Awesome Art & Design

With the right lens curvature, it’s possible to project an image that’s not visible until light shines through it. Science educator Steve Mould explains the optical and mathematical properties of these uniquely engineered lenses. A similar effect can be created with mirrors and reflected light. Rayform specializes in the technique.

The creators of PIXIO magnetic building blocks have invented another fun toy for building 3D art. VOXART uses lightweight panels which click together to create life-size voxel art. They fold flat, so you can store thousands without taking up much space. Sign up for a pre-launch discount, or get notified on Kickstarter.

Located in Playas de Rosarito Centro, Mexico, the Straw Art Gallery specializes in portraits created by placing thousands of tiny pieces of naturally dyed broom grass into beeswax. We won’t spoil the subject of this particular work, so you’ll have to hit play to see the finished product.

New Zealand’s Wētā Workshop takes us behind the scenes to look at the incredible costume work that went into Avatar: The Way of Water. The outfits took an average of 200 hours each to create, and artists applied over a million beads. Each real-world costume was then digitized for use on CGI character models.

Blake McFarland is no stranger to making sculptures of animals. He was recently commissioned to build his largest work yet, a life-size bison for the Henry Vilas Zoo. He started by welding the beast’s horns from stainless steel, then used a foam taxidermy form, spray foam, and fiberglass as the structure for its bike tire “fur.”

Derealisation is a psychological condition that can cause individuals to feel disconnected and distant and may result in a distorted perception of the world around them. This trippy short film by Panoply attempts to capture that sense through a surreal sequence of images that play out in photorealistic environments.

Kinetic sculpture maker JBV Creative shows off one of his coolest builds yet, a machine that creates a sine wave motion as ball bearings roll along its horseshoe-shaped ribs. He sells an STL template for 3D printing your own, along with a detailed assembly video. He’s also made a version that’s twice as long.

Looking for a pen holder to go with your cobra phone stand? The artisans at Coppertist.wu also make a pen holder that looks like a rattlesnake. The brass snake is incredibly detailed tactile scales along its entire body, inlaid black zircon eyes, and a .925 sterling silver tail tip. Its mouth doubles as an incense holder.

After seeing Top Gun: Maverick, model maker Boylei Hobby Time wanted to make a diorama inspired by one of the movie’s big action sequences. While he found a 1:144-scale model of the soviet gunship helicopter, he couldn’t find one of an F-18 fighter jet a the same time, so he decided to swap in an X-Wing from Star Wars.

We’ve seen a handful of keycaps made from wood or metal, but most of them are made from plastic. Cerakey is making the first production ceramic keycaps. They’re designed for a smooth feel, pleasant sound, and durability, thanks to their alumina ceramic construction. They come in a variety of artful glazes.

Typical 3D printers can output one or two colors at a time, but this 3D printer from Mimaki can print objects from a palette of more than 10 million colors. 3D Printing Nerd got look at its capabilities during Formnext USA. It creates objects by printing layers of UV-curable CMYK resins encased in a water-soluble support material.

These days, it’s pretty easy to find a clock that tells time with words. But this clock from Twisted&Tinned is the coolest variant we’ve seen. Behind each of its 114 letters is an individual servo motor that moves the letters into focus as they light up, adding a sense of depth to the display. A DIY kit is available on Tindie.

Inspired by the 2006 movie Monster House, Midnight Hobbies set out to create a miniature version of the animated horror-comedy’s eponymous dwelling. He built the structure for the model by attaching foam board to a tissue box, cutting its roof and shingles from cardstock, and making windows and siding from popsicle sticks.

This incredible footage from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is about as we’re going to get to the Sun. The 59-minute time-lapse was stitched together from 133 days of extreme-ultraviolet imagery the probe captured of the Sun’s corona between August 12 and December 22, 2022.

Apple and director Peng Fei celebrate the Chinese Year of the Rabbit with a story about a young man’s love of opera and his dedication to his craft even in the most challenging times. The vibrant take on Through the Five Passes was shot on the iPhone 14 Pro and is a great showcase of its cinematic capabilities.

Over the years, brands have made their logos so simplified that they are beginning to lose their sense of identity. But is going in the opposite direction any better? Amateur designer DVNTY took it upon himself to overcomplicate the logos for Pringles, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple with highly questionable results.

Eclectic Method is known for his creative music remixes and video edits. Now, he’s started to experiment with AI-generated imagery. In this animated music video, you’ll spot scenes from films like Saturday Night Fever, Dirty Dancing, Pulp Fiction, and Footloose, only with digitally-created characters performing the choreography.

Kings Wild Project pays tribute to the men and women of the United States Marine Corps with this special playing card deck. The vintage-style deck features the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor emblem, a two-card homage to the flag raising on Iwo Jima, and a sword logo on the tuck case. Just 800 decks will be produced.

This upcoming action RPG drops players into an artful world that has lost its color. Your objective: saturate the place with color while battling an array of challenging enemies and bosses with weapons and magic. Download the Windows demo on Steam, and sign up to be notified when their Kickstarter launches.

The late Bob Ross had a distinctive style to his serene landscape paintings. After training an AI image generator on Bob’s paintings, Miha Mastnak created this wild video that makes it look like the artist painted an animated river, lazily winding through a valley. Watch the 60-second view of the canvas here.

Ideal Idea set out to build a unique terrarium inspired by infinity cubes. By upping the complexity to a 20-sided shape, he provided enough space for the plants to thrive. He cut the sides from acrylic and 3D printed the structure, which is held together with cord. The infinite illusion was created using reflective film and LED lights.

We’ve been following the work of animator Cyriak for more than a decade. His music video for prog rock band Light’s track Betray makes us of the artist’s surreal, kaleidoscopic collage style to tell a story of murderous mayhem bubbling beneath the surface of 1950s idealism.

Blacksmith Mark Aspery walks us through the process of hand-forging a traditional corkscrew. He starts out with a rod of 3/8″ square chrome-molybdenum steel, which he hammers, stretches, bends, and twists into the final shape. Anyone got a good bottle of wine to test it on?