This is a photo of Akko, taken by me in 2007. I retouched it based on the Creative retouching tutorial from Computer Arts magazine #151 – here is the original example.

Here are some photos i took:

A character from Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)

Me and Tony Todd – Candyman .

Now i am not afraid to say “candyman” 5 times in a row.

Some nice freaky dolls:

The werewolf dude:

I loved the Dracula doll! (Creations of Terry Cruikshank)

Regan MacNeil and more puppets (Creations of Terry Cruikshank):

Some more stuff:

Army of Darkness book:

# 13

Ater - Finnish death/doom metal from 1991. Does not exist anymore, but has some precious photos on the site.

# 12

Darkified- Swedish black/death metal band, which liked Lovecraft a lot. Split up in 1993, later went on to the Edge of Sanity and Marduk. As it says on their myspace – “The little devil in the logo is watching you” (while you’re figuring out what the logo says).

# 11

Bestial Summoning- one of the first black metal bands from Netherlands. The little Satan skull kinda makes it easier for one’s associative mind to guess the words. They have some really precious stuff on their page .

# 10

Multiplex - Early 90′s death metal pioneers from Japan, kinda like Japanese version of Napalm Death.

# 9

Impiety - Black/death metal from Singapore, still going on, fans of Genghis Khan. This is the first logo of Impiety, now they have a new, more readable but less curly one.

# 8

Baxaxaxa - now that’s a pretty awesome name for a band. This is a German, Bavarian atmospheric black metal band from the early 90s as well. They also have changed their logo to a more readable one.

# 7

Absu - the evil American band from Texas. They call themselves “mythological occult metal”. They have been going on since 91 until now (and i never liked the music ). Here are the 1st 2 logos of the band – they are obviously very creative, and now they have a new one. I couldn’t decide whether i like hairs or branches more, so i put both of the early logos.

# 6

Equimanthorn - Another Texan occult-dark ambient band. Their new logo is a bit less hairy.

# 5

Filii Nigrantium Infernalium - a Portuguese band with an awesome, easy-to-remember name and logo, started out as black metal and turned into thrash. No matter how hard i tried, i cannot decipher at least where the first letter “F” is. Illegibility achieved.

# 4

Prosanctus Inferi -an American black/thrash band from Ohio. Started out in 2005, so far have 2 demos. I bet they liked botany class in school.

Behold the 3 most awesome ones

# 3

Forgotten Land -another band from Ohio. A one-man band, the only member is called Lord Tetrarch. He is truly evil. Here we can see that christmas trees have some serious roots.

# 2

lol
Korgonthurus - Finnish black metal. Look at that! That is just pure art. The band has absolutely no intention whatsoever for anyone to ever be able to read their band name from the logo. Plus they seriously like trees.

# 1 – the ultimate winner

Is that hay, a bird’s nest or camel spit? This logo receives the ultimate illegibility award. No one on this planet could possibly read anything from it. This is the most awesome logo i have ever seen in my life. If i ever feel sad, i’m sure if i look at it i won’t be able to stop myself from laughing. They even had a little flash intro on their myspace before with that stuff flying around ! However, they changed it to a new one. It’s also not so bad, but i just love this one.

And this is…
Waking The Cadaver – A brutal deathcore band from New Jersey. They started out in 2006, and already have almost 3 million plays on MySpace – logo did the magic i guess, cuz the music is

Each one of the 8 floors is like an art gallery, but the fun thing is that you find different styles of art with almost every step – one space would have modern-style, surrealistic paintings, the other one would have photography, the next one would have junk art, and the next one would have something totally weird you won’t even know what to call it. The other 2 floors have live performances and the bar.

I did 5 floors of art only, and that was more than enough impressions and inspiration. It was great to find out that there are so many young artists in the area, with very interesting ideas and ways of expressing themselves. I took loads of photos and artist’s flyers to check their sites. Here are some of the photos of the art i found the most interesting for me:

The Peep Show

The Peeps are marshmallow-inspired creatures made by different people for the Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest. The dioramas display all kinds of iconic images from the present and the past, political situations, well-known movies, and just funny stuff. These are definitely worth noticing.

If you want to check out more photos i took, visit my Flickr and the Artomatic pool.

Smashing Magazine textures contest

I participated in Smashing Textures contest – i didn’t win, but i got featured in 2 galleries of the best textures the Smashing crew selected in the end of the contest, and i’m happy about that. Two of my textures got featured in Sand and Earth gallery and in Stone, Walls, Brick gallery. Here are some textures i submitted + the ones i was considering to submit, but since there was a limit of 5 only, i couldn’t include all of them:

You can download these textures here, if you like.

Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth show

We went to Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth black metal show at 9:30 club, Washington D.C.

It was a cool show, i enjoyed it – both bands played well and had a great image and stage show. The sound in the club was perfect. It was nice to hang out a bit with Nergal, since Zhyin has toured with him back in the Ancient days – so they had some fun stuff to remember.

Miami

We went to Miami for 1,5 days to check it out , since we’re going to be moving there soon, for a year. I liked it because i love hot weather and hate cold. Can’t say more than that, because it was only a 1-day visit, but it seemed nice. We even managed to find a very nice place to live already, which we didn’t expect. ( the following photo is not the place we found – it’s just a pretty view from the hotel we stayed at )

We also visited the World Erotic Art museum, which is a collection of approximately 4,000 objects and antiquities dating to as early as 200 B.C. and hailing from lands as distant as Asia, Africa and India. Among the sculptures, the museum has the original phallic prop from Stanley Kubrick‘s classic A Clockwork Orange. The collection belongs to Naomi Wilzig. Unfortunately, no photos allowed, only in the shop.

Sanatorium Altrosa

I bought the limited collectors edition of Sanatorium Altrosa – the new creation of Sopor Aeternus. Besides the cd itself, this edition comes with lots of fancy things – a bag, a shirt, a book with photos, etc. Well, i liked the fancy things the most. And sadly, this would be the first time i am saying something like that about Sopor Aeternus.

]]> http://www.ladyomega.com/pieces-of-the-present-and-the-recent-past/feed/ 7 http://www.ladyomega.com/papercraft-toys/ http://www.ladyomega.com/papercraft-toys/#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:22:18 +0000 omega http://ladyomega.com/papercraft-toys “The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” – said Picasso. So, here are emotions embodied into the paper – the coolest papercraft toys i’ve encountered online:

Shin Tanaka

Shin Tanaka is a graffiti artist, paper toy creator and designer from Fukuoka, Japan. His site features supercute papercraft toys – Spiky Baby series, T-Boy, Boxy and others. Some are available for download.

Josh McKible

Josh McKible‘s Paper Birds are adorable. He is a very successful graphic and visual design artist from New York, living in Tokyo.
The birdies are available for download!

Brian Castleforte

Brian Castleforte is a designer from LA. His site – Nice Bunny has a vairety of his papercrafts as well as of the other guest artists. The toys are available for download.

Atom-Glue² chronicle

Here are the brilliant works of Atom, a japanese artist: the papercraft reproduction of Hieronymus Bosch‘s Garden of Earthly Delights‘ creatures – the Helmet bird, and the Letter bird from The Temptation of Saint Anthony.

Paper Critters

Paper Critters is an online paper toy creator site, where one can make his own paper creature, get a chance to be showcased in the top 10 critters, and see some of them out in the wild!

Readymech

Readymech‘s papercrafts are free, flatpack toys for you to print and build. The site features a great variety of cute creatures.

Speakerdog

Speakerdog – yet another site with cute downloadable papercrafts. Make your own speakerdog!

Dragon illusion

This dragon is lots of fun. I already have one at home, it’s pretty cool. The little dragon is made out of paper – you cut it out, stick it together, and stand it on a table or window ledge. But when you move around, the dragon’s head seems to follow you around the room. There is a video on the Grand Illusions site, which shows how it works, and it’s available for download.

Papercraft Robots Gallery

Robot Tairiku site has a big gallery of papercraft robots, available for download:

Skull-A-Day papercraft:

And here’s a papercraft skull from Skull-A-Day:

Now here’s a weirdness to be proud of.

Here are the videos in 2 parts, with English subtitles.

Part 1

Part 2

It’s a book from NYPL digital gallery – The punishments of China : illustrated by twenty-two engravings : with explanations in English and French, dated 1804. Here are some pictures, please go to the original site for more.

Torturing the fingers

Punishment of the wooden collar

Punishment of the swing

Twisting a man’s ears

A malefactor in cage

Burning a man’s eyes with lime

Klaus Nomi died in 1983, he was one of the first artists who died of AIDS. Sadly, when he was dying in the hospital, no one came to say good bye to him, because they were afraid of this disease.
Had he be around today, he would probably be performing gothic music with an operetic flavour.

Here are 2 videos of Klaus Nomi:

The Nomi Song

The Cold Song – from Purcell’s “King Arthur”

In 2004, a documentary “The Nomi Song” came out, produced by Andrew Horn, about the life of Klaus Nomi. (I own this documentary of course).

I hope that this art will not be forgotten.

SnuzNLuz alarm clock

The SnuzNLuz uses the very complex psychological phenomemon known as ‘HATRED’. Basically it’s human nature to wish harm upon your enemies. Similarly, it’s human nature not to give your enemies gobs of cash so that they can grow big and dominate the world with their totally wrong, stupid and invalid point of view. ThinkGeek realized that. That’s why everytime you hit the snooze button, the SnuzNLuz will donate a specified amount of your real money to a non-profit you hate. The problem of sleeping in is solved.

Robby the robot alarm clock

Cool Robby the Robot Alarm Clock beeps, lights, swivels at it’s hips and flashes to wake you up. Point the infrared remote control “gun” and shoot once for “snooze” and twice for “off.” Works up to 15 feet away. Includes talking time plus hourly chime sound effects.

Paper watch

E Ink Corporation, Seiko Epson Corporation, and Seiko Watch Corporation created the world’s first watch to utilize an electronic paper display. This ‘Future Now’ design incorporates an easy-to-read, ultra-thin, low-power display integrated into an eye-catching curved band.

BPM watch: for DJs and runners alike

This multipurpose timepiece dons a stainless steel face, spits out the time in digital fashion, keeps track of the date, and includes a “mini-torch” backlight to find your way to an empty seat when entering a theater seven minutes late. The standout feature, however, is the built-in beats-per-minute mode, which allows you to “tap the button to the rhythm of the beat” or monitor your current heart rate. Additionally, BPM mode brings out textual inspiration in the form of random DJ phrases that are presumably meant to get you even more amped up.

Clocky

The alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed. Clocky gives you one chance to get up. But if you snooze, Clocky will jump off your nightstand and wheel around your room looking for a place to hide, beeping all the while. You’ll have to get out of bed to silence his alarm. Clocky is kind of like a misbehaving pet, only he will get up at the right time. Created by Nanda.

Time Sphere

Gideon Dagan’s new clock captures the essence of pure, minimalist design. A seemingly gravity-defying ball travels around the dial to mark the time, creating an eye-catching illusion.

Made in the USA of injection-molded ABS polymer, the clock features a high-torque, precision quartz movement.

Day and Night pair

The design represents a pair of 2-sided watches. One is for showing accurate time and the other side, being divided into 24 portions, is for showing the 24 hours.

When the “Day” and “Night” watches are placed together, you will see the digital screens joining together in 24 portions on the background. Each portion glows according to the actual time. For example, at 4pm, 16 sections will glow like a regular clock, as shown as in the diagram. The back of each watch is featured with an EL backlight screen to form the glowing portion. The front and back screens combined will present a full display of the time.

The “Day” and “Night” are also featured with rotational watchcases that can turn fully around to suit 4 ways of wearing. Created by Amie Lim.

The Da Vinci alarm clock

The Da Vinci Alarm Clock works on a very basic system. The Dot Matrix display will always show either Sleep or Awake. When the product is first switched on the display will immediately show the word Awake. This will continue to be displayed for 3 hours at 30 minutes.At this point the clock display will change to show the word Sleep and a high-pitched alarm will signal this change in state. This will continue to sound until the user presses the alarm-reset button. The word sleep will continue to be shown for the next 30 minutes, at which point the display will revert back to show the word awake, the alarm will also sound at this point to signal that a change in state has occurred.The 4-hour cycle will repeat itself six times over the course of a 24-hour period and will continue to do so until the clock is switched off. If the user follows the directions given by the clock then they will be able to enjoy the benefits of a 21-hour day, with little of the associated tiredness they would normally experience.

Sarah flower clock

Designer Jim Doan named this beautiful, graceful piece after his fiancée–just as he named his company after her. And what a compliment: with its flexible graphite stem and unmistakably botanical appearance, the Sarah Clock is like the one perfect flower that puts any bouquet to shame. Plus, it tells time.

AlarMe – the watch for hearing impaired

Designer Nikita Golovlev has created a watch for the hearing impaired. AlarMe is a very unique and stylish design that has the ability to alert those who cannot hear an audible alarm by vibration on the watch. The watch has two built in multidirectional microphones that measure the surrounding ambient sound levels. Once the sound changes frequency, the vibrating alarm alerts the user that there is a situation going on and they need to leave the area. The LED lights and face alert the user as to what the alarm is, and if it is a serious situation or one where only caution needs to be had.

TO:CA ‘wood’ LED clock by Kouji Iwasaki

These clever clocks have a very thin layer of veneer that permits the LEDs to shine through.

Available in two styles : a long version, ideal for use as a alarm clock for your nightstand; and a tall version, which is ideal for wall hanging or placement on a mantle.

Space Invaders alarm clock

The Space Invaders alarm clock actually forces you to play video games the second you wake up. Well, not really. But whatever time you set the alarm to, that’s when the little aliens start marching from side to side on the screen to the Space Invaders theme song. To turn it off, just bonk your blue-and-white alien on the head.

Carpet Alarm

In order to turn off the Carpet Alarm clock, you have to get up and step on it. If you really want to make it a challenge, place it far away from your bed. Of course it wouldn’t be a clock if it didn’t have and LCD screen to indicate time too.

Designer: Sofie Collin & Gustav Lanberg

Sleep Tracker watch

The SLEEPTRACKER watch is unique in that while it tells you the time and has a built-in alarm like every other digital watch, this one actually monitors your sleep and wakes you at the moment that your body would best adjust from moving from a sleeping state to being awake. I think it’s pretty useful for anyone who’s biorhythm-conscious. On the back there is an interesting chart that shows the typical adult sleep pattern.

Tempus fugit : the Flying alarm clock

The Flying Alarm Clock wakes you up with a loud shrieking alarm coupled with a little propeller-driven key that leaps off your nightstand. To turn off the horrible racket, you have to get out of bed and retrieve the key. The propeller flies the key high into the air and off into some dusty corner. You have to force your sleep addled brain into wakefulness, move your stiff legs and retrieve the key before the alarm goes off. By the time you’ve done so, you’re awake enough at least to go make a pot of coffee.

Pull-handle alarm clock

Designer Duck Young Kong is hoping his hip new concept clock’s pull-cord operation is charming enough to keep you from hucking it out the window. To set the alarm you simply pull the cord on the bottom of the unit until the numbers on the LCD screen reflect the time you wish to get up. The cord then slowly retracts into the clock as your awakening approaches, until it reaches the end and the alarm sounds.

And another supercute thing i found on Notcot – made by Sleep Sheep and Friends or Cloud B ~ this turtle is cuddly under its shell, lights up in various colors, and projects the night sky on to the ceiling (or your tent, fort, etc). It’s supposed to be for toddlers but i want this thing!

If someone goes to CSS Mania to check out my listing there, i would appreciate your votes very much!

Also, while i was redesigning my blog, i got the best friend award from Lilyruth. Thank you, Lilyruth!

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From the project page:

This early 20′th century novel uses the city of Prague as the setting for a clash between German officialdom immured in the ancient castle, and a Czech revolution seething in the city below. History, myth, romance and political reality merge in this truly apocalyptic epic. Gustav Meyrink is an Austrian writer who is mostly known to the english-speaking world for his 1915 classic “The Golem”.

I was happy to find out about this, because Gustav Meyrink is one of my favorite writers. It’s surprising, why Meyrink’s novels and short stories are so hard to find in English, since his books are definitely among the best ones in the occult/mystical/gothic genre. Unfortunately, you cannot find the full works’ collection in english, only in german, russian or czech, but, fortunately, i know russian so i am one of the lucky ones who read everything from Meyrink .

Source

I would want one i guess :)

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 Go here for more pix.

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Official website of the movie
Official site of the artist

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Every August, Zenshoan temple in Tokyo opens the doors to its Yurei-ga Gallery, a private collection of Edo-period ghost scrolls. The 50 silk paintings, most of which date back 150 to 200 years, depict a variety of apparitions from the forlorn to the ghastly.

The scrolls were collected by Sanyu-tei Encho, a famous storyteller (rakugo artist) during the Edo era who studied at Zenshoan. Encho is said to have collected the scrolls as a source of inspiration for the ghostly tales he loved to tell in summer.

Telling ghost stories has long been a popular summer pastime in Japan, and many people believe that chilling tales have the power to take the edge off the dreadful heat. Stories of shadowy souls also make a nice, macabre complement to all the August rituals (bon festivals, memorial ceremonies, grave cleaning, etc.) performed to welcome the spirits of departed ancestors as they return en masse to the earthly world.

The ghost scrolls are on display from August 1 to 31, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Zenshoan temple is located a five-minute walk from Sendagi station (in Taito ward) on the Chiyoda subway line. The entrance fee is 300 yen.

Nate Hill holds the crown of The Greatest Artist Of All Time. With his Bible Rewrite Project scattered with pictures of homemade animals sewn together, Nate is becoming a God of his own universe filled with animals he made and people who he created. (They don’t know it yet).

I think Nate Hill’s work is pretty cool, though i am definitely not a fan of taxidermy and i love animals. But this one is particularly weird and creative, and since he uses parts of dead animals and not live ones, i guess it’s not so bad.
The gallery of Nate Hill

A Quick Stroll on the Water

Paleo-Future reader Tom T. sent me an amazing collection of postcards from the dawn of the twentieth century that depict what life would be like in the year 2000. According to Tom the postcards were originally featured here but have since been removed. The site claimed that the postcards were produced by Hildebrands (a leading German chocolate company of the time).

The Moving Pavement

House-Moving by Train

Televised Outside Broadcasting

Personal Flying Machines

Weather Control Machine

Combined Ship and Railway Locomotive

Undersea Tourist Boats

Roofed Cities

Personal Airships

Summer Holidays at the North Pole

Police X-Ray Surveillance Machine

read source

TADASHI ENDO developed his very special dance-style, which appears like a walk on the tightrope between eastern and western culture and between the arts Theatre, Performance and Dance. He calls it Butoh-MA.

MA in Zen-Buddhism means emptyness as well as spaces betweens the things. Tadashi Endo visualizes these spaces in their very fine changes. The moments, when one figure changes to the next or one image changes to the next, with nearly invisible movements and a very strong tension, are more important to him than the representation of the figure or the image. This tension, which he radiates with utmost concentration and perfect posture, transforms his dance to a representation of still movement. His body rests, although he dances. He is not dancing – he is danced.

The performance we saw was called “One-Nine-Four-Seven”. It was absolutely magnificent, the lighting was also directed by Tadashi Endo, the music pieces he used were from Osamu Goto, Kronos-Quartett and Tschaikowski. And of course, it ended too soon and we wanted to see more…

I felt it was unsuitable to take pix or film, so, i didn’t do it. Some people, though, did. The audience was not cool and not very appreciating, since the show was for free.

Anyway, i will post the video of Kazuo Ohno, one of the co-founders of Butoh, who is 101 years old and whom Tadashi Endo met in 1989 and continued collaborating with him since then.