A series of pieces based off of common urban fauna with the aim of reminding people of traits in them we could all do well emulating sometimes, and celebrating the ability of nature to carve out a place in any environment.
Interested in seeing these on patches or pins? Please send me a message! If there’s enough interest, I’ll look into the cost of having them made.
This is delightful and I'm so glad the temple is fighting to keep them.
“Ikemen Kanno Emaki” (イケメン官能絵巻), or Scroll of Handsome and Sensual Men, is a series of artworks that were installed earlier this year at Kokujoji Temple in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. Established in the year 709, the temple is believed to be the oldest in the region. And yet it, along with many other temples dotted across […]
Why yes I am a trash panda hooman who will happily eat all of these things. Fermented, dried, frozen, pickled, smoked... yummmm. And also mushrooms. I love mushrooms.
Why do Goblins have to eat trash? Why can’t goblin cuisine simply have a strong emphasis on fermentation and controlled spoilage?
Like fermentation stinks to high heaven and you typically hide it away in dark and cool places. It fits lore wise for a creature that lives in a cave and is described as unclean.
Anyway this has been food for thought
concept: a setting where every race has a different preferred method of food preservation and each of them is pretty sure that everyone else is ruining their food - goblinoids are masters of fermented foods, elves make exquisite sundried fruits and jerkies, dwarf cities have enchanted walk-in freezers hewn from living stone, gnomes can pickle anything, orcish smokehouses are legendary.
humans and halflings don’t have their own signature food preservation methods, but are notable for being willing to eat everyone else’s trail rations.
Goblins also have an EXQUISITE mushroom cuisine. A single package of genuine goblin-grown shelf mushrooms can be worth more than gold in some regions.
Oh hey, turns out this video I wanted to watch is by one of the co-authors of the Because the Internet book :)
In school, we learned the "proper" way to write, and everyone was supposed to learn the same rules. Those rules worked for both books and letters, but accomplished writers knew when to break them to make a point. Then came the internet, texting, and social media. New methods of writing for new purposes gave way to bending the old rules and instituting new ones. The new system may seem lazy to those using the "proper" rules of capitalization and punctuation, but there's are reasons behind each new convention. Tom Scott explains.
This tweet warms my librarian heart. It's always a good idea to keep emergency books around. Hurricane season is upon us here in Texas, and I'm always careful to keep a supply of print books to enjoy if the power goes out for a few days.
(More seriously, I have expressed to my library director that, as a matter of collection development policy, it should be possible to rebuild human civilization from the print collection of any library. This saved some unread volumes from disposal.)
I don't usually repost cosplay threads because there are hundreds and they all start looking a little bit the same. But this one is fun as it has a "behind the scenes" feel to it with so many of the cosplayers relaxed and texting.
But the main reason is all the great Spiderverse cosplay, particularly the wonderful Doc Ock.
(guy Gamorra is amusing too)
2019 has been full of terrible happenings and counter-happenings, but here we are now at the 50th San Diego Comic-Con! (Or #SDCC19, if you’re into the brevity thing.) Perhaps owing to the superlatively non-racist good vibes induced by Into The Spider-Verse, the first two days of SDCC have been full of Spider-Man Cosplay. Spider-Man Classic, […]
Yes! More men dressing fancy and sewing their own clothes. He has a good eye for balance and line. Though I wish that he'd explore more interesting fabrics and patterns, that could be really something.
Call not this gentleman a fop or a toff. Zach Pinsent, 25, of Brighton, East Sussex, UK, is making a statement. It began when, at the age of 14, he symbolically burned his blue jeans, thus drawing a boundary between his old life and his new one. Since then, he has dressed in the high fashions of Regency era of British history.
He's a tailor who offers garb like his own to men of refined tastes. You can see his sophisticated menswear on Instagram. Pinsent tells BBC News that:
I've never had the wish to dress normally. I did that for so many years and hated it. So what's the point of returning, once evolved? . . . Wearing what I wear--it makes me feel ten feet high.
This looks like spun-sugar fun. I don't know if anything will approach the Heathers Musical character building but I always appreciate it when the different characters have a distinct musical and speaking/dancing style.
We like a lot of geeky things around these parts, but the musical Six checks so many of our nerd boxes, it feels like it was created in a lab just for us. Six is a pop-opera style musical giving the wives of Henry VIII a historical revisionist feminism makeover.
The musical is currently running at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and if you live in the area or find yourself there this summer, do yourself a favor and go see it in person. With an all-female band backing them up onstage, the play has the feel of a full arena concert.
But even if you can’t see it live, the entire soundtrack is on Spotify and it is a total delight.
Six presents each of Henry VIII’s wives as a pop star, each with her own unique sound and style. In a sort of musical battle royal, each woman gets a chance to win the title of Most Wronged Wife. Each gets a song to explain why they were done the dirtiest by their shared husband–why they had the worst life and deserve the most pity from history.
Now, that by itself is a cool concept and the music is genuinely good. Lyricist and composer Toby Marlow (who co-wrote the book with Lucy Moss) fully commits to giving each queen a distinctive style rooted in their historical context. That means Jane Seymour has major Adele vibes and Düsseldorf-born Anne of Cleves goes full German house euro-pop.
But, as I said, this is a distinctly feminist piece of historical revisionism. This is a minor spoiler (turn back now if you want to see or listen with totally open eyes & ears), but it would do the play a disservice not to mention that making something female-centric does not inherently make it feminist. So if you were wondering why a play about six women whom we only know in relation to a man, competing with each other and asking for our pity over their sad lives is feminism, well, they address that.
Because sure, we know these women in relation to one man, but what is that man best known for? These incredible women.
The soundtrack is on Spotify but also check out these videos of the original London cast for a taste:
Here’s the opening number:
And Anne Boleyn’s number:
The small set there doesn’t do the song or the play justice, but it’s a super cute song nonetheless.
Given the racial diversity of the cast and the fact that the premise rests on setting historical stories to modern styles of music, the comparisons to Hamilton are inevitable. But honestly, they’re not undue. It’s a genre in which Six can actually hold its own.
The songs range from fun and poppy to the tackling of serious subjects like sexual assault, loneliness, and yes, beheading. What’s your favorite track?
I definitely appreciate the art and skill in making bread bake up to be so recognizable when sliced but I'm rather mesmerized by the photos on the left which look like the characters have gone through a horrifying accident.
Although they may look really weird from the outside, when baker @izumickey0719 slices these loaves open, we see impressively detailed portraits of characters from anime, Disney, and Pixar films.
I wonder if the technology exists to transform actual photographs into loaves of bread like this.
That's right, forkligraphy - Turkish artist Yazi Yolcusu creates stunning calligraphy using cutlery like forks and knives.
Yolcusu uses only metal cutlery for his calligraphic works, as Oddity Central explains:
Yazi Yolcusu, which apparently means “Text Traveler” in Turkish, is living proof that it’s not the tools that make the artist, but their skill. Using only metal cutlery – a spoon to hold the ink and forks and knives as writing tools – the talented artist creates some of the most amazing calligraphy you’ll ever see.
The way the Turkish calligrapher switches between the bottom and top prongs of a fork and uses all four of them to create a truly unique font is truly mesmerizing to watch.
Yazi’s knife wielding skills aren’t too bad either, as he’s able to use the sharp tip as a fountain pen.
I'm not usually one for spooky stuff but this is a really cool use of the graphite smudging effect that I have not seen before.
Artist Willie Hsu creates haunting sketches of people and animals that appear as though they’re trapped behind frosted glass. Each eerie shadow drawing incorporates clever shading that makes the figures look three-dimensional, as if they’re trying to reach out from the confines of the page towards the viewer. Human hands and animal paws are rendered with dark, detailed shading to appear as though they’re resting on glass, while a ghostly silhouette of the rest of the body lingers in the background.
“The inspiration behind my artwork stems mostly from a fascination with the afterlife,” Hsu tells My Modern Met. “After that last grain of sand falls through the hourglass, everyone has an opinion about what comes next. Yet no one knows for certain. It’s this enigmatic beauty that fuels my imagination and drives my creativity.” And he admits, “I’m also an avid watcher of horror movies and a huge fan of ghost stories.”
Although the theme of Hsu’s work is dark, the artist uses his practice as a therapeutic way to deal with his own personal experiences of loss, regret, and heartbreak. “I find solace pouring out my deepest emotions and bottled-up feelings onto a blank canvas,” he reveals. “For an anti-social, anxiety-ridden introvert like myself, art is the one true voice I have to tell my story.”
You can follow even more from Hsu’s ever-growing portfolio on Instagram.
Artist Willie Hsu creates haunting sketches of people and animals that appear as though they’re trapped behind frosted glass.
The inspiration behind his artwork stems from a fascination with the afterlife.
This Muslim Woman Is Redefining Hijabi Fashion In Japan With Her Gorgeous Instagram Photos
“I want to show that Muslim fashion is something that goes beyond the boundaries of religion and that anyone can empathize with and enjoy it.”
By Saori Ibuki and Kassy Cho
Although her Indonesian Muslim parents never pressured her to wear a hijab, Rahmalia Aufa Yazid always figured that she would eventually end up wearing one.
Born and raised in Tokyo, she initially didn’t feel that strongly about Islam, so she had followed her parents’ lead when it came to the religion.
When she finally decided to put on a hijab at age 18, it felt impersonal to her, and Yazid struggled with dressing in it.
Although her Indonesian Muslim parents never pressured her to wear a hijab, Rahmalia Aufa Yazid always figured that she would eventually end up wearing one.
Born and raised in Tokyo, she initially didn’t feel that strongly about Islam, so she had followed her parents’ lead when it came to the religion.
When she finally decided to put on a hijab at age 18, it felt impersonal to her, and Yazid struggled with dressing in it.
“I felt that the hijab was a religious item of clothing, so I was choosing my clothes to match,” the 24-year-old freelance creator, who posts under her Instagram handle @aufatokyo, told BuzzFeed News.
As a result, she found herself missing out on popular Japanese fashion trends and feeling out of place in school, where she was the only hijabi student in her major.
“Not only did I stand out as someone with foreign heritage, my daily outfits now consisted of my mother’s old hijab and outfits that were totally different from designs and colors that were popular in Japan at the time,” she said.
“Although it was my choice to wear the hijab, I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel as though the hijab was, instead, wearing me,” she said.
All that changed when she encountered the work of Hana Tajima, a mixed-race British and Japanese designer who converted to Islam in her teens.
It was only after she saw Tajima’s Uniqlo modest wear collection that Yazid realized modest fashion didn’t have to feel out of place in the streets of Tokyo.
“Her fashion didn’t feel like it was trying to be particularly gorgeous, vivid, or even traditional,” Yazid said.
“That was the moment the hijab changed from an impersonal, religious item of clothing to something that was true to my life,“ she added.
Yazid now combines Muslim and Japanese fashions in the city of Tokyo, sharing her self-portraits on her Instagram to her 14,000 followers.
She calls Tokyo a “cold and restless city,” where people dress in neutral colors of black, white, beige, and khaki and where bright colors and striking patterns are rare.
She styles her hijab the way that Japanese people style their hair — to match their outfit and mood for the day.
Just as Japanese people vary their hairstyles, from straight to bobbed, wavy to short haircuts, Yazid uses different colors, materials, and wrapping methods to switch up her look.
For example, the hijab can be wrapped asymmetrically to create an effect that’s similar to that of bangs being swept to one side, she said.
“I also add accessories to create a more lively look,” she said. “I like hats, so I often wear a beret over the hijab.”
For Yazid, Islam’s restrictions against women showing skin is the part she enjoys most about fashion.
Because hijabi fashion doesn’t allow women to show off their neck, legs, or figures, it’s a lot more difficult to come up with an outfit that still achieves an overall balance, she said.
“But for me, that’s part of the fun,” she said. “It’s like solving a puzzle.”
Her work has led to an increased sense of her pride in her Muslim faith in a country where Muslims are a small minority, she said.
Yazid said she wants to use her work to show people that they can wear a hijab, live a normal life, and not look out of place in the city.
Since then, she said she’s received many comments from people who said they’re inspired by her work.
Some of them have begun wearing hijabs, while others have told her they want to learn more about Islam.
“Hijabi fashion — Muslim fashion — transcends the boundaries of religion and can be a source of enjoyment for anyone,” she said. “It’s something that all women who want to look beautiful with can empathize with and enjoy.”
She added, “I want to use what I do to improve people’s understanding of Muslims, change biased views about the religion, and help people realize the value of living in a diverse society.“
“I want to show myself, a Muslim, living strong and beautiful, through my art,” she said.
She dress better than half the fashion blogs I swear
Many people craft their own creative costumes, but Swiss game designer and cosplay aficionado Martina Hugentobler takes dressing up to a whole new level. The self-taught artist spent an incredible 1,000 hours sculpting this extraordinary Anubis costume by hand, using materials she found at her local hardware store.
In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is the god of mummification and has the head of a jackal. Similarly, Hugentobler’s inspiration stems from a sculpture by Hui Zou depicting a robotic Egyptian dog, aptly titled Anubis. Inspired by the combination of ancient Egyptian style and futuristic elements, Hugentobler asked for permission to create her own wearable version, resulting in the incredible ensemble that looks like it’s a 3D digital render. However, the complex piece actually comprises a rigid armor base made from PVC which was then covered in colored vinyl to achieve the metal-like reflective surfaces.
This is only Hugentobler’s third costume, but it’s clear to see she has a natural talent for the craft. It took the artist 1 year to finish the project, but her time and effort has definitely paid off. As well as receiving a huge amount of attention online after she posted a video of the costume on Reddit, Hugentobler entered her creation to a Fantasy Basel Comic-Con in Switzerland and won second place. “The response has been overwhelming, especially since it’s not a well-known character from a specific game or movie that has a big fandom,” says Hugentobler. “I knew from my previous costumes that people seem to appreciate the polygonal aesthetic but I would have never thought it [would] blow up like this.”
We recently caught up with Hugentobler to ask about her process. Read on for My Modern Met’s exclusive interview.
How did you first get into making costumes?
It started with an upcoming Halloween party in 2015 and I didn’t have a costume to wear. A few days before the event I had the idea of making a 3D model to create patterns, then building wearable papercraft from them. To my surprise it worked and I’ve been hooked on making costumes ever since.
Can you tell us a bit about the Anubis character your latest piece is based on?
The character is a statue that I found online, designed by Hui Zou and built by R-one studio. I immediately fell in love with the design and asked for the artist’s permission to make a cosplay from it.
How did you achieve the digital look?
I usually build my own low poly version of characters. Low poly is a look that refers to early 3D computer graphics. Some characteristics of the style are flat surfaces, sharp angles and no textures. Often you want costumes to look realistic, so adding weathering, wear and tear makes them come to life. My costumes are missing both weathering and a realistic shape language, so they tend to look like a cleanly rendered image instead.
What materials did you use and how long did it take you to make it?
My main materials for Anubis were PVC boards that I covered in vinyl. I also used some EVA foam for structure parts, fabric for the undersuit, epoxy resin for the gems, aluminum pipes and steel rods for the scythe’s structure, and lots of other materials.
All in all it took about 1,000 hours over the course of a year. This is my third costume, so I’m still learning a lot, and often have to redo things until they work. I spent a lot of time planning on how to attach all the floating armor pieces. Since PVC is rigid I had to figure out how to be able to move at all, how I can get in and out of the armor on my own, and how to make the pieces detachable for transport because they’re huge.
What’s your favorite thing about making costumes?
I’ve always loved crafting, when I was a kid I built cardboard armor for my plushies. During the day I work behind a computer screen, so I itch to build something tangible as a balance. Cosplay is a wonderful hobby to me that combines my passion for art, animation, design, 3D software and crafting. Last but not least, I met a lot of wonderful people through making costumes.
Can you describe the most amazing costume(s) you’ve come across at a cosplay event?
It’s hard to pick one from all the amazing costumes out there. To see AJ-Designs’ Transformers in person was definitely a highlight. They move extremely well despite their size. What impresses me is that they have been worn on countless conventions but are holding up so well they still look new. The creators built in light, sound, and smoke effects to make the characters come alive even more.
Do you have any plans for a next costume?
Yes, and with it I want to try out new materials and techniques. I don’t know if my idea is feasible yet so I’m doing lots of planning, material tests, and prototypes before starting with the build.
Enemies to “ugh I can’t believe I’m saving your life” to “ugh we have to work together or the world ends but it’s not like I like you or anything” to “oh we actually connect pretty well but that doesn’t mean anything” to “I would die for you but don’t read too much into it” to “I’ll kill anyone who lays a finger on you” to Lovers.
“It’s anecdotal, but I regularly see Frankenstein’s monster described as a warning against scientific hubris, an alarum about Tampering With Things That Should Be Left Alone™. This I think is quite wrong: I think it is a story about what happens when one fails the (still at the time of writing) radical enlightenment by failing to take social responsibility for one’s actions and interventions. If it’s a warning, it’s a warning about turning one’s back, out of cowardice, on what one creates, not about creating it in the first place.”
Art Department, an anonymous art collective, has beautifully transformed a decommissioned building located on the grounds of the Laguna Bell Substation in Commerce, California, into a “secret wish-processing facility”. The said art collective has welcomed visitors last weekend. Renée Reizman of Hyperallergic wrote her experience:
Visitors who wanted to make their wishes in person were handed a ticket and instructed to climb a flight of rusted stairs that led to a dilapidated administrative building. Inside, a grassy, dandelion-lined corridor pointed wishers to their first station: a cramped office where a brusk employee asked the visitor to describe their wish without spilling the specific details (the Department of Small Things That Float on the Wind, which oversees the wish-processing facility, firmly believes that sharing a secret wish automatically disqualifies it from coming true). The bureaucrat asked more general questions. Could the wish be categorized as altruistic or selfish? Did it pertain to romance or your career?
Then the wishers were ushered to the next station, where they took a more thorough survey on the WISH_TEK2000, an old, ’90s-era computer running on DOS. At the end of the survey — which asked you to rate your general luck on a scale of one to 100 — the computer spat out the likelihood of the wish being granted; for me, it was a long shot.
With the analysis wrapped, it was finally time to receive a dandelion and make the wish. A horticulturist gently snipped a dandelion growing in a vial and pointed to a pneumatic tube system where the seeds would be evaluated and eventually dumped into the seed sorting department, the archived collection of hundreds of thousands of dandelion seeds.
The whimsical journey, which was unique, beautiful, and expertly produced, may feel like it lacked depth conceptually, but was genuinely engaging. Even though it was visually impressive, it didn’t dissolve into Instagrammable gimmicks. Pulling visitors into the immersive script discouraged them from breaking the fourth wall by pulling out their phone, and the surveys put pressure on visitors to think more seriously about what they may wish for if they actually had the chance for it to come true.
These kinds of breakdowns of how they create the VFX are so cool.
In its second season, The OA responded to audiences who were equally mesmerized and bemused by the series’ heavy use of interpretive dance to drive its story forward. The show managed to get even weirder and bolder as it continued to flesh out its world in which jumping between dimensions is possible...if you know the…
Germany-based photography Tom Hegen has captured shots of glacier pools. They occur when a chunk of ice breaks off of a retreating glacier and embeds itself in the ground. When it melts, it forms what is called a kettle pond. In freshly deglaciated areas, such as around the melting glaciers in Iceland, there are dozens of small pools in the outwash plains. The lake colours indicate amounts of sediment or depth: the Deeper or clearer the water, the bluer the lake.
THEY LOVED KING GEORGE!! oh my god he got ENTRANCE applause, the response was completely off the scale to what it was in new york. the most telling thing about the british reception to me is that while the actor playing burr won the best actor award in both the US and england, in england, the guy who played george won best supporting actor in a musical (the dudes who played jefferson and, weirdly, laurens were also nominated)
also they got rid of some of the jersey jokes
EDIT: actually the most gorgeous amazing part of it was that when I saw it, which was very early, hamilton (who is played by a dude who’s basically just out of drama school and had never done a musical before) didn’t get entrance applause. he does now, I’m told, but at the time it was absolutely stunning– because there’s really a pause built into the music in the expectation of some kind of response when he first says his name, and for that to just be silent was amazingly powerful– the idea that this kid was going to have to find a way to do something to fill that silence
“Ikemen Kanno Emaki” (イケメン官能絵巻), or Scroll of Handsome and Sensual Men, is a series of artworks that were installed earlier this year at Kokujoji Temple in Japan’s Niigata prefecture. Established in the year 709, the temple is believed to be the oldest in the region. And yet it, along with many other temples dotted across […]
Willie Hsu: Website | Instagram
How did you first get into making costumes?
How did you achieve the digital look?
What materials did you use and how long did it take you to make it?
What’s your favorite thing about making costumes?
Can you describe the most amazing costume(s) you’ve come across at a cosplay event?
Do you have any plans for a next costume?
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