Here I’m going to round-up a big random heaping of things I’ve found interesting recently. Artists, websites, musics, games, whatever. In random order:

Michaela Eaves

I saw her at a studio open house where she had some paintings and prints out for display. I really dug the way her paintings have heavy outlines, and the way the lines break up the colors in such a way that her paintings almost look like stained glass.

She also had an adorable painting of a rocket ship, done in a soft, children’s book style of painting. I dug it, but I can’t find a picture on her website (which is mostly about her graphic design & illustration business):
www.michaelaeaves.com

8-Bit Jesus

I thought this was pretty spectacular. Not only did Doctor Octoroc (sic) make 8-bit chiptune versions of many Christmas songs for his album 8-Bit Jesus, but he also wrote them in the specific styles of various 8-bit video games. My favorites are definitely “Carol of the Belmonts,” “Bubbles We Have Heard on High,” and “8 Days of Master Robots,” which very excellently captures the essence of the Mega Man experience. Also, “Icarus! The Herald Angels Sing” is quite accurate. Check it out:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/8BitJesus/

Machinarium

Machinarium is a beautifully done, old-style, point-and-click adventure video game, unbelievably done entirely in Flash. I like it ’cause it’s about robots. But more than that, the world is completely enthralling, and the puzzles all involve robot logic more than real-world logic.

The art style is pretty much spectacular. You can play a demo for free, or buy and download the full version here:
http://machinarium.net/

Kaiju Dance to Thriller

Just what the title says: a bunch of Kaiju dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Wonder Woman Pumps

This woman takes shoes and tastefully collages them with pages from Wonder Woman comic books. She tends to use mostly monochromatic images, so the effect is a little subtler than you might expect.

She has an etsy shop where she makes all kinds of shoes and boots (not just Wonder Woman):
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Pachainkapink

Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner Scarf

Taisha McGee sells what she calls “Ugly Scarves.” They’re mostly actually quite pretty, but she nevertheless gives them hilarious names based loosely on their color schemes, names like “Mulched Roses,” “Tidy Bowl,” “Moldy Cheese,” “Mushy Froot Loops,” and my favorite, “Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner.” She also has the sense of humor to take photos of the scarves wrapped around a cardboard stand-up of John Wayne. Bravo!

Check them all out at her etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TaishaMcGee

Alexis St.John

An artist whose work I saw in a tea shop in Downtown Tacoma (Mad Hat Tea, 1130 Commerce Street) and I liked the humor and simplicity in it. I also really appreciated how most of the paintings were really small; a lot of ‘em were only like 6″ × 6″, and I don’t think anything of hers gets over 20″ in any direction.

You can buy the actual artwork, of if you’d prefer you can buy frameable prints of it.
http://alexisstjohn.com/Gallery.html

TheSixtyOne

TheSixtyOne.com is a fascinating idea for a democratic music website, where the more people like a song the more popular it becomes, and ANYONE can upload ANY song they’ve created (as long as they’re legally allowed to blah, blah, blah, y’know).

Not only that, but it turns listening to music into kind of an RPG. You gain experience (called “reputation”) and rise in levels. There are quests (like “Listen to 7 recently-uploaded songs” or “Listen to the radio stations of 5 other people for 5 minutes each”) that let you earn experience and “hearts,” which you can use to mark a song as a favorite (i.e., you heart the song). And you also earn experience as other people later heart songs that you previously hearted. The more reputation you have, the more likely other people are to listen to your opinions (in theory at least). So you get tangible rewards for finding new, unheard songs that you really like and then getting other people to like them as well, other than the reward of discovering good music.

Also, TheSixtyOne.com is the only place right now where you can hear Taisha’s musc (yes, the same Taisha that makes those scarves). Just go here:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/taisha/

A Very Alan Thickemas

THE Alan Thicke, Leeni, and puppets. Lots and lots of puppets. And Blake Lewis is somehow involved. It exists, I just have no idea of how to see it. Other than these:

That’s about it for now.

He’ll be available (along with some other kawaii stuff) some time next week. Hooray!

The body of the robot — named “Robochan” — consists of a Kondo KHR-2HV humanoid. The iPhone head, which attaches to the body via the dock connector, displays various facial expressions while functioning as the controller. Using Robochan’s iPhone interface, the user can program it to function as an alarm clock, dance to music, and perform other moves based on user interaction.

(via Pink Tentacle)

I really like the little Android logo robot, so I was sure to include him (click for a full-sized version):

And here it is “in action” as the kids like to say these-a-days:

It’s kinda blurry, but as you can see I don’t put any icons in the 2nd row, so the little android guy shows through. That’s why he’s not dead-center in the image. I use this empty 2nd row as the place where I swipe my finger when I’m switching between Android’s three screens.

(I really like Android.)

165 Bots With Stuff

Album of the Month:
Three Ninjas: Welcome to Boy Zone
Self-described as Nerdcore “Hip Hop” (quotes included), Welcome to Boy Zone is a wonderfully weird album, ranging from songs about evolution and taxonomy like “The Premise of Dogs” through melancholy religious musings like “Not Devoted” and back out again to a song about House M.D., the delightful “Going Gay for House” (which eventually evolves into a cover of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” except that Three Ninjas sings, “Sweet Dreams are House M.D.”). The music is an equally eclectic mix of beats, electronica, samples, and acoustic guitars, and styles vary wildly from song to song. The whole affair has a definitely endearing lo-fi quality to it, making the album as a whole nearly impossible to categorize… in a good way.

Game of the Month:
BIT.TRIP BEAT
Only $6 on the Wii Virtual Console, this Wiiware game is an absolute hoot. It’s basically a one-player Pong variant (or multi-player cooperative). You control a paddle on the left side of the screen and you try to deflect the dots coming from the right side of the screen. But as you hit each dot you’re actually contributing to a steadily-building song in each of three massive levels. The better you do, the better the graphics and sound become, ranging from at worst a 2-bit, monochrome and monotone netherworld up through a mid-level with 8-bit-style graphics and sound, and culminating in 16-bit-style graphics and sound. Each level has multiple zones to complete, and the dots begin moving in more and more complicated patterns. There are even boss fights at the end of each level. And the game is hard. Really, really frikkin’ difficult. But its simplicity of play and damnably catchy music make it difficult to put down. You keep thinking, “This time I know I can do it!”

And here’s a bonus, quickie video to promote Winter in Hakodate:

Seriously, can you guys think of any American city that would purposefully and officially produce tourism videos of such awexomeness?

(via Pink Tentacle)

This year’s Grand Prize goes to the 6.5″ i-SOBOT, a ¥30,000 (about $300) domestic entertainment robot that can do all sorts of fun stuff and has internal gyroscopic balance sensors.

Special Jury Prize went to a GPS-equipped, autonomous, rice-planting robot.

(via Pink Tentacle)

(via Loup-Vert)

(via Pink Tentacle)