Awesome Art & Design

Artist Ross McSweeney created these fascinating mechanical coasters. There are four smooth-spinning patterns, including geometric shapes, gears, and a bicycle. Their outer gears touch when placed next to each other so that you can spin multiple designs simultaneously. You can purchase the SVG files for laser cutting on Etsy.

DanCreator is back with another cardboard NERF gun. This time, he created a Fortnite-inspired sniper rifle that can shoot foam darts. He built it almost entirely from cardboard and hot glue, with a handful of dowel rods and some stiffly bent wire for its springs. It uses a pair of small motors to accelerate and fire each dart.

Stop-motion animator tomosteen takes us on a trip inside a unique vending machine that serves up delicious burgers. Each tiny sandwich is prepared with love by a legless skeleton who works with a team of bird and kitty cat sous chefs. And if you think that sounds weird, it’s because it is.

Artist Mimi Kirchner makes one-of-a-kind fabric toys that are way too nice to let your kids play with. Among her works is this jolly old-timey fellow with a handlebar mustache and chinoiserie tattoos. Dressed in striped pants with a red belt, the 22-1/2″ tall figure would look great standing watch in your living room.

The manhole covers here in the U.S. are pretty utilitarian. But in Japan, manhole covers can be works of urban art. This video from Process X takes us inside a high-tech factory that turns raw steel into embossed discs, then has artists embellish them with colorful enamels applied with squeeze bottles.

Ordinary things can look extraordinary viewed through the lens of a microscope. Photographer Jens Braun shows the kind of eye-catching crystalline structures can form with just a bit of Vitamin C, water, and alcohol. He shot the images using a Sony a6300 mirrorless camera and used polarization to enhance the vibrant colors.

Mega Process takes us on a tour of a factory that produces unique, high-end pens using 3D-printed metal. Merain Korea uses a selective laser sintering 3D printer to melt together thin layers of metal powder, then painstakingly deburr, clean, and plate each pen before assembly and packaging.

The TIE fighters from Star Wars are some of the most intimidating spacecraft in the history of science fiction. Scott’s Mini Workshop celebrates the Empire’s starfighter by encasing it in resin, then turning it into a perfect sphere on his lathe. He’s also made an X-Wing fighter sphere using the same technique.

Controversial or not, AI technology like Midjourney is creating amazing digital art with the correct prompts. TheArtofAI used the generative image technology to imagine what Star Wars: A New Hope might have looked like as a 1980s anime, from young Luke sipping his blue milk to the Death Star exploding. (Thanks, Rob!)

We love watching giant R/C airplanes take to the skies. In this video from Ramy RC, we get to see the full build process. He created this 11.8-foot-long model of an Airbus A380-800 by 3D printing forms and lining them with carbon fiber and resin. He made the underlying structure from laser-cut wood and plastic. Maiden flight at 17:45.

Hermit crabs are known for their ability to reside in the abandoned shells of other sea creatures. I did a thing wanted to know if one of these crustaceans would wear a shell made out of metal, like a tiny suit of armor. So he got to work casting some metal seashells and put them in a tank to see if a crab would put one on.

Burls Art knows a thing or two about making guitars. He created this one by melting 1000 aluminum cans, and casting the metal to form the neck and body of the instrument. First, he had to build a furnace and equipment to work with the molten metal. We love how he could melt it down and start again when it didn’t work right.

Wednesday’s pal Thing is brought to life by magician Victor Dorobantu in a blue costume removed by VFX. Jamie and Jay from Wicked Makers made an animatronic version of the hand instead. They started with a cheap Halloween decoration, then sculpted and cast a latex glove and painted it to look like the character.

Celebrate your love for Italy and the 1960s with this official LEGO model of the Vespa 125 scooter in pastel blue. The miniature captures the curvy styling of the iconic 2-wheeler and includes a brick-built engine hidden beneath a removable cover, working steering, and a LEGO helmet, picnic basket, and flowerpot accessories.

These unique nested dice offer more possible outcomes to your tabletop gaming sessions. Each has an inner die with a see-through outer shell that can be used to add, subtract, or as another game modifier. Available as a set of six D6 or seven polyhedral inner dice.

Amsterdam-based visual effects designer Julius Horsthuis is known for his incredible moving fractal art. Fractalicious 9 is a compilation of his more recent work and offers up a variety of mesmerizing visuals based on mathematical equations.