Clement Valla

Clement Valla makes a lot of interesting art using unexpected digital tools.

In his project Bridges, he uses satellite photos and 3D landscape information from Google Earth to find bizarre photos that wrap man-made structures to the contour of the earth.







The result is almost a little scary.

Ruairi Robinson

I've been saving this post for a lazy Sunday, as a 12 minute video is a bit long for the workday, perhaps. But Ruairi Robinson's Blinky is pretty excellent.

Watch out, wimps! It starts out fun, but things quickly become... a bit creepy.



Also, I was surprised to see that I remembered Ruairi Robinson's previous work from a few years ago; The Silent City.

Art of the Title

I love title sequences in movies. It's like a chance to put a self-contained little statement at the beginning of your movie and a lot of films make great use of that opportunity.

Ian Albinson, Founder and editor-in-chief of Art of the Title, put together this amazing collection of title sequences through the years, aptly called The Art of the Title Sequence.



Ahhh, the memories and good times come flooding back. Also, this video gets a big thumbs-up for using music by one of my favorite musicians, RJD2.

the Broadview Blog

Take a gander at the digital landscape/setting work of Robh, who is my new favorite cg painting master. His pieces look photo real, but he's also generous enough to include some process that makes it very clear these aren't photographs.







You can see close up views of his pieces on the blog. He also has an assortment of beautiful plein air paintings. He makes on them on his iPad, naturally.

The Backwater Gospel

It's Sunday. Time for The Blackwater Gospel!

This stunningly cool animation was a final project from The Animation Workshop. Amazingly talented! Makes me want to weep!



Waaaah!

Psyop + Bambinomonkey + Kool Aid

Advertising is so incredibly slick these days. Take a look at this KoolAid ad Psyop did, for example.



There are three super cool ads in total, each for a different color/flavor. They all feature character designs by Bambinomonkey (aka Ignacio Fernandez Maroto).







You can see all three ads (along with more character studies) at Bambinomonkey's Behance page.

Compare that to what I remember about KoolAid, as a child of the eighties:





Hmmm. Maybe not that much has changed. They do share a similar sense of frenetic chaos.

Sword Shadow Dance

Sword Shadow Dance was produced for the Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo, Japan. It combines animation and projection with some sweet sword skills to create a totally unique and amazing performance that wouldn't be out of place in a crazy anime.

Dead Island

Warning: The video embedded in this post is gory and not suitable for everyone.

I first heard about Techland's Dead Island more than a year ago, maybe even two or three years ago. All I knew was that it's a game with lots of zombies and that it's set in some sort of tropical resort. Which obviously sounds quite cheesy. I kind of forgot about it immediately.

Out of nowhere, the official trailer came out and I was quite surprised by what I saw. What I expected to be a clichéd, action-heavy video game trailer was actually a very well done, and sad, 3 minute zombie story that rivals a lot of thoughtful horror movies.



P.S. I promise the next post will be extra cute and cheery.

Mollinex + Kinect

Just last night we almost bought a Kinect, the new motion sensor peripheral for Xbox 360. We had it in our hands; Lindsay was chomping at the bit to play some Dance Central.

But (being the nerd I am) I've followed all the hands-on impressions and coverage since it was launched and I don't think we have the proper space or lighting to make it work right. Although I wish I did.

As cool as Dance Central is, what hackers and modders have been doing with the hardware even cooler.

For instance, Mollinex created this video for their song,Catalina using the data pulled from Kinect's 3-D depth-sensing camera.



I might try to round up a lot of cool kinect hacks for a future post. There's a lot of cool stuff happening around that tech.

Taylor James

Taylor James is a Creative Production Studio, which basically means they create stunning imagery for print, motion and web.

I was really impressed with some of their amazing photo manipulations.







The woman shedding her skin is actually a 3D model and can be viewed from all angels. Creepy.

Tangled: the Hair

Hair is a tricky thing. It can be tricky to draw in 2D, but in 3D? Way harder. And animating it in 3D? Super-duper hard.

It's come a long way though. I remember when it was a huge deal when Pixar's Monster Inc was courageous enough to feature a main character covered in fur. But Disney's Tangled, based on the story of Rapunzel, takes it way further, featuring a character with long (LONG), beautiful, flowing hair.

This snippet from the always-awesome Science Friday gives a little insight into the process of creating that awesome hair.



I should probably go see more movies.

Words are Pictures

Words are Pictures is a collaborative studio founded by Craig Ward. They make a lot of awesome type pieces using traditional, digital, photography and programing techniques.

There's a ton of great work on the site (although I had a little bit of an easier time sorting through it all over on Craig's Behance page), and I'd love to decorate the studio with some prints of his work.

Serial Cut

I noticed the always-inspiring Serial Cut recently updated with some new work! As expected, it's pretty dope.

Justin Mezzell

I am completely drawn to these designs collages by Justin Mezzell. They are mysterious, spiritual and sci-fi at the same time, perfect for a cryptic message from future. Or maybe a prog rock album cover.

Nik Ainley

I love this type by Nik Ainley. I just want to pick it up and play with it.

ZEITGUISED

ZEITGUISED make strange and wonderful things. I'm not sure how or why, but it's great stuff.










Mind-boggling.

Alex Roman

This is a pretty cool commercial. But there's something unexpected about it:



If you didn't guess (and your probably didn't), it's 100% CG. Alex Roman is some kind of super... CG artist... dude. Just check out his previous work, The Third & The Seventh.

Wizz

Here's a very cool animation created by Wizz, a french production, design and motion graphics house.



There's tons of crazy awesome work on Wizz site... oh what the heck. Here's another one I flipped out over a year or so ago.

Cataclysm

Whenever a new Blizzard game comes out, you know you're going to be in for a treat. Besides making great games, they consistently churn out some of the most amazing CG cutscenes around.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is approaching and it was cool to see the intro cinematic they just released.



They've got a different, interesting take on standard fantasy tropes (like dragons). Check out the wicked scary ice-bone dragon from the previous expansion Wrath of the Lich King.



Any although it's a different realm of fantasy, some of the cinematics from Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty might be the best of all.

Andrew Myers

Andrew B Myers is a Toronto-based photographer. Combining analog and digital techniques, he carefully crafts scenes that can be both complex and serene. Some of his photos could almost be painted pastel patterns.