it to Comic-Con. It's a one piece wrap around dress based on the Butterick B4790 pattern.
The Tumblr blog House LEGO has LEGO recreations of scenes from the TV show Game of Thrones. The blog began a year ago with mostly portraits of the characters in LEGO minifigs, but this year the LEGO creations made a giant leap into action scenes, with much more detail. Last weekend’s shocker has been posted. The gore is not quite as realistic in LEGO bricks and minifigs, but the attention to detail is impressive, and anyone who follows the show will recall the scenes easily.
I selected this picture, which was posted before season four began, because it doesn’t really say anything, which means it is not representative of the great work that goes into the blog. Images posted since then show action from specific scenes, and contain spoilers. -via Warming Glow
Yes, we know those two never really meet because they are in different time periods in the Star Wars universe. You’ll have to put that aside for a minute (actually half a minute). There’s that other anomaly in that they are stop-motion LEGO figures. It will all make sense eventually. In about half a minute. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Andrew Baker is one of the amazing concept artists who worked on Peter Jackson’s big screen adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and he helped bring the greedy dragon Smaug to life through his amazing digital artwork.
This collection of alternate designs for Smaug may have been left behind well before production, but they show the evolution of the final character design that made it into the movie The Desolation of Smaug, and they give us a rare insight into the concept creation process from animal influence to working 3d model.
Andrew is part of the WETA Workshop, and his concept art for Smaug is part of the recently released art book The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Smaug: Unleashing The Dragon.
-Via GeekTyrant
Chances are you know someone who is addicted to the super syrupy puzzle game known as Candy Crush, a game every bit as addicting as its predecessors Bejeweled and Yoshi's Cookie.
Candy Crush is more addictive than actual candy, and won’t rot your teeth, but is there any nutritional value to spending hours upon hours crushing colorful pieces of virtual hard candy?
This edition of Honest Game Trailers gives us a look behind the veil of a Candy Crush addict, revealing why anyone would want to play such a “mindless, shallow piece of entertainment that makes you dumber just for being exposed to it”.
Geez guys, don’t hold back- tell us how you really feel about Candy Crush!
(Barely NSFW due to language)
-Via Geeks Of Doom
The engineers of the Death Star get a lot of criticism for designing a moon-sized battleship that can be destroyed with a single shot in one vulnerable spot (assuming that you believe the official story). Many members of the design team have been unable to find professional employment and several have been sued into bankruptcy. This is largely because of a public misunderstanding of the nature of engineering on a project the scale of a Death Star.
Abstruse Goose makes an important point: every complex system, including the male human body, has vulnerabilities. Human testicles are outside of the body for an important reason: to keep sperm cells cool enough to remain viable. The Death Star had an exhaust port for a similar reason: to keep the station cool enough to remain operational within tolerances.
The Death Star was properly designed. It just wasn't properly defended.
(Fistful of Woolongs t-shirt now on sale at the NeatoShop)
In February, I wrote a post in which I offered anime watching recommendations and invited Neatorama readers to make their own or share any thoughts they had on anime. It was quite popular and we had a lively discussion. So let's do it again!
Blade & Soul is a Korean fantasy MMORPG. The currently airing anime series by the same name is set in that universe. It is the story of Alka, an assassin bent on revenge against the woman who murdered her master. Alka is a seemingly emotionless person. She lives according to a code. She's avenging her master not because of any apparent feeling for him, but just because of her professional code.
It is noteworthy that Alka is the main character, but not the hero of the story. There are no heroes in Blade & Soul. Yet it is not an amoral series, but a morally complex series. Episode 5 is particularly outstanding in this regard.
Kotaku's anime critic Richard A. Eisenbeis referred to Sakura Trick as "My Favorite Anime of the Winter Season." That got my attention. Although my tastes and Eisenbeis's don't always overlap, I find that his regular reviews and recommendations are helpful starting points.
Eisenbeis calls Sakura Trick "a real romance," which I think is a great way to describe it. Love, especially young love, is messy. Not only are there no fairy tale endings, there are no fairy tale beginnings or middles, either. Hakura and Yu are awkward and uncertain as they explore love for the first time.
One Week Friends is a currently airing high school romance. It's a sweet and romantic tale about a girl with a unique memory problem: every week, Fujimiya's memories about her friends reset. If she makes friends with someone on a Friday, she has no memory of that person on the following Monday.
Hase, the lead male character, nonetheless wants to be her friend (and possibly more), even if he has to restart the relationship every week. It's similar to Sakura Trick in that the characters are three dimensional people, not stereotypes or stock characters. Hase in particular doesn't know how to navigate his own inner feelings or his relationship with Fujimiya.
Watching Spice and Wolf was a novel experience. It is the tale of a merchant and his companion, a centuries-old wolf spirit who takes the form of a woman. Although Spice and Wolf is a love story, the main plot drivers are economic. Kraft Lawrence and Holo operate various business ventures. They are not fighting battles against evil or some terrible enemy, but engaging in currency speculation and commodities trading. They're trying to make money. The business adventures are not the B story and their love affair the A story, but the reverse.
There's one feature of Spice and Wolf and other anime series which annoys me. In a tsundere romance, the two lovers initially dislike or even hate each other before falling in love at the end of the story.
From what I've seen, it's usually the female which is particularly hostile to the male. Holo, the lead female character in Spice and Wolf, is verbally abusive and manipulative to Kraft Lawrence. In some tsundere romances, the female is physically violent to the male (e.g.: The Familiar of Zero). This is domestic violence, but it is depicted as amusing so as long as it is female-on-male violence.
The best course of action for anyone in an abusive relationship is to exit it immediately.
The Familiar of Zero and its sequel The Familiar of Zero F is harem anime in a fantasy setting. Louise, a mage, casts a spell to summon a familiar. That familiar is Saito, a Japanese teenager who gets sucked out of our world and into Louise's.
As is typical of a harem anime, several girls fall in love with Saito. Naturally, he makes the worst possible choice and falls in love with the violent and abusive Louise. That problem aside, it's a fun, light, playful series in which Saito and Louise overcome a number of magical threats against her world.
What anime do you enjoy? In the comments, share your recommendations and any other reflections you have on anime.
Superman and Batman are generally seen as colleagues, since they're both part of the Justice League of America, but as many interesting story arcs and one-shots have revealed to us over the years theirs is an uneasy alliance, and Batman is one man who doesn’t need the same physical strength, or super powers at all, to take ol’ Supes down.
This brief yet interesting article from Gamma Squad sums up the Four Reasons Why Superman Makes The Best Batman Villain quite well, and it’s bound to inspire comic book readers to look up those epic issues where the Man of Steel met his match in the Caped Crusader.
This comic from Louis Ghanem at Scrawl Space illustrates a couple of trends we’ve noticed. If you have a story in which the villain is the most interesting character, that villain will become a fan favorite. The producers will be then excited to bring the character back, but tend to “rehabilitate” him and put him on the “right” side (cough*Darth*cough). This is usually a mistake, because the changes in the character sometimes take away the charm that made him popular, or else it’s just not believable. Or both. I have yet to see Maleficent, but from what I’ve read, Disney made her sympathetic and redeemable, which I feel is a mistake.
The other truth I see is that a young girl’s consideration of a classmate or friend can change quickly when he expresses admiration for her (it rarely works that way with strangers). It was true when I was young, and I’ve seen that happen in many of my daughters’ circle. That’s not always a bad thing, but Loki could be trouble. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Matt Reedy, an artist in Alton, Illinois, is developing a series that he calls Little Golden Manga. It shows the covers of Japanese comic books as if they were part of the classic Little Golden Books series. Here is Attack on Titan. The Colossal Titan would like for you to come out and play! Or he'll gladly come in.
A patron at my library urged me to try the anime series Death Note. I watched the first episode. It is an excellent work of writing and animation. In fact, it is too good at what it is trying to do. I decided that I did not want that kind of darkness inside my head and did not continue the series.
FLCL is evidently a surreal journey that begins with getting clobbered in the head with a bass guitar.
Gene Belcher may seem like the wrong guy to turn to for advice, sagely wisdom or anything that doesn’t involve keyboards making fart noises or beefsquatch lore, but being the son of Bob, who is the star of Bob’s Burgers, kinda makes him the star of the show too.
When Gene speaks listen closely, because he’s got some pretty brilliant life philosophies, and that boy really knows how to live!
To live like Gene is to live stress free and full of burgers, and philosophies don’t come much more relaxed than Gene’s unique perspective on life, but if you don't like learning life lessons from cartoon characters Gene's animated wisdom might not work for you...
28 Of The Wisest Lessons Gene Belcher Has Ever Taught The World
The films of director Ari Folman bring an interesting new angle to the animation/film industry- his previous release Waltz With Bashir is an animated documentary about the aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982, his earlier film Saint Clara was a unique take on magical realism, and he’s bringing back old school animation techniques that give his movies a unique look.
His latest live action/animation hybrid is called The Congress, based on the Stanislaw Lem novel The Futurological Congress, and it stars Robin Wright as a fictional version of herself.
Here's the official synopsis:
More than two decades after catapulting to stardom with The Princess Bride, an aging actress (Robin Wright, playing a version of herself) decides to take her final job: preserving her digital likeness for a future Hollywood. Through a deal brokered by her loyal, longtime agent (Harvey Keitel) and the head of Miramount Studios (Danny Huston), her alias will be controlled by the studio, and will star in any film they want with no restrictions. In return, she receives healthy compensation so she can care for her ailing son and her digitized character will stay forever young. Twenty years later, under the creative vision of the studio’s head animator (Jon Hamm), Wright’s digital double rises to immortal stardom. With her contract expiring, she is invited to take part in “The Congress” convention as she makes her comeback straight into the world of future fantasy cinema.
-Via AWN
The Jaeger suits used by human forces to defend the planet against attacking kaiju monsters in the sci-fi flick Pacific Rim are all over two hundred feet tall, and these cosplayers can't be more than about six and a half feet tall, but they don’t want to be bothered with minor details like scale because when they're wearing their incredibly cool looking armor suits they feel like they’re twenty two stories tall.
These amazing Jaeger cosplayers are part of the C4 Team from Thailand, and they not only dress like kaiju punching mecha- they battle with any kaiju they come across at cons. Now that's what I call dedication to a role!
-Via GeekTyrant
Conner Flynn at Technabob suggests that this movie be entitled Batman and Captain Picard Fight Aliens: Prometheus: First Contact Rises. That is an outstanding idea!
I propose that Patrick Stewart play the role of Batman and Ben Affleck play Picard. The xenomorphs would require multiple actors, but Robin Williams should play the Queen.
To flesh out the supporting characters, bring in Gilbert Gottfried to play Alfred Pennyworth and the current Lassie to play Commander Riker.
Artist Jimsmash has the story concept ready to go. Hollywood, get to work.
What’s the first thing you do when you reach the surface of the planet Mars? You phone home, of course, and when you get through to Earth you expect to be greeted by excitement and praise, but if you're anything like the hapless astronaut in this animated short by The Brothers McLeod entitled "Phone Home" you'll be greeted with nothing but disappointment!
Oh well, being one of the first astronauts to land on Mars trumps being married any day!
-Via Laughing Squid
