art

Junkbots par excellence

I seem to find myself saying something like this a lot these days: “We’ve seen this idea before, but, dang, this person is good at it.” Well, here goes again: We’ve seen this idea before, but dang, Andrea Petrachi (aka Himatic) is good at it. Andrea’s junkbot figurines are made from, well, junk, but he seems to have a particular flair for the use of old camera parts.

Maker Birthdays:  Leonardo da Vinci

Maker Birthdays: Leonardo da Vinci

Born on this date in 1452 in Tuscany, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (Wikipedia) is the original “Renaissance Man,” and thus near and dear to all our hearts here at MAKE. By the time he died in 1512, aged 67 years, his achievements had established him, arguably, as the most diversely talented human being who ever lived: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Oh, and namesake of a very famous turtle.

New works from Jud Turner include avenging anglerfish

New works from Jud Turner include avenging anglerfish

I’ve written before about how much I wish all the junk-art I see was as awesome as Jud Turner’s. You may recall the stunning mecha-trilobite he made from cast aluminum bones and various scrap metal findings and/or the skeletal Bio-Cycle we posted about last year. Shown here are two new works: Uppermost, Hallucination Engine, and Greedeater, the latter of which I know will find a place in Becky’s heart, at least, because it incorporates her spirit animal. Hi Becky! BTW, did you get that e-mail I sent about how much I love your new haircut?

What? Oh, sorry folks. Anyway, Jud Turner is awesome. Check out his online gallery.

Featured Maker: eBoy

Featured Maker: eBoy

Iconic pixel-art collective eBoy probably needs no introduction. Around here, they’re best known for the splendiferously intricate poster they made to promote Maker Faire Bay Area 2007, shown above. TBH, their catalog kind of puts me in an almost-panicky state of it’s-all-so-awesome overload. Their posters–which include a “cities” series featuring LA, NYC, Toyko, London, Berlin, Cologne, Venice, and the Baltimore docks, as well as “event” posters including a promotional for Amnesty International, the giant-robots-themed SuperBronco print created for their first solo gallery show, and FooBar, which is a mash-up of iconic Web 2.0 brands in a kind of “virtual city”–all induce the same jaw-dropping wonderland-of-details type effect. It feels like I could spend hours exploring any one of them, and there are so many. So many! Besides the posters, they also offera book which includes eight of their most popular designs reproduced on a smaller scale in case, like me, you just don’t have enough space on your walls for all the awesome they want to put there.