Action-figure lust: FFXIII Odin figure from SquareEnix
A while back, I wrote about an amazing-looking prototype for a new Play Arts action figure of the Odin summons from Final Fantasy XIII they showed at last year's Comic-Con.
Looks like that figure is finally coming out.
I have mixed feelings about the chosen color scheme compared to the prototype's grey, but it still looks fabulous. Must have! (Possibly before I even get FFXIII...)
Glad for cameras to record sand mandalas
So there's this odd Tibetan Buddhist tradition in which devotees create mandalas from colored sand. And then destroy them.
"A sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life."
Not particularly inclined to destroy artwork for any reason, I'm very glad that modern photography has made it possible to record this art even after its creators have erased it.
Yay, pretty sand art!
Blade lust strikes again
O, the joy of sharp shiny steel! Check out this deliciously functional Oniyuri blade from Cheness that's custom-designed for Bujinkan specs. Not only is it made of high-quality steel, but it's sneaky too, with a blade shorter than its sheath suggests -- meaning that it can clear the sheath faster than standard-length blades.
After sharpening, this blade can seemingly cut almost anything.
Do want!
Gorgeous clothes illustrated
While researching ancient Egyptian pharaoh stuff (really, when am I not doing this?), I came across a collection of illustrations from The History of Costume, which was printed from 1861 to 1880. The photorealistic and brilliant images give a great impression of various styles of clothing.
Here's a few samples:
When words and colors collide in gemology
So I happened across an utterly fascinating discussion about padparadscha sapphires (which also led to the discovery that sapphires are essentially the same stones as rubies; they're just called different things according to their color), pink as a shade of red, and the debate over how to describe shades of red in gemstones.
Here's a description of a padparadscha sapphire:
The article's author, Richard W. Hughes, shows entertaining wit and a hint of sarcasm while instructing the reader to do something I found very refreshing and practical: Use your eyes, not its place on a hue/saturation scale, to determine a gemstone's worth.Padparadscha sapphire is a special variety of gem corundum, featuring a delicate color that is a mixture of pink and orange – a marriage between ruby and yellow sapphire. The question of just what qualifies for the princely kiss of “padparadscha” is a matter of hot debate, even among experts.
Today, padparadscha is narrowly defined by Western gemologists as a Sri Lankan sapphire of delicate pinkish orange color. But the original use of the term was somewhat different. Padparadscha is derived from the Sanskrit/Singhalesepadmaraga, a color akin to the lotus flower (Nelumbo Nucifera ‘Speciosa’). Most lotus blossoms are far more pink than orange, and in ancient times, padmaraga was described as a subvariety of ruby (cf. the Hindu Garuda Purana). Today, some define the gem's color as a blend of lotus and sunset.
Ours is a strictly visual medium. Unfortunately, when it comes to questions like ruby vs. pink sapphire, or padparadscha vs. lesser branches of the corundum family tree, we behave as though we are all graduates of the Braille Academy of the Visual Arts. Too often, we feel for the dots on the lab cert, rather than looking with our own eyes to see if it is beautiful.
Seems obvious, doesn't it? Liking pretty gems because they're pretty, not because a chart says they're worthy of being called pretty? Yay for the practical application of gemstone appreciation!
Here's an example of a padparadscha sapphire, described as having "the delicate pinkish orange color that resembles the color of a lotus flower":
Gotta see if I can find beads in that brilliant sunset shade for my earrings.
Here's an example of an uncut padparadscha sapphire:
Here's the example of a padparadscha sapphire from Wikipedia, which, although gorgeous, seems too orange to me; it's lacking the pink tint that I expected from the descriptions of the stone:
Video game concept art
Joakim Hellstedt shares a bunch of his video game concept art, including sketches for "Project Fortress" (a spin-off for Final Fantasy XII) from his time with defunct Swedish developer Grin.
Here's a sketch of a moogle mechanic:
And here's one of his original works:
Go check out the rest!
Update: More art from Grin's artists Martin Bergquist and Tony Holmsten is available.
Update: And more "Fortress" concept stuff from Bjorn Albihn.
When fan art is better than the original: Lily does Naruto
Update 27 January 2010: I'm saddened to report that Lily has closed her web site, meaning that there's no longer any easy-access site with her pictures. If you find out she's opened a new site, please share. I'll be tracking the Lily fan club at DeviantArt full of hope...
Here's Lily's farewell image:
------------
Mysterious fan artist Lily makes amazing fan art for Naruto (several hundred known images), Prince of Tennis, and One Piece.
Man, I would love to see the Naruto anime done with Lily-style art. Even just an OVA or two. If I wasn't already into the Naruto story and accustomed to the wildly variable quality of the animation, I'd give up in disgust after comparing the potential of Lily's work to the reality of Naruto filler.
And I'd definitely be much more inclined to watch One Piece if the characters were done in Lily's graceful style rather than their current goofy forms. (Yes, I know they're drawn that way on purpose. That's irrelevant to this commentary.)
I especially love how Lily captures an instance of movement or a particular gesture or a fleeting expression.
Lily shares used to share some of the images on her web site at http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/c.lily, but sadly there's never the full collection there. Check it out once in a while to see what's new.
Meantime, here's some sample images to compare and enjoy!
Lily's Deidara
Original Deidara
Lily's Ace
Original Ace
Lily's Itachi
Original Itachi
Lily's Madara
Original Madara
And some of my favorites are the ones exploring the unseen moments of Itachi and Sasuke just being brothers:
Elaborate clothing lust: Rebel Spirit's bold embroidery
So I managed to acquire the fabulously embroidered shirt shown below from Rebel Spirit, and I adore it. It's got all kinds of spiffy gratuitous decoration like metallic print, velvet, little Xs stitched in odd places around the collar and hem, and bronze grommets.
And now I'm totally drooling to discover that there's a jacket with the same magnificent phoenix embroidered on it. All that detail adds up though: The jacket is retailing for over $300. Sigh.
Want!
Eye candy: beautiful poster designs
Came across a link to an amazing gallery of advertising and art posters. You can change the zoom in the gallery just using your mouse wheel, very handy indeed.
Check out the stuff from Pedro Monteiro, Sabato Urciuoli, Hwan Uk Choe, and Adam Thurland.
My favorite, from Yapae Studio, is shown below. Near as I can tell, it's punctures through paper or heavy cloth, but it looks like pearls. Fabulous!
The best fire lizard art. Seriously.
I'm seriously, you guys: While Michael Whelan is the ultimate dragon artist, the absolute best fire lizard art was created by Elizabeth Malczynski Littman for the Harper Hall trilogy.
The artist was impossible to find for 25+ years, and there was no way to get prints of the art. I've been hoarding my long-out-of-print copies of the paperbacks for years just so I'd always have it. (More recent editions have been downgraded to ugly, stubby covers by Rowena, who, while talented, is not nearly as skilled as Whelan and lacks Littman's clean lines. There's always something a little off about the perspective and proportions of her subjects.)
But now Littman has an online gallery. Check out the gorgeous designs, patterns, lines, and colors.
And maybe one day soon I'll have an armful of brilliant fire lizard tattoos to show off.
Speaking of Michael Whelan..
Damn, that man is good. While I haven't yet found a high-quality, high-res, comprehensive online gallery of his stuff, check out some of the free online beauty:
Official collection retrospective at Glass Onion
Images and notes from various Dragonriders of Pern illustrations
Original works for sale at iO Gallery
Body painting as high art
Body painting doesn't have to be all cheesy hippie flowers and rainbows. Check out this stunning body art from Emma Hack.
Zippo lust strikes again
Zippo has made some shiny new lighters in brass featuring maneki neko, the Japanese beckoning cats I love and collect. But I can't get one easily: they're not sold here in the U.S. They're only sold in Japan, like lots of other cool types. Carbon fiber! Totoro! Brass gears! Skulls! Little green tadpoles & frogs!
I want!
Fun with Photoshop: real-life depictions of Far Side cartoons
Okay, maybe not "real" real, but adapted from real-world images: A contest from Worth1000 in which people created new versions of Far Side cartoons.
Check out the rest of Worth1000 to see a lot of creativity and whimsy in action.
Inspirational piercings
Hitsugi from Nightmare (Naitomea) has the best piercings! I've so gotta go get something pierced! (More pics of Nightmare.)
Clockwork art lust
I adore clockwork things where I can see the gears. Dale Mathis makes some shiny gear-y masterpieces. I have no place to put an office desk (if that's even human-sized in real life), but damn, it's pretty.
A-Z of Awesomeness
Alphabetical artistry showcasing pop-culture geek-culture icons. Discovered via Whedonesque, who promotes it extra because of the J for Joss picture shown below.
Make sure you check out the letter H for Hello Kitty's comeuppance!
I Can Read Movies
I Can Read Movies proposes old-school pulp paperbacks based on contemporary movies. Delightful whimsy in art style, typography, and graphical representations of memes.
Pretty monsters from Kazuma Kaneko
Kazuma Kaneko is the artist behind the brilliant monsters for the Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Summoner games, as well as Zone of the Enders and Devil May Cry 3.
His creatures are influenced by all sorts of mythologies, and part of the fun is learning more about their origins.
For example, I first learned about the Japanese nue through DDS. I had a happy little geeky thrill years later watching Bleach, when I learned that Renji's zanpakuto, Zabimaru, is also a nue. Kazuma's looks very different, of course, but it's still fun to have that mental web established.
There's lots more at the Megaten wiki's demonic compendium.
I was doing some visual research, and I ended up with a bunch of scans of Kaneko's art. Below are some of my favorites from this batch of research.
About the print versions: I have most of Kazuma's art books, but they're both expensive and out of print because they were only published in small numbers. I need Works III and the Pandaemonium Characters artbook (the purple one). If you ever spot them cheap (under $30) at a used-book store, grab 'em for me! And if Works IV is released on the same 2-year timeline as I-III, it should come out next year. Keep your eyes peeled for news.
Now, on to the pretty!
Horse model is Odin from FFXIII
Yay, teh interwebz!
That horse model I mentioned earlier, which was being shown at the Square Enix booth at Comic-Con, is a model of an Odin summons. The writer says it's from Final Fantasy XII, but I'm wondering if it's actually from FFXIII, which hasn't been released yet.
Oh, wait, someone else confirms that it's FFXIII.
Can't wait to see it painted.
And holy crap, look at the painted Shiva model!
Dr. Grodbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators
Check out this shot from last's night preview night at Comic-Con. (More pics at Cinematical.)
There's a full display of Dr. Grodbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators, a series of limited edition weapon replicas from inspired by Victorian design and steampunk.
These are higher quality than nearly all of my current weapons, and it shows.
Given that they're doing tiny limited-production runs of 500 and the starting price for each one is nearly $700, though, I don't suppose I'll be lucky enough to own any of 'em anytime soon.
I still want 'em. All. Now.
Wanted: Crows X Worst collectible figures
Aside from the fact that Takashi Miike has made 2 Crows Zero movies so far, which instantly gives Crows X Worst a (more) cool reputation, there's a shitload of really, really cool figures for the Crows gangs.
Check out the overview on Anime News Network. The fall and folds of the clothes! The postures! The hair!
I want!
