Awesome Art & Design

Artist Nadine Sophie designed and illustrated this impressive deck of cards which features images inspired by the gods and monsters of Greek mythology. The cards feature a bold monochromatic look, which brings out all of the light and shadow in Nadine’s detailed imagery. That Cerberus 3-headed dog is badass.

This unusual helmet was gifted to King Henry VIII by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1514. The headgear has curly horns like a Kudu antelope, and a pair of spectacles. Atlas Obscura checked in with Henry Yallop from the Royal Armouries to learn about the theories surrounding this strange ceremonial garb.

Aussie artist and animator Felix Colgrave takes us on another wild and crazy ride. Get ready for a hallucinogenic trip through universe filled with strange looking and noisy creatures that might be found in the wilds of Tasmania. Headphones highly recommended for this one.

Scrap Wood City shows us just how beautiful a hunk of wood can be, as he gradually whittles down a hunk of burled briar root. Working with a somewhat wonky lathe, he gradually turns the wood into a dramatic spherical sculpture that still lets some of its natural textures show through.

We’ve always loved the look of the Kunai, and how it evolved from a tool used for masonry to a deadly ninja’s weapon. In this video, jewelry artist Change You Can Wear creates a teensy replica of the weapon that can be worn around the neck. The process involves making a wax form for a silica investment mold, then casting it in silver.

Kids today probably have no idea what a pencil even is, but those of us who cut our teeth on Number 2 writing instruments will appreciate this fun desk caddy that looks like a giant sharpener. It’s from real wood and stainless steel, and available in single or double sizes.

Inspired by fellow editor Gugga Leunnam, game enthusiast Abs4Fun spent over 4 months compiling and meticulously matching up scenes from video games to create A Ride Through the Gaming Universe. The result is something straight out of Ready Player One.

Typewriters may have gone the way of the dinosaur for most people, but they served their purpose well and provided the basis for today’s computer keyboards. Editor and film buff Ariel Avissar compiled this great supercut of movie and TV scenes where typewriters played a major role. The track is The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson.

Three unique drawing tools made from metal. The Point includes a protractor and spirograph patterns. The Curve has corner rounders, circles, and a watch face template. The Polygon has straight lines and guides for creating shapes with 3 to 20 sides. Sold individually or in a set of three with a custom-made leather case.

This clock radio is a beautiful tribute to retro technology. It combines a clock, an AM/FM radio, and a high-quality Bluetooth speaker in one. Each handmade radio is built with warmly-glowing vintage nixie tubes to display the time and an American black walnut enclosure with a 360 brass bezel and knurled knobs.

Fans of 8-bit console gaming and adult beverages will love these wood coasters from Cutting Boredom. Each of the six available designs envisions a drunk version of a classic NES game, with titles like “Drunkey Kong” and “Mike Tyson’s Pass Out!!” Each one is printed in color then sealed with a two-coat polyurethane finish.

LEGO fanatic Brick Dangerous designed this awesome set of brick-built marine creatures. The 1164-piece set includes models of a seahorse, a jellyfish, and a clownfish (we found Nemo!), each of which can be displayed beneath a see-through cover that looks like a bell glass. Cast your vote if you want to see it produced.

Photographer Brandon Rieck of Wanderlust Imagery captured this glorious FPV footage by flying his drone along the top of an ore dock in Marquette, Michigan, then diving down to follow a hockey player skating on the ice below. The transition from above to below is buttery smooth. (Thanks Craig!)

Game designer and 3D artist Mauri Helme pays tribute to South Park with a cool remake of the long-running series’ opening title sequence. Mauri’s version replaces paper-cut Kyle, Cartman, Stan, and Kenny with their voxel art doppelgängers, giving them that “Straight Outta Minecraft” look.

We’ve seen some pretty neat stuff created with those 3D drawing pens, but never anything on the scale of what The Q made. After building a skinny metal frame for structure, he painstakingly created the body panels, windows, and wheels for a life-size model of a Smart ForTwo city car. Here are parts one and two.

Spanish design studio Brosmind created these vibrant and trippy modern art playing cards for Bicycle. Each of the 56 cards features the artists’ abstract and imaginative characters, representing four colorful street gangs. They also have smiley face suit markers and brick wall backs.

Artist Love Hultén is a master at creating interactive electronic works inspired by retro technology. While the MCP Cassette Player isn’t as complex as say, his VOC-25 synthesizer, it’s still a fun piece. It’s basically a tape player that looks like a wind-up toy and lets its user control the tape’s playback speed with analog control.

This pencil collage puzzle from White Mountain and artist Maureen Rupprecht offers plenty of challenge for experienced puzzle builders. The 1000-piece puzzle comprises hundreds of pencils, many of which share similar attributes. The finished puzzle measures 24″ x 30″ and would look great framed in a home office or library.

Pastry artist Natalie Sideserf is known for her amazingly detailed and realistic cake designs. Natalie traveled back to the Cretaceous era to give us this incredible work of edible art, a T-Rex that looks good enough to eat and is sure not to bite back. Would you start with the head or the tail?

Furniture designer Stelios Mousarris created this unique ping pong table with a mountainous metal base. The 3D-printed steel wire mesh started as data from Google Earth, then translated into a 3D model. A removable wire net at its center means its walnut tabletop doubles as a dining table.

Animator Victor Haegelin, cinematographer Jérémy Lesquenner, and sound designer Martin Flechtner created this amazing stop-motion short that pays tribute to Leonardo DiCaprio. The clip cleverly incorporates scenes from Catch Me If You Can, Titanic, The Revenant, The Wolf of Wall Street, Inception, and The Great Gatsby.

Wheel rims from a car seem like an odd material for building a wood-burning stove, but that’s exactly what André Göbel of Create Custom Designs did, a set of old steel rims to provide the structure for a cylindrical stove inspired by Bullerjan stoves, which use bent pipes to circulate cold air from the bottom and out of its top.

Maths Town teamed up with fellow fractal fanatic Yann Lby to create this hypnotic visual made up of colorful wireframes. For math geeks, the pattern starts as a 2D Mandelbrot fractal but uses its iteration data to project a vertical axis. Blow it up full screen dim the lights, get ready to enter a hypnotic trance.