Awesome Art & Design

(Flashing images) After making his first small purchase, a man finds himself pulled into a cycle of spending that quickly gets out of control. Animator Aaron Hughes’ award-winning short film is a witty and effective commentary on consumerism, appropriately drawn on market data pages from financial newspapers.

Photographer Jens Heidler of Another Perspective points his macro lens at the business end of a snail to see how it eats. For today’s lunch, the little dude is downing a tart and tangy bit of strawberry. We love the little nibbling sounds.

This LEGO Ideas creation consists of four mini artworks inspired by 1980s science fiction. Fan designer Jan Woźnica’s scenes feature colorful gradients contrasted with dark skies, rocket ships, stars, and moons. The four panels can be displayed individually or joined together and stand or hang on the wall. Available 5.8.23.

Add a splash of color to your workspace with this 5″ high acrylic riser from Mink and Maple. It’s great for getting your laptop up off of the surface and has space for storing accessories or a keyboard. It comes in pink, green, blue, orange, yellow, and clear, in 10″ W x 8″ D and 16″ W x 10″ D sizes. It has a 5 lb. weight limit though.

Artist Bond Truluv is known for creating vibrant street art with impressive dimensionality. He has lots of tricks up his paint-covered sleeves, but one of his more ingenious hacks is this multiple nozzle rig, which can spray five lines of paint at the same time. He made an alternate version for calligraphy.

Quantum Tech HD introduces us to the work of Vang Hà, a hobbyist who creates functional scale models of trucks and construction equipment from PVC pipes that he heats and bends into flat sheets. This video condenses his months-long quest to build a remote-controlled CAT 390F excavator down to about 20 minutes.

There’s much more to acting in a full-body puppet than just wearing a costume. During a visit to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Adam Savage met with creative supervisor Peter Brooke and performer Morgana Ignis for a look at what’s involved in bringing one of these jumbo-sized characters to life.

Presenting the tape dispenser to end all tape dispensers. MAN Manufacturing uses a CNC mill to create this hefty 1-pound desk accessory from a solid block of aluminum. Its roller locks in place using a satisfying magnetic locking mechanism. A true centerpiece for any desk.

There’s an entire photographic community inspired by the flat, symmetrical, color-coordinated world of Wes Anderson. Imitative Photography offers some great pointers on emulating the look in your original images. Beyond some basic techniques, the best and most important part is finding the right locations.

The latest version of Sony’s Spatial Reality Display has a 4K screen that can show realistic 3-dimensional content without glasses or a VR headset. Its 27″ screen is much larger than the first model and has an upgraded vision sensor and improved depth of field and resolution. Now we need a version for gaming.

Random Hands pulled off one of the most dramatic transformations of an object that we’ve seen. They started off with a rusty old industrial drill bit, heated it up in a forge, and reworked it into a pointy Japanese kunai. It took a whole lot of work to get it into the right shape, then they polished and finished it with a 24K gold plating.

Watch as a talented craftsperson turns a metal disc into a beautiful work of art by applying heat from a torch. The control it must take to create such a precise pattern is extraordinary. We’re not sure who created this piece, but it looks a lot like the work of Skip and Racheal​ Mathews, who use the technique on copper.

Masks have been part of Japanese culture for more than a thousand years. Process X takes us inside, Womokage, a small company that makes these detailed masks the traditional way. Skilled artisans use chisels to carve facial features from a solid block of wood, then hand-apply a coating and paint pigments to bring out details.

This fictionalized biopic follows the later years in the life of artist Salvador Dalí (Ben Kingsley). The story is told from the perspective of a young assistant hired to help Dalí prepare for an upcoming exhibition – while Dalí’s marriage to his wife, Gala crumbles. From director Mary Harron (American Psycho).

Maker Peter Brown once made a handle for an ice cream scoop out of moldable thermoplastic, but it didn’t last. So he decided to retrofit his brass scoop with something more appropriate. He took a big batch of colorful sprinkles, submerged them in resin, then turned the block on a lathe to form the handle.

We’re always amazed by macro zoom photography. This satisfying montage from YT Object gets us close up with all kinds of objects interacting, including a hot soldering iron tinning copper wire, a blueberry being sliced in half by a string, and a light bulb filament glowing as electricity is applied.