Awesome Art & Design

If you’ve eaten at a Japanese restaurant, you’ve probably seen a maneki-neko. These decorative cat figurines are believed to bring good luck to those who possess one, so they’re incredibly popular. Process X visited the Umetsuki Tomimoto Doll Garden factory, birthplace of roughly 80% of ceramic maneki-neko sold in Japan.

Woodworker Paul Jackman’s latest reclaimed pallet wood project is a biggie, literally. After facing off in a table tennis tourney with fellow maker Giaco Whatever, he decided the best way to make sure no balls got past him was to build an oversize ping pong paddle. Check out the full build log and gallery on Imgur.

Petros Vrellis created an amazing kind of portrait inspired by philosopher Heraclitus, whose doctrine was that everything is both connected and not connected. Each image in the artist’s Out of all things one, and out of one all things is an individual abstract pattern but reveals a face when layered. Matthew 21:31 combines multiple faces.

Antonis and Stavros Fylladitis and a team of dedicated DC Comics fans created this CGI short inspired by Alex Ross’ incredible Kingdom Come Superman. Created with Unreal Engine 5, the film drops us into a world where chaos has won, and even the greatest superheroes have lost their way. Can Superman rise from the darkness?

Wood model maker Ugears was clearly inspired by robots when they engineered this mechanical marvel. Once assembled, the six-legged creature ambles along on smooth surfaces when you wind its spring. The 388-piece, flat-pack model takes about 8 hours to assemble.

Diatomic studio created and directed this compelling black-and-white short film which uses basic geometric shapes to create hypnotic visuals. By combining, rotating, moving, and scaling the individual objects, hypnotic patterns come to life. Watch it once from a distance, then watch it again, focusing on an specific point.

The head of an old bolt doesn’t seem like it would make a very nice piece of jewelry. But in the capable hands of artist Anif G, this ordinary piece of brass hardware is transformed into an impressive knight-themed pendant with a hinged door and storage compartment for a photo or pills.

French artist MOKA pays tribute to the characters of their childhood by creating virtual trophies of their heads. Among his digital creations are taxidermied versions of Pikachu, Mario, Luigi, Toad, the dog from Duck Hunt, and the ghosts from Pac-Man. MOKA hopes to make real-life versions of these trophies using a 3D printer.

Getty Images makes money by licensing images and videos – including some in the public domain. Filmmaker Richard Misek created this impactful documentary using public domain footage in chronological order. He then explains the origins of some of the clips and how companies can charge what should be free footage.

Reach the bottom of your milkshakes, ice cream sundaes, and stir cocktails with these colorful reusable drink spoons from Thorsten van Elten. They’re made from high-quality Röhm und Haas acrylic, and measure 8.66″ long. Sold in sets of six including shades of red, purple, yellow/orange, blue, green, and natural.

Creating a grid over a source image can make it easier to copy or change its scale. Artist DP Truong shows us how modifying the shape of the destination grid allows him to distort an existing image, using none other than Jenna Ortega’s warped Wednesday Addams as his subject.

We’ve seen a LEGO machine that could make pancakes, so the idea of a brick-built cake bakery isn’t that far-fetched. But Tomosteen made their LEGO cake factory using stop-motion animation. The fanciful facility is run by a team of tiny cats, who surprisingly don’t lap up the batter before it can be baked in the LEGO brick oven.

Pastry and chocolate artist Amaury Guichon adds to his edible menagerie with a prehistoric creature. Unlike the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, you can hunt this one down and eat it before it gets you. When he started with the giant egg, we thought he was gonna have a baby raptor hatch out of there.

Digital artist and illustrator Markos Kay created this captivating short film that features surreal and otherworldly life forms that look like nothing we’ve ever seen before. They definitely look organic, though, combining elements of plants and animals. Markos’ Vimeo channel is loaded with many more strange beings.

Art of Play teamed up with The Eames Office to create this playing card deck that embraces the mid-century modern aesthetic of Charles and Ray Eames. A geometric numbering system pays tribute to the duo’s film Powers of Ten, while the card backs feature the Eames’ signature starburst. Designed by Dan and Dave.

Woodart Vietnam used a band saw to start his sculpture of Chainsaw Man’s Denji, but he performed the majority of rough carving a small chainsaw. He then refined the character’s details with chisels and a rotary hobby tool. We’re trying to think of other characters you could make from themselves, but we’re coming up blank.

Starting with the Maschinenmensch in Metropolis, robots have been a staple of science-fiction movies for a century. Using a series of AI-generated art, Stillskates explores the origins and evolution of on-screen robots and how they started as dangerous and powerful characters and gradually became comedic and helpful.

When it comes to 3D printers, bigger is usually better, so you can print large or multiple objects. But My N Mi went the opposite direction and engineered a 3D printer you might find in a dollhouse. Despite measuring just 18 x 31 x 41 mm, the palm-sized resin printer makes surprisingly good prints. Here’s another tiny print sample.

Process X takes us inside the Ishii Sports shoe factory to see how artisans create boots by hand. Each shoe starts by cutting shapes out of leather, refining its edges, then gluing and stitching the pieces together, adding lace rivets, and nailing it around a wooden form before sewing on its insole and attaching the layers of its sole.

This fantastic short film by Fabrice Mathieu tells the tale of a shadow who finds himself frustrated with the actions of his wearer and decides to do something about it. Told using black-and-white footage from more than 60 films, the story unfolds much like a classic film noir, with plenty of action and intrigue.

The zombie-slaying game Dying Light 2 Stay Human encourages players to improvise weapons to take down the undead. Thanks to Integza, we have a real-world, 2-for-1 weapon that combines the reach of a sword with the power of a chainsaw. The finished chainsword is driven by an 8 horsepower brushless DC motor.

After sharing close-up footage of Vitamin C crystals, photographer Jens Heidler of , Another Perspective has done the same with honey. This video shows what the sugar crystals in honey look when viewed through a microscope and illuminated with polarized light. How the crystals dissolve in hot water is fascinating.

Designer, writer, and engineer Marcin Wichary created this extensive visual history of keyboards and the people who use them. The two-volume set is packed with 1300 photos and numerous stories about the amazing mechanical device that changed the world in so many ways.