Awesome Illustration

(Gore) Artist Dan Luvisi decided to take popular characters from cartoons and animation and send them into a dark and disturbing alternative universe as characters in violent R-rated and just downright warped new settings.

The Edgy Brothers‘ Bicycle playing cards are inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead. Each face card is embellished with intricate skeletons. Let’s help them get to their $50k stretch goal so those awesome painted decks get made.

Brooklyn pop artist Technodrome1 creates colorful eye candy of pop culture figures using bold black outlines and brain-popping fields of color. Be sure to check out their T-shirts and iPhone cases too. Framed prints here.

Artist Dan Shearn has a love of 1980s pop culture and a love of LEGO, so he combined these two into a series of illustrations, envisioning the decade’s iconic characters as minifigs. The Warriors is from 1979, but we’ll forgive him.

Displate offers imagery from over 1000 artists, printed onto a slim steel canvas. A magnetic wall mounting system makes them easy to hang, they look great, and there’s something for just about every style. (Thanks Eric!)

Artist Alessandro Diddi effectively uses light and shadow techniques along with cutouts and folds to create flat pencil illustrations that appear to jump from the page. No 3D glasses required.

Artist and Skull-a-Day creator Noah Scalin designed this cool black and white 24″x36″ print which at once conjures images of 1960s pop art but also stands on its own in any modern setting. Limited edition of just 100 prints.

Animator Evan Seitz’s latest clip features moving titles from 26 classic films, each represented by a sound-bite and the first letter in their title. See if you can guess ’em all. More here.

Keita Sagaki does not seem to tire from creating his brilliantly obsessive illustrations, and we don’t tire of looking; his new works feature celebrated architecture and sculpture, doodle style.

Inspired by Eric Carle’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, these charming picture book illustrations would be a perfect way for the kiddies of Westeros to learn the house sigils and words.

iam8bit teamed up with Insomniac Games to create a series of prints to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ratchet & Clank. First up, a limited-edition print by Aled Lewis, loaded with all their best weapons.

If Dr. Seuss wrote a book based on Star Wars, it’d probably be better written than the entire script of Episode I. Artist Jason Peltz created these amusing Seussism posters, and make more, he must.

Illustrator Martin Woutisseth returns with another cool graphic animation, upgrading the opening credits from Breaking Bad with iconic locations and characters from the series, and a new theme song.

This might look like a photograph, but if you can believe it, it was actually drawn using 6 colored and 1 black BIC pen. It took attorney/artist Samuel Silva 30 hours to complete. More drawings here.

Embroidery does not easily elicit our admiration, but these surprisingly detailed and in some cases satisfyingly eerie hand-stitched illustrations from Etsy seller Sam Gibson are a good exception.

Artist DuksArts used his creative skills and Photoshop to create this awesome illustration of The Dark Knight in about three hours. Here, we see the whole process boiled down to 3 minutes.

Patrick Fisher creates astoundingly detailed works of art using guitars as his canvas, and permanent markers as his medium. They’re so beautiful, we’d be afraid to scratch them up while strumming.

Illustrator Stephen Wildish tries to make something witty each Friday. These film alphabets with clever graphics corresponding to each letter are great examples and available in plenty of print options.

ShortList.com put together this collection of fan-made posters for Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic The Shining, ranging from the abstract to minimal to flat out creepy. REDRUM, indeed.

In tribute to The Shawshank Redemption, portrait artist Xiaonan Sun draws both Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins simultaneously, with both left and right hands. Sped up for time, it’s still impressive.

Check out the quiet beauty (and flowing camera and editing work) in Miguel Endara’s video of the making of “Hero,” a drawing of his father which he created from 3.2 million ink dots and a single pen.

We’ve got a theory that your equipment enhances your performance; case in point, these drawings by Chan Hwee Chong, created in a single stroke with a Faber Castell Artist’s Pen. Action video here.

Artist Andrew Kolb created this wonderfully illustrated children’s book based on David Bowie’s ode to the space-bound Major Tom. Grab the entire book in PDF form here or here (mirror)