Awesome Art & Design

Stop-motion animator Lawrence Becker of SamplerTimes Studios got his hands on a 40-pound block of sharp cheddar cheese. But rather than getting out the crackers right away, he decided to sculpt a model of one half of the duo of Wallace and Gromit before snacking.

Axe Heaven creates handmade 1/4-scale (~10″ tall) replicas of acoustic and electric guitars. Their Fender collection is officially licensed and includes replicas of famous musicians’ axes. They also make drum sets and amps. They accept small batch custom orders.

Fractal filmmaker Julius Horsthuis is back with another visually stunning short, as he takes us inside of a fictitious research facility in the arctic “suspected of running unholy experiments on human consciousness.” The haunting, icy look he achieved sent a chill down our spine.

The Esington Glass 2.0 is an hourglass that uses tiny iron spheres to count down to 25 minutes. Unlike other hourglasses, it comes with a magnetic stopper that lets you pause the spheres, so you can take a break or resume work after being interrupted.

(PG-13) Katherine Dey of Deviant Desserts makes realistic cakes and other pastries. She loves to make anatomical – sometimes of the naughty kind – busts, and even insects. She accepts custom orders.

A street corner party erupts in the strangest possible way as a group of visually-distorted computer-generated characters get their rave on. Enjoy more of director Nikita Diakur’s wonderfully creative madness over on the website for his short film Ugly.

Andrew Ferrier’s Cable Cradle is a concept for a power outlet faceplate that helps with cable management. The disk-shaped faceplate lets you wrap cords or cables around it. It also has a rib at the top that can be used as a phone stand.

Part puzzle and part mechanical toy, Wood Trick designs construction sets that anyone can build. The sets include vehicles, weapons, and rides. Each kit can be assembled within 30 minutes to under 2 hours. Their mechanical nature extends the fun.

LEGO and McLaren worked together to make a life-size model of the Senna supercar based on the Speed Champions’ color scheme. The model is made of 467,854 pieces and took 30 people 2,725 hours to build. It has functioning lights, doors, and infotainment system.

Photographer Joerg Daiber paid a visit to Jakarta, Indonesia to capture vibrant, moving images of its lights, buildings, and people as they go about their days and nights in this enormous, and rapidly-growing city.

Turn your dinner plate into street art with these whimsical porcelain salt and pepper shakers that look like tiny, dented spray paint cans. Dishwasher safe, and guaranteed not to get you busted for making graffiti!

Designer Xundi Li’s concept for a record player is a beautiful work of modern industrial design. It combines a turntable, speaker, and amplifier, with an off-center drive mechanism which lets the record protrude from its cabinet. We hope it goes into production.

MIT’s food computers are small robotic gardens that let people control, gather and share data about the conditions of a plant’s growth. Such systems can be built anywhere in the world, greatly accelerating learning and experimentation to improve crop yields.

KLŌS makes beautiful, modern string instruments from the sturdy, lightweight material normally reserved for high-dollar exotic sports cars. They offer acoustic and acoustic electric guitars and ukuleles with black or colorful woven backs.

Get a great deal on the original natural media painting software, updated for 2019. You’ll get over 900 brushes to bring digital masterpieces to life, along with a dark mode, transparent color wheel, and smoother performance than ever. Save 41% in The Awesomer Shop.

Woodworker Andy Phillip completed a project that anyone can do with enough time, patience, and access to a lathe. By crumpling up, hammering, sanding, and polishing an entire roll of aluminum foil, he shows us how to make a beautifully shiny metal sphere.

Motion designer Ah!Serif presents a slick little animated short which manages to sum up various fears and phobias using a simplified human analog. Its expressive eyes do a great job reacting to the terrifying stimuli around it.

Crayon Creatures turns kids’ drawings into accurate full color figurines thanks to the wonders of 3D modeling and 3D printing. The figurines measure up to 4″ tall and are printed in sandstone. Additional figures of the same drawing can be ordered at a discount.

While it may be a while before we have video games with truly photorealistic graphics, Quixel’s eyepopping real-time cinematic that shows off the power of Unreal Engine 4 using real-world scans of Iceland, combined with CG models. Watch in 4K if you can.

While fiery Norse ships are normally reserved for viking funerals, we’ll make an exception for this truly awesome handmade fire pit from sculptor Trevor McIntire of ImagineMetalArt. It’s made from 18 ga. sheet steel and measures about 39″ long x 16″ wide.

A look inside a factory that makes collectible figurines, as its designs go from sketch, to digital model, to wax model, to silicone mold, to plastic model, to plaster cast, to metal die for creating the final production pieces. Those pieces are then hand-painted and assembled.

A man enjoys his quiet and calm world every day until something loud and distracting enters his universe to shake things up. Animator Dan Castro’s short film proves that less is often sometimes more, and how sound can be just as important in telling a story as imagery.

These smartly-designed tools make it easy to crank out straight lines, circles, grids, and other smooth and consistent drawings. The complete set consists of a straightedge and a curved arm, and a swiveling base. Available in aluminum or stainless steel.