Wordle

Wordle is a free word cloud generator. You can paste in some text or just add the url to any website or feed. From there you can specify the colours, fonts and layout. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text, so they will be larger in the final artwork.

Unfortunately you can't specify the shape of the final cloud, but it's great for brainstorming, finding out about your blogging habits or just wasting a pleasant 20 minutes.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

This is the best news since Dollhouse was announced!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" is a three part supervillain musical written by Joss Whedon and starring Neil Patrick Harris & Nathan Fillion.

“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.”

It was concieved during the writer's strike and filmed in 6 days "on favors and waivers" using a crew of longtime Whedon loyalists.

It will be treamed for FREE on the official website for one week only.
The first part goes up on July 15th.

Dark Horse Comics have also released “Captain Hammer: be like me! Nemesis of Doctor Horrible”. You can read it here.

It will eventually be released on dvd with lots of extras "which are going to be the finest in all the land. We're actually going to do, in addition to the commentary, what we refer to as ‘commentary with an exclamation point'! A musical commentary that is a completely original musical, that is all commentary songs, and we're writing that now."

Not that is something I would love to own!

Wind Sprites

As the light of the early morning sun hits the pods, they start to emerge,weak from their long confinement and struggling against the tough shells that kept them safe throughout their time of change.
Soon their new wings will be strong enough for the breeze to lightly lift them off their perches and carry them far away.

FANTASY XXIV: "Metamorphosis"

Brief: Things change. You are to depict as fantasy image of things are changing, or how they have changed over long periods. Transformations, transmutations,emerging, polymorphing, evolution, whatever you can come up with, as long as there is some sense of a before and after, it should be fair game for a subject.

Closeup of the first, second and third sprite.

Animated Work in Progress (About 450Kb)

Sources

It's amazing how things work sometimes. I usually struggle for ages to find some kind of workable concept. This time I almost instantly knew what I wanted to do. I even made pre-sketches. On actual paper.

I also found the perfect source for my main sprite in Marcus Ranum's DA gallery, so without too much fuss, she had taken (a rather nice) form. I even tried a new technique - painting on highlights instead of using the dodge tool, to give her a much more glistening / surreal look. I'm also quite proud of how well the wings turned out.

Then it got a lot harder. I wasted almost 2 days trying and discarding different backgrounds, but nothing would work. I knew what I wanted, of course, but just couldn't find it. Since time was running out, I finally settled on this one, but it isn't really such a perfect fit.

Most of the critiques I got was about the busyness or distracting quality of the background. Even though I had cleaned the original picture up considerably, I tend to agree with them. Who knows, maybe I'll find or take the perfect picture to use somewhere in the future. Then I can finish this one properly.

Final Score: 8.999 (I can't believe how close this is!! Just a mere 0.001 more and I would have had my very first 9!)

Carved Crayons

Peter Goldlust uses ordinary wax crayons to create the most amazing carvings.

From his website:

"The work reflects my interest in mutated, hybrid forms, and the disjunctive psychological states that they represent.

I’ve explored these themes using a variety of media. These have included traditional studio techniques, digital imaging, industrial manufacturing processes, and children’s arts-and-crafts materials. A sense of play is key to each of these creative strategies."

While googling for a bit more info, I also found a few more stationary based sculptors:

The art of pencil carving.

Joseph Barbaccia constructed a very impressive self portrait with crayons.

Diem Chau's Storytelling series.

Papercut

Peter Callesen is a Danish sculptor who creates the most amazing sculptures out of single sheets of A4 paper.

His work is inspired by fairytales and romanticism, exploring the relationship between 2 and 3 dimensionality, between image and reality.

"I find the materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3D form as an almost magic process - or maybe one could call it obvious magic, because the process is obvious and the figures still stick to their origin, without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is as well an aspect of something tragic in most of the cuts."

A few extra pics can be found here and here.

Samorost

Samorost is a delightful point and click adventure about a tiny space gnome trying to save his home from an approaching asteroid.
The art is beautifully bizarre and somewhat reminiscent of Monty Python.

It was originally created by Jakub Dvorsky as his final thesis project. The word 'Samorost' in Czech means a root or piece of wood, which resembles a creature; but it is also a term for a person who doesn't care about rest of the world.

The art of the sequel, Samorost 2 , is even prettier. It's very polished and completely intriguing. Unfortunately only the first chapter is free, but it is definitely worth it.

99 Rooms

99 Rooms is an internet art project that interweaves wall painting, photography, animation and sound.

It stemmed from the mystical, often apolocalyptically charming pictures created by Berlin artist Kim Köster within the countless vacated premises of East Berlin‘s industrial sector. The often eerie soundtrack just adds to the amazingly atmospheric experience.

The Scribbler

A cool way to waste 20 minutes, The Scribbler lets you jot down a quick sketch and then takes over to create weird and wonderful things like this creature above.

10 points to the first person who can actually guess what it is!

Signs of life

I know I have been very quiet lately.

No, I wasn't kidnapped by a bunch of rogueish, yet charmingly sexy pirates who forced me to wear tight bodices and survive on nothing but skilly 'n duff and seaweed grog.

Nor did aliens abduct me to perform strange, and surprisingly kinky, experiments on my shining example of a human brain.

I didn't even find a magical wardrobe that led into a fantastical world where I had lots of wonderful adventures and later returned wiser and more mature than before. That will only happen on the 18th.

It did involve a dragon though.

The biggest reason is probably Worth1000. They actually convinced me to spend ridiculous amounts of time doing things like this and this. But it's a lot of fun. And probably one of the first times in my life where I am doing arty/creative things because I actually enjoy it, and not just because it is part of some assignment or project.

Another reason is my recent discovery of the wonderful world of webcomics. I found the first one while doing research for my dragon picture, and now I'm hooked!
I've always been facinated by manga and comic book art, but it just never really occurred to me to follow the next logical step and start drawing it myself. I do like the colouring part, just not really the drawing from scratch.

Anyway, here is a few of the prettiest ones in case somebody is interested.

Fallen - Sadly, it is not being updated at the moment, but I live in hope, since I'm completely in love with the sketchy style of the later pages.

Inverloch - Also on hiatus for a bit, but it's getting published next year, so it should be back soon. Beautiful, full-colour pages.

Juathuur - B &W, but it actually updates 7 days a week!

The Saga of Eruune - Strange story, but a very unique, avant-gardey style with lots of intricate linework.

Redemption - Some of the pages are being redone in a much cleaner, stylised way, but I still like the rough scratchy originals.

New Lifeforms

This 3D animation is absolutely amazing!

“Sixes Last” was created by 1st Ave Machine as a music video for the artist Alias.

"It is about how artificiality is creeping into the modern day world. We were looking at a merge between synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and what could spawn from them."

The style is great and I'm really impressed with their ability to motion track with the moving camera, so that technology and nature blend together seamlessly.

Some of the creatures even reminded me of the plant life in 'The Dark Crystal'!

Grocery Star Wars

Watch the movie here

In the spirit of my previous post, and because of all the Star Wars craziness at work lately, I just had to post this.

It features Obi Wan Cannoli, Ham Solo, Lord Tader and my favourite, Chewbroccoli.

May the farm be with you.

O, die nostalgie!

So many people have found this site by googling old South African children's shows like 'Wielie Walie', 'Mina Moo', 'Mannemarak' and 'Oscar en Knersus', only to be disappointed by finding them barely mentioned once, and with no information pertaining to them.

So I decided to do some research myself, and this is what I found:

Oscar en Knersus

Themesong 'Asblikfontein' was performed The Springbok Nude Girls at the 5FM Easter Rock Festival 27 March 1999.
Knersus was voiced by Carel Trichardt.

"Ha ha ha
Ek's vuur ek's vlam
Niks wat my kan vang
Ha ha ha"

An 'Oscar en Knersus' video can be bought here.

You can also watch it at 17:30 on Thursdays on Nsat (The South African TV Station in the UK)

Wielie Walie


Wielie-wielie-walie.
Die aap sit op sy balie.
Tjoef-tjaf daar val hy af.
Wielie-wielie-walie.

The themesong, along with a lot of other early South African TV themesongs, can be found here.
The CD with all the songs can be bought here at kalahari.net.

Liewe Heksie

About the author, Verna Vels. Incidentally, she was also the voice for Bennie Boekwurm in 'Wielie Walie', and did almost all the voices for the original radio production of 'Liewe Heksie'.

Haas Das se Nuuskas

Bit before my time, but I heard enough about them from my sisters.

Ons kyk na Haas Das se nuuskas - vroegaand net na 6
Ons kyk na Haas Das se nuuskas - dis die grootste pret
Ons kyk na Haas Das se nuuskas - groot en klein kyk saam
Al die nuus uit Diereland bring Haas Das vanaand

You can also hear the themesong here.

Most of the puppets used in these shows are now stored at the University of Pretoria

And a few other favourites:

Gummi Bears

Dashing and daring
Courageous and caring
Faithful and friendly
With stories to share
All through the forest
They sing out in chorus
Marching along
As their song fills the air

CHORUS: Gummi Bears
Bouncing here and there and everywhere
High adventure that's beyond compare
They are the Gummi Bears

Magic and mystery
Are part of their history
Along with the secret
Of gummiberry juice
Their legend is growing
They take pride in knowing
They'll fight for what's right
In whatever they do

CHORUS (Repeat first verse) CHORUS

Gummi Bears
When a friend's in danger they'll be there
Lives and legends that we all can share
They are the Gummi Bears
They are the Gummi Bears
They are the Gummi Bears!

Listen to it Here

Maya the Bee

Remember them?

Design Site of the day

I was looking for a bit of inspiration to make my preloader look more interesting, when I found the most amazing illustrations incorporating typography. It was the ramdom site of the day on linkdup (a great site for exploring some of the best design on the web), and when I visited it I was literaly blown away. Memoirs from Hijiyama is visual presentation dedicated to the victims of the Hiroshima atom bomb. It is a very serious subject, presented in pictures and words, but with such a unique style and composition, that I find myself going back again and again. This visually stimulating site with its experimental and innovative design and navigation is a definite contender for my all time favorite websites.