Illustration Paradise

Visit Illustration, and you will have arrived at "Illustration Mecca". These guys are packed full of great artists for cartoons, editorial, 3D, and so on... you name it. A cool place to scope out what other digital artists are up to. Creativity abounds, here!

Prankster Art

An elaborate illusion: these guys spent time (and probably money) to paint the picture of a piece of paper on the wall, so as to fool their buddy into thinking it was a real piece of paper. They sandblasted the wall to make it look real... and by all accounts, they succeeded in their mission. Check out this crazy video of two guys' artwork prank.

Smashing Fashion

Victoria & Albert Museum, in London, England, is ripe with elegant and beautiful design. In particular, their recent Couture exhibit has some wonderful, timeless fashionista artwork. As the daughter of a former dress designer, I appreciate the sophisticated Vogue drawings and paintings, of long and lanky models.

As a child, I recall trying to draw and paint glamorous women like that, and my mother explaining to me how fashion artists always make the women in their pictures seem awkwardly thin, more so than is natural. So, I made the necks longer, eyebrows a bit more raised, and waists only a bit wider than the long necks. I suppose people like that do exist in real life. Most that I know, however, have "better fed" physiques than the models of yesteryear.

I appreciate what Dove is doing, with their Campaign for Real Beauty. It makes us "regular" folks feel better about ourselves--more hip to the groove. Oh, I know that they are making money off their campaign, and some would say that's wrong, but I'd rather they capitalize off of healthier self-image promotion, than off of stick-figured, anorexic prototypes. Maybe others will follow.

On a related note (that note being the name, Victoria), I wish a very happy birthday to my dear friend, Victoria Marie!

Getting Tanked

According to this guy (I think his name is Mero Pyaro... it's hard to tell), here's a drawing of one of the world's first tanks. Apparently, it was to be built large, so that many men could hold it over themselves, as they ran, in step, toward the enemy.

In his article about the evolution of military tanks, Strange Tanks, he discusses the weirdness of tank design, over the years... and weird, it is.

Perception is Everything

Have you been feeling "blah", lately? Winter got you down? Do you need an image boost? Well, no fear: A series of entertaining cartoon graphics have been circulating around the internet, lately, and are credited to trendy Euro ad agency, LG&F in Brussels, for their client, Oogmerk, an optician in the Netherlands.

These illustrations demonstrate with clever cartoons, what glasses can do for one's image. Some artist has prepared a "before" and "after" -styled series of caricatures, that depict what some might label unsavoury characters... the only difference is that in the "after" photo, the character wears glasses. And voila... style and sophistication abound!

So, Four-Eyes it is, for the fashionably astute. It's nice to know that there is room at the top (of fashion), for when our precious eye sight fails us... let's hope the trend lasts!