One more post before I go. As many before me have already exclaimed, the work of Elna Frederick is absolutely breathtaking. With touches of Out_4_Pizza and Petra Cortright (who looks to be a contributor alongside Frederick at Computers Club), Frederick composes some stunning scenes of moving, interactive pixels. Wander around her site and playfully mouse over the images. You're in for some lovely surprises.
Holy pizza on pizza
Batman, I'm going on vacation! I'm off to two full weeks of doing a lot
of nothing, and some other things, but mostly nothing. Chances are I'll
be online from time to time, and you might catch me on the CO-OP side
of things in a few weeks, but I'll be MIA for the most part.
Farewell, have a great July, and here's a song to remember me by (or hate me for, since it will never leave your Pizza-head):
Creative Review announced this morning that MTV has paired up alongside UK-based studio Universal Everything to refresh the company's brand. Using the mantra "pop x 1,000%", Universal Everything tackles MTV's branding with colorful, luscious, and playful design. The only thing that I can see souring this eventually is MTV's content, as it's hard to envision how Daisy of Love or Tool Academy fits into the alternate reality of chocolate gold sunsets and Mister Furry (my favorite, below). But before things get spoiled, check out the videos and bask in jewels and oils and the like.
MTV International / Mister Furry from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
MTV International / Sweetheart from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
Seen via today and tomorrow & notcot
I managed to recognize The Rainbowmonkey's deconstructed comic characters titled "Cartoon Particles" relatively easily, but I have an inkling this is because of my recent Seasons 1-3 binge of Ducktales over the course of the last month (what can I say, I own all the DVD's.) How many can you recognize without revealing the inputs?
Seen on Brandonnn's Tumblr. Check out The Rainbowmonkey for other wonderful stuff too!
Most of you out there know that I tend to have a few strong opinions when it comes to the videogame industry and women. The last opportunity I had to explore these ideas publicly was with my post about "Girl Gamers" back in ye olde days of Destructoid, but unfortunately since I haven't really taken any time to sit back and reasses how I feel about the situation aside from small conversations with others who share my sentiment.
Thankfully there are folks out there like my trusty colleague Leigh Alexander over at Sexy Videogameland, who recently helped Daniel Floyd put together this video concerning videogames and the female audience. I think the discussion here is really terrific, and covers a large arena of theories as to why the game industry is as male-centric and testosterone fueled as it is today:
The only point where I have to quickly disagree with is Daniel's nod to Ubisoft for developing games marketed to young girls. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bringing girls up as gamers ( I turned out alright... right?), but there has got to be a better way to expose women to gaming outside of painfully stereotypical titles like Imagine Babyz and My Weight Loss Coach. I mean, come on.
Here's a little animated .gif of Prince of Peugeot for your Monday morning, with a larger and more colorful version here. Lord, what I would have given to have the occasional drive-by Peugeot available when fighting some of these guys in the original game!
Thanks Sean!
I know you Lost fanatics out there would pick this baby up in a heartbeat. The bigger question is, what are the selling features of a Lost NES game? My ideas below, but please, I could use some help from all you Losties. Oh and uh, **spoilurz** be up ahead, so you know, be weary:
I'm at work so that's all I've got for now people. ¡Ayúdame!
According to Dazed Digital's interview with fashion designer Timothy James Andrews, his most recent collection titled "A-BLOCK-A-BRICK-TOE" is inspired by everything from Transformers, Mel Gibson's Apocolypto, and most notably Tetris. As is demonstrated in his piece above, Andrews works crystal patterns into his collection to create a colorful homage to Tetris, saying that he "...had great fun placing the beads together in a pattern, almost like playing the game!"
If it came between Andrew's outfits and Giles Deacon's Pac-Men heads, I'd probably choose the former to supply my wardrobe of high-end retro game fashion. What can I say, crystal pixels are pretty hot stuff.
Spotted on Style Bubble
Congratulations everyone, we made it to Friday! Since (according to my Daytum) I haven't done any drawings in a month, today I'll be sharing a couple of inspirational artists that I've discovered between my Tumblr, today and tomorrow, and FFFFOUND!
The art collective over at Cinco have plenty of fun, colorful works to stroll through on their site. I have to say I'm partial to their wall sculptures (one of which is displayed above), but I also really appreciate their manifesto (primero, en Español):
Queremos que en cada proyecto se sientan las personas que lo realizaron. Creemos y confiamos en lla idea de que nuestros trabajos sean imperfectamente perfectos. Humanos.
(...and now in English)
We want each of our projects to reflect the people behind it. We believe and trust the idea of our work as something imperfectly perfect. Just human.
Next up are the works of Bott Scarry over at Sacred Mtn. I see a lot of similar motifs in his drawings and line work as some of my more recent works, but naturally his stuff goes above and beyond to the next level. Some of the booklets he's put together are jam-packed with all sorts of good stuff. Makes me want to make one myself.
Last night my friend Ben and I were brainstorming about a super-great game concept we have. If it goes anywhere I'll be sure to report our progress here, but for now we're just in the research stage. We kicked things off last night by romping around the YouTubes in search of game art inspriation, my first contribution being a few clips from the claymation PlayStation platformer Skullmonkeys (which has an incredible soundtrack if you haven't heard it yet.)
Ben followed up with two games which may be familiar to some of you but were entirely new to me. The first was Flashback, which he played on the Sega Genesis. I was absolutely taken aback by the opening animation and the stunning detail that appears during small moments in the gameplay. The intro video is shown above and the style is simply breathtaking.
On the flipside, Ben showed me Night Trap, a Sega CD videogame released in 1992 that allegedly brewed lots of controversy in its time due to some offensive scenes of vulnerable women coming to violent ends. After viewing a few of these scenes it's all very reminiscent of a tacky horror film about sexy co-eds, and at times seems to be understandably offensive. That being said, the "Party Scene" is pretty cheesy funny, especially with all that FMV paired alongside that corny user interface.
Are we having fun yet?
Anyway, if any of you all have other quirky games to look at in terms of style, I'd love some suggestions!
