Animation has come a long way since the days of classic Disney animated features like 101 Dalmatians and The Sword In The Stone, and now that we use digital art and animation programs to make the whole process easier than ever before these classic films would have a very different look if they were made today.
Tyson's versions look very painterly, and the characters definitely look more realistic, but for my money it's impossible to improve on the perfection of the original backgrounds. Tyson says he's planning to do more of these studies soon, may I suggest a scene from the Black Cauldron?
What we have here is a mashup of the Netflix series House of Cards and the HBO series Game of Thrones, so you know you’re in for some cutthroat shenanigans. House of Cards character Frank Underwood makes short work of getting the better of even the worst of the Westeros elite. -via Digg
Around is the kind of animated short that some viewers may find disturbing, not because of mature content or language but because of the squiggly hand drawn animation style.
Around was created by Ryu Kato in 2010, and it's a visionary short full of living motion, lines and otherwise, with a rough illustrative style that comes off as a mixture of Bill Plympton style and the unnervingly twitchy look of Dr. Katz.
The premise is simply "A chain of dizzying images illustrate a day in an imaginary town as seen through the eyes of a boy", but there is a lot more to this short than a simple visionary trip around town.
We have a lot of NeatoShop contests simply because we're proud of our tees and want to spread the love. If you already own a NeatoShop tee of your own, then you know just how awesome they are.
If you'd like to turn one shop into two, we now have a way for you to earn a free shirt just for sharing your love of our tees.
All you have to do is take a picture of yourself in a shirt from the NeatoShop and then upload the image to our NeatoShop Facebook page. If we like the picture enough, we'll feature it as an official image for that design in the shop and in exchange, we'll reward you with a free tee shirt of your choice. If you keep taking pictures of your shirts, who knows, maybe a single NeatoShop tee will turn into a whole wardrobe.
Obviously without seeing your pictures, we can't guarantee that we will or won't use your picture, but here are a few tips if you want to maximize your chances of getting featured:
Make sure the shirt design is totally visible. We love you fans, but if we're going to put a picture on our product page, it needs to show the product clearly, not just a picture of you with a tiny square of one of our shirt designs peeking out in the corner.
Be creative. We already have pictures of the tee shirts, we want pictures that show you having fun in your tee. You don't have to leave your face in the image if you don't want to, but there better be something really interesting about the image if your head's cut out of it.
Keep it clean. It goes without saying, but if you're flipping off the camera or posed reading an adult magazine, we won't be using that photo.
Don't go too artsy. Instagram is great and we love artistic photos, but black and white, high contrast, soft focus, etc. images won't work on our product photos, so make sure it's clear and the design's colors show up accurately.
Just imagine you could find yourself into a My Friendly Neighbor tee or any other great NeatoShop design simply for supporting the shop and the blog!
Many sports teams have given us Star Wars nights as promotions to get new fans into the seats. The Durham Bulls baseball team has done it before, but this year they’re going on further by outfitting the team in new R2-D2 jerseys! I think they should wear these for every game! Star Wars night will be May 4th (Star Wars Day), and the team jerseys will later be auctioned off to benefit the Autism Society of North Carolina. -via With Leather
Once upon a time, way back in 1992, a little cartoon show about a dog and a cat called Ren & Stimpy was making waves with episodes about rubber nipples, a toast headed superhero, and all sorts of gross out gags parents felt were too extreme for kids.
But Ren & Stimpy wasn’t really a kiddie show, John Kricfalusi’s seminal animated freakout simply fell victim to the cartoon stigma built by Disney decades earlier, which established the idea that all TV cartoon shows should be made for kids.
Proof that Ren & Stimpy was not made for kids lies in the episode where Frank Zappa voiced the Pope, who is rescued by Powdered Toast Man and has to cling on to Toast Man's speedo clad buns as they fly through the air.
Boy, they sure don’t make cartoon shows like that anymore!
Hey there gang, we partnered up with our friends at Today I Found Out to bring you a seriously epic contest. How epic? Well, you can be the envy of all of your friends when you receive a Captain America Mystery Box prize pack (picture below) and as if that weren't cool enough, you can buy anything your little heart desires over at Amazon with a $100 gift card. And so you don't look raggedy while doing so, you can also choose any tee from the NeatoShop and one from the Today I Found Out shop.
Even if you don't win the Grand Prize it's worth entering the contest as the second place winner will be able to pick out any two tees or hoodies from each of the sponsor's shops and the third place winner can pick out one tee or hoodie from each site's shop.
The contest ends at 11:59 PM PST on April 4, so get going!
A note to those in charge of advertising for Game of Thrones- be careful where you place your billboard ads or you might not get a very kind reception from the people.
It seems someone dropped the ball when they decided to put up this billboard advertising season 4 of GoT with the slogan “All Men Must Die”, because the billboard is located right above the Santa Monica Pavilion, a building that provides residential care for the elderly.
I’m sure plenty of people will be watching when the show premieres in early April, but I doubt many of the viewers are going to be senior citizens with an advertising slogan like that!
What’s the one thing that was missing from both the original and the remake version of Robocop? Some will say wizards, others will say aliens, but a select few will claim that what both movies were sorely lacking is some good ol' fashioned a capella style singing.
They are the Andy Bernards of the world, the Burton Gusters, the Carlton Banks’s’s, and they are the target audience for Max and Sam’s Geekapella version of the Robocop Theme (1987).
The date’s there to remind you that this song is dedicated to the original movie, and the dancing in the video- well, that’s just there to remind everyone that Max and Sam really know how to get down!
The mysterious man known as Solid Snake has gone from a straight forward Special Ops type dude to the star of a video game franchise that keeps getting more surreal with each installment.
His name, and later his eyepatch, may have been lifted from Kurt Russell’s character in Escape From New York, but did you know that he’s supposed to have the body of Jean Claude Van Damme and the face of Christopher Walken?
If Gollum seems a bit off to you when you interact with him, there's a reason why. He has a mental illness. But which one? In 2004, a group of medical students led by Nadia Bashir published an article in the British Medical Journal about their efforts to diagnose the Lord of the Rings character. They examined his behavior and concluded that Gollum has schizoid personality disorder:
Several differential diagnoses need to be considered, and we should exclude organic causes for his symptoms. A space occupying lesion such as a brain tumour is unlikely as his symptoms are long standing. Gollum's diet is extremely limited, consisting only of raw fish. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may cause irritability, delusions, and paranoia. His reduced appetite and loss of hair and weight may be associated with iron deficiency anaemia. He is hypervigilant and does not seem to need much sleep. This, accompanied by his bulging eyes and weight loss, suggests hyperthyroidism. Gollum's dislike of sunlight may be due to the photosensitivity of porphyria. Attacks may be induced by starvation and accompanied by paranoid psychosis.
An internet search found over 1300 sites discussing the nature of Gollum's “mental illness.” We asked 30 randomly selected medical students if they thought Gollum had a mental illness. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis (25 students), followed by multiple personality disorder (three). On initial consideration schizophrenia seems a reasonable diagnosis. However, in the context of the culture at the time it is unlikely. Delusions are false, unshakeable beliefs, not in keeping with the patient's culture. In Middle Earth, the power of the ring is a reality. The passivity phenomena Gollum experiences are caused by the ring, and these symptoms occur in all ring bearers. Gollum does not fulfil the ICD-10 criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.3
The presence of two personalities, Gollum and Sméagol, raises the possibility of multiple personality disorder. In this diagnosis one personality is suppressed by the other and the two personalities are always unaware of each other's existence.3 In this case, Gollum and Sméagol occur together, have conversations simultaneously, and are aware of each other's existence.
Gollum displays pervasive maladaptive behaviour that has been present since childhood with a persistent disease course. His odd interests and spiteful behaviour have led to difficulty in forming friendships and have caused distress to others. He fulfils seven of the nine criteria for schizoid personality disorder (ICD F60.1), and, if we must label Gollum's problems, we believe that this is the most likely diagnosis.
He went from the ice to the eighteenth hole, punched Bob Barker square in the face and saw what the old guy was truly made of, and brought the hockey fans to the putting green much to the dismay of the country club crowd. He’s Happy Gilmore, and he really should have been the star of his own 8-bit video game!
The game would've had so many diverse gameplay elements- with a hockey playing segment, a golf segment, and plenty of butt kicking on every level, with plenty of yelling at the screen for good measure.
Too bad we’ll just have to settle for this 8-Bit Cinema animated short created by CineFix, which is great fun to watch but only makes me want to play a Happy Gilmore game even more!
Dark Noir is an incredibly stylish animated short by Rafael Grampa that combines 2D and CGI elements into one surprisingly interesting storyline about personal daemons and the stories we all carry around within our minds.
It was created for Absolut Vodka's ad campaign Next Frame, and even though it carries a warning that it should only be viewed by those of legal drinking age the story seems to lack overly adult content, aside from the main character spending a lot of time in a bar.
Entitled Next Frame,the collaboration will invite users from around the world to help shape what happens within a new original story created by Grampa – as he writes it. Once the story is complete, the brand will work with Grampa to transform the still drawings into an animated film, which will premiere in Berlin at MADE, a creative space by Absolut, on March 15th.
Gotham City’s rogues' gallery reads like an urban jungle almanac, with cats, big apes everywhere, a killer croc, a man sized bat and the very plants themselves wreaking havoc thanks to a sinister gal named Poison Ivy.
There was even a guy named Great White Shark, who was called that because of his physical disfigurement and filed teeth, not because he was actually a shark.
But these illustrated re-imaginings by Jeff Victor show what the Arkham Asylum crowd would look like as cartoon sharks, perhaps in an alternate version of Batman that takes place underwater or the sequel to Finding Nemo that nobody saw coming.
Funny, I always pictured The Penguin as, well, a penguin!
