artists
Latest
Nomad capacitive brush now available for iPad
Some remarkable work has already been produced by artists using iPads -- David Hockney even mounted an exhibition in Paris of his iPad and iPhone paintings -- and the release of the new Nomad Brush should only increase their creativity. Until now, artists have been limited to using their fingers or eraser-like styluses, but this is set to change with the introduction of the Nomad Brush, which is made with capacitive fibers to give creative types the same "feel" as if they were painting normally. Designed by artist and architect Don Lee, the US$24 Nomad Brush works on all capacitive screens, including iPhones, iPod touches and iPads (and even the Samsung Galaxy if you're tempted by the Android side). "Nomad brush is carefully hand-crafted and made with exceptionally conductive materials," says Lee. "This allows the brush to be extremely responsive, making brushstrokes immediate and effortless on any capacitive touchscreen device." Check out the video below to see the brush in action. [If your artistic leanings are more refrigerator door than the Louvre, keep an eye out for Crayola's new stylus offering coming later this year. – Ed.] [via RazorianFly]
Google Art Project offers gigapixel images of art classics, indoor Street View of museums
Google's been hard at work over the past 18 months on something not many of us have been paying attention to lately: art. Specifically, the search giant has hooked up with 17 art museums around the world to offer tours of their internal galleries, using its familiar Street View tricycles, while also doing high-res images of 1,061 artworks that may be viewed on the newly launched Art Project web portal. Also there, you will find 17 special gigapixel images -- 7,000-megapixel versions of each participating venue's proudest possession. The resulting level of detail is nothing short of astounding and we've got videos of how it's all done after the break.
25 iPads used to make one big interactive touch display
This is awesome -- a group of musical composers and artists connected up 25 iPads in an installation commissioned by the Environmental Ministry of Japan to create a huge display 25 touchscreens big. Not only do the iPads stream one big image, but they're also interactive -- you can speed the image up or down by swiping, or even change each iPad's individual view. Each iPad also starts out playing one tune, all of them together in harmony, but as visitors come along and change the views and the speed and tone of the music, you eventually get 25 different sounds being played with 25 different views, a metaphor for how each of us affects our own little part of the world as we move through life. The challenge, then, is to get the iPads back together, all in sync, and rebuild the world that we each claimed a little part of. You can watch video of how the installation works after the break, and there's also a hands-on video with a little more technical background on the project. It's very cool -- a project like this would be much more expensive (and probably a lot harder to do) without Apple's own magical and revolutionary device. The iPad keeps surprising us with all of the various ways it can be used to create and display interactive art.
TUAW Giveaway: Win a subscription to Slacker Radio Plus for Austin City Limits Music Festival
The Austin City Limits Music Festival is going on next week in Austin, TX (as is GDC Online, which I'll be covering for TUAW). The festival has teamed up with Slacker Internet Radio and Seed Labs to spread the word and share some of the music from the artists performing there. They've produced a free app to check out the lineup of artists at the show, as well as make your own schedule, see a map of the event, post your own pictures and stories directly from the show, and even use a virtual lighter if a performance moves you to do so. You're on your own trying to get them to play "Freebird," though. Slacker Radio is also tied in to the app -- you can listen to an Internet radio station called Austin City Limits Radio, playing tunes and providing insight exclusively from the artists at the festival. To celebrate, Slacker has offered TUAW readers some free subscriptions to the Slacker Radio Plus service, which is used in conjunction with the original Slacker Radio app. That app is also free, but a Slacker Radio Plus subscription allows you to get song lyrics, get rid of the ads, skip songs whenever you want, and listen to your favorite stations offline. We've got four one-year subscriptions (usually US$47.99 each) and three three-month subscriptions (usually $14.99) to give away to seven lucky TUAW readers. Hit the "Read More" link below to find out how to win your own, and if you're interested in the Austin City Limits festival, be sure to check out the free app on the App Store now.
Miniature pencil tip sculptures make art from the everyday
We'll admit it: we're pretty big fans of pencils (you may remember them as those wooden sticks early humans used to scribble in their diaries with), so we were pretty tickled to see these beauties. Artist Dalton Ghetti's tiny pencil sculptures are made using only a razor blade, a sewing needle and a sculpting knife. The results are incredibly beautiful and impressive. One more shot below, hit the source for plenty more.
Still life with Roland TB-303 Bass Line
Dane Lovett's paintings take the old still life form and update it by way of their subjects: modern gadgets. We spy not only the Roland TB-303 Bass Line analog bass synthesizer (circa 1982), but also a cornucopia of VHS tapes and compact discs. The results are beautiful, and every bit as calming and "natural" as if we were gazing upon a bowl of harvest fruit. Hit the source links for several more beauties.
Breakfast Topic: A love letter to WoW's texture artists
Blizzard texture artists -- you are my heroes. Prepare yourselves for a sappy love letter to whom I believe are the hardest-working people behind some of the most intricate content in the World of Warcraft. My love and appreciation for the WoW texture artists began with one texture. This one texture made me appreciate what textures were capable of. Love at first sight. The gates of Orgrimmar, to me, are the single most beautiful texture in World of Warcraft. The sense of depth and scale that the gates of Orgrimmar convey are absolutely astounding for what the actual object is made up of. The wall itself is flat. Going up close to the wall is like pulling back the magician's robe -- the trick is just a trick. Looking at the Ogrimmar gate from afar is the real magic. If you haven't seen the gates of Orgrimmar, it is practically a giant rectangle polygon wrapped with this extraordinary texture. Back in 2004, I (like many fervent WoW fanatics) was engaged in wars of internet-epic proportion on forums and message boards about how terrible and cartoony World of Warcraft looked compared to Everquest 2, the graphical competition at the time. Every time the graphics argument came to a head, my answer was always the same -- WoW's texture artists make this game ooze with flavor, style and depth, and Orgrimmar's gate was my proof. WoW's textures compensate for many of the engine's flaws, even in the midst of complaints of new models' being needed for many of the races. With Cataclysm approaching sooner rather than later, and with my boy Garrosh Hellscream taking over my capital city, I am losing my favorite texture in the game. I am losing my ace in the hole, and it will be sorely missed. Thank you, WoW texture team, for putting out the best art in video games. The art in WoW has obviously affected me in and out of the game. What are some of your favorite textures or art pieces in the world that actually have crossed the game's boundaries? Have you ever been amazed at how textures in WoW can make a five-year-old engine look this good?
GDC: The UI of The Beatles Rock Band
Most UI panels at the Game Developers' Conference tend to be full of dry technical information, all about how the team developed their own font kerning tool and organized menu elements in a data-driven fashion. The Harmonix UI panel this morning hosted by Senior Artist Kevin McGinnis did have that stuff (McGinnis is a self-diagnosed font geek, and did sound overly excited about formatting bitmaps), but it was also full of art -- beautiful The Beatles: Rock Band inspired art. McGinnis talked about the different concepts the team had tried -- they first attempted to do a very clean, serene respectful version of the menus, but then decided to go much more colorful. They hired a few artists to build the menus up into actual 3D spaces (after accidentally telling Apple Corps that yes, the menus would all be animated), and McGinnis even showed off the 3D model that the camera zooms around in to guide the player into the game. You can see all of the art in the gallery below, from the various pieces of flair to the menu designs and concept work. %Gallery-88131%
Samwise's best memory of the last five years of WoW
Our good friends over at the Orange Country Register have jumped in on the fifth anniversary interview extravanganza, and they've posted information from a short chat with none other than Samwise Didier, Blizzard's primary artist. They asked Samwise for a crazy memory from the last five years, and he came up with a time when he was rolling through a Pollo Loco drive-through, and the guy behind the window called him out by name and said he "liked your show." Which show? Didier is of course the lead singer of TAFKAL80ETC, a.k.a. The Artists Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, Blizzard's in-house rock band. Pretty awesome that a video game artist is now literally a rock star thanks to this game. The OC Register (don't call it that -- did you think I'd get through a post about them without saying that?) is also looking for memories from fans as well to be printed in their paper -- you can jump in the comments on their site and share some memories of your own. We'll also be celebrating the game's fifth anniversary here on WoW.com, so stay tuned around November 23rd for a nice look back at where this gigantic game has accomplished in the past five years.
Blizzard announces holiday card contest
Blizzard has made it a holiday tradition to release a holiday card every year (usually drawn by Samwise), but this year they're putting a little twist on it. They're running a contest asking the potential artists among you to submit your own original Blizzard-themed holiday card. Download their template, fill it up with Diablo, Starcraft, or Warcraft-related holiday art (no Lost Vikings or Rock N' Roll Racing art, apparently), submit it on the contest page before December 7th, and you can win a whole slew of prizes from Blizzard and Razer, including a mouse, keyboard, and headset, as well as a signed copy of Blizzard's 2009 holiday card from Samwise himself. So artists, get to, um, "art"-ing! We can't wait to see your rendition of Deathwing as Santa Claus, Kerrigan as the Mrs., and a whole tribe of Fallen Ones standing in for the little elves.
David Hockney paints with his iPhone, results not typical
Artist David Hockney isn't afraid of picking up new media -- over the years, he's used Polaroids, photocollages, and even fax machines to create his art -- in addition to regular, old-fashioned painting. Now, he's taken to using his iPhone to create new works of art. The resultant "paintings" have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery and Royal Academy in London, as well as galleries in Los Angeles and Germany. Like artist Jorge Colombo (whose iPhone fingerpainting was featured on the cover of The New Yorker), Hockney uses the iPhone app Brushes to create his works. In an interview with the New York Review of Books, Hockney notes that he prefers and still uses the original version of the app, not the more recent updates. Hmm... maybe the reason our own Brushes paintings stink is because we're using the update! [Via All Things D]
Richard Knaak signing in the Midwest, Blizzard artists' forum at UC Irvine
Stuck in the Midwest and didn't have enough money to go see all the fun at BlizzCon 2009 this year? We've got a little (very little) bit of condolence for you: Richard Knaak, author of the Warcraft novels, is doing a signing tour this weekend around the Midwest in Missouri and Kansas. Blizzplanet has all of the dates and places -- he'll be in St. Joseph, MO on Friday (today), and then in Overland Park, KS and Lawrence, KS on Saturday and Sunday respectively. Not quite as fun as seeing Ozzy, but if you're out in the middle of the country, there's your chance at a little facetime with someone helping shape the WoW universe.Unfortunately, I'm stuck in Chicago, and -- oh wait! I moved to Los Angeles last weekend, which means I'm actually going to get to go to this artists' forum down at UC Irvine in California. Where I am (it's still a little weird to say that). The Laguna Art Museum (which has an ongoing relationship with Blizzard) will be hosting some of Blizzard's and other artists on October 1st, and they'll be talking (we presume) about creating art and other media for games and digital entertainment. Usually this is the part of the post where I'll ask you to send us pictures if you go, but what the heck -- I'm in the neighborhood (not really, but closer than Chicago), so maybe I'll get a chance to go and check it out for myself. See you there?
Sons of the Storm to appear at BlizzCon, unveil another member
The Sons of the Storm is a kind of artists' collective connected with Blizzard -- they're responsible for the majority of the concept and game art coming out of Blizzard, from the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series. They count Samwise Didier and Chris Metzen in their ranks, along with many of Blizzard's most popular artists. And apparently their ranks are growing -- on their latest website update, they have posted a new group picture, along with a mysterious "eighth son" that they say they will introduce sometime later, possibly months after BlizzCon. From left on the picture above, you can see Samwise Dider, Chris Metzen, René Koiter, Travis Thammer, Glenn Rane, Peter Lee, Mark Gibbons, and the Eighth Son, who a commenter over at Blizzplanet speculates may be Wei Wang.Speaking of BlizzCon, the Sons site also says that all of the seven current sons will be signing at the convention, so be sure to bring your TCG cards, Warcraft novels, art books and anything else these guys may have worked on. We're sure there'll be a line, but if you're willing to brave the wait, you might get to meet some of the most creative minds behind Blizzard's beloved universes.
Blizzard legal censures Shakes and Fidget
First the legal crackdown on fan-made iPhone apps, and now this: German-based webcomic Shakes and Fidget, a longtime sight in our Sunday Morning Funnies column, has apparently been smacked with a cease-and-desist by Blizzard. Our German isn't that great (and we've reached out to the comic's creators for further comment), but a translation of this forum page tells us that Activision-Blizzard's legal department suggested to them that there was enough similarity between the official game and the unofficial comic to cause a problem, and while they believe that they're covered under parody laws, they decided to take the "offending" comics offline anyway, and are apparently currently working on editing them so that they can be put back up without any issues.Obviously, since the comics are offline, we have no idea what material Blizzard objected to -- you could argue that depictions of certain gear created by Blizzard artists in the game or specific names are under trademark and thus could be protected under copyright law. But even then, Shakes and Fidget is one of many, many fan-made webcomics to obviously depict World of Warcraft and Blizzard-designed items specific to the game, and we haven't yet heard of any other webcomics that have been approached in this way.Still, as they might say in Germany, wir riechen eine ratte. Without knowing the exact nature of the comics that Blizzard had an issue with, this seems like a complete overreach on their part, especially considering that it's some of their biggest fans who are making these comics, and that many artists have portrayed many videogames in webcomics without anyone confusing the issue of whether they were official or not. We'll keep an eye out for more information (and we've also contacted Blizzard for comment) -- if you know of any other webcomics or fan artists who've been approached by Blizzard in this way, definitely let us know.Thanks, Henry!
WoW zones in real life
Aurdon over at I Sheep Things spotted this great collection of comparisons between real-life environs and the in-game places that they inspired. Not all of the comparisons are pitch-perfect, obviously (there are no Nagrand-esque floating islands in the real world, and the Crystalsong Forest picture shows trees covered in ice rather than the mystical wood that grows in-game), but lots of the pictures are really dead-on, and they show you really well how Blizzard uses a kind of hyper-realized version of Earth to create what seems like a very real Azeroth.We've posted before how the architecture of WoW mirrors real-world places and culture, but even the natural world of Azeroth uses lots of Earth's real-life elements. And it would be cool to know where these pictures actually come from -- some of them are recognizable (obviously, Stranglethorn Vale is based on parts of the Amazon, and The Barrens represents Africa's savannahs), but even Icecrown and Zangarmarsh are represented (in slightly less mythical form) on Earth. It would be interesting to know exactly where.
New Druid looks are still incoming
Hidden deep in this thread, under layers of back and forth about the 1000g dual spec charge, whether it will ruin the economy, and Zarhym's worries about getting four of his wisdom teeth taken out (get well soon, buddy -- make sure to ride the great drugs they give you for as long as you can), is this little nugget: new Druid form models are still being worked on.It's definitely been a big request for a long time, and surely even the devs have seen the awesome work of artists like Andrige to update and enhance the models currently in the game. Zarhym says artists are "very actively working" on redesigning the Druid models, and that "it's way beyond being an idea at this point." He doesn't think they'll show up as soon as 3.1 (and neither do we), but he says that it's in progress. You have to think, then, that there's concept art, if not working models somewhere ready to go into the game in the future. Excellent news for Druids seeking a slightly more updated look than what they've had since the game began.
Blizzard helps host art show at Laguna College of Art and Design
The Laguna College of Art and Design has worked pretty closely with Blizzard in the past -- some of Blizzard's employees are on faculty there, and they've sent artists over to work with students before. They've also put on art shows there, and this week, they're putting on another one. The exhibit will open on October 1st and last through the rest of the month, and they're having a reception event on October 23rd (it's open to the public, and you can bet that there will be more than a few Blizzard artists there to say hi to).Sounds like fun. Here's a slideshow of student art scheduled to be in the show -- none of it looks to be strictly Warcraft-related, but there is a little Blizzard flavor in a few of them (especially this one, I think). It all looks well done -- maybe we'll see some of this stuff exhibited at BlizzCon as well. If you're in the area and you do go see it, make sure to tell us what you think.
Chat with Stargate Worlds artists on your lunch break
Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is hosting another developer chat for fans who want to know more about Stargate Worlds. This time, the participating developers are Lead Artist Austin Germer and Lead Animator Carl Cross. The chat will take place at 11:00 AM Pacific and 2:00 PM Eastern, and will last for one hour. So that falls right on top of lunch for most folks -- or at least it can, if they schedule it right. So sneak in while eating a sandwich at your desk.The place to which you may sneak: IRC chat room #Stargate-Worlds at irc.sgwirc.com. Once you're in, ask up to three questions using the /q command. More info can be found at the Stargate Worlds community website. If you're new to the game and want an introduction before the chat, (shameless plug alert) check out the coverage of our exclusive visit to the game's development studio and our interview with the directors. Hey -- you knew we couldn't help ourselves.[Via Ten Ton Hammer]
UK Games Expo 2008 announces new artist for charity event
If you've been following NCsoft Europe around lately, you'll notice they've been attending a ton of conferences and keeping fairly busy with charitable events as well. This coming weekend is no exception, as they'll be participating in the UK Games Expo 2008 event in Birmingham, after just returning from Bristol's Comicexpo. Also, with them once again are the artists from Draw the World Together, a charity formed to help children in developing third-world countries.During this coming event, NCsoft will be joined by Games Workshop artist Karl Kopinski. You may have seen Karl's amazing work if you're a Warhammer fan, or if you've checked out his personal site itself. He will be appearing at the UK Games Expo 2008 on Saturday only, so if you'd like to have your character drawn by him, you better get there early!
Eight Guild Wars artists honored for their work
When you think of Guild Wars, what comes to mind first? No, besides the lack of a monthly fee. No no, besides the instanced world. Why, it's the game's sheer beauty, of course! The Spectrum 15 Artist List, an annual showcase of the best fantasy, science fiction, and horror artwork created each year, recently recognized eight ArenaNet artists for their incredible work on Guild Wars. The ArenaNet artists honored on this list are Jaime Jones, Richard Anderson, Matthew Barrett, Daniel Dociu, Jason Juan, Kekai Kotaki, Jason Stokes, and Doug Williams. We can all agree that these wonderful artists are deserving of such accolades, but consider the impact they will have on future generations of artists. In an era of computer graphics getting easier and easier to create, replicate, and manipulate, it's inspiring to know that we have a way to honor such genuine talent in the gaming industry.
