The Amazing Pencil Art of Paul Lung

Lovely black and white photos, wouldn’t you say? Well, can you believe these were actually done completely by pencil?

Paul Lung, a 38-year-old artist, from Hong Kong, needs only an 0.5 mm technical  graphite pencil and sheets of A2 paper to create some of the most unbelievable works of art. Paul has loved to draw ever since he can remeber, and now he does it for 3-4 hours every day, when he comes home from work. He never uses erasers and spends up to 60 hours working on each of his drawings, but the results are simply breathtaking.

Paul says even his friends don’t believe he actually draws his creations, until they see him at work. That’s understandable, considering it’s practically impossible to tell they’re done by pencil, unless you get close enough.

Photos via BeautifulLife

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FRAMEicariums – The Art of Ant-Farms

If you’re looking for a unique type of art, that’s dynamic and alive, you can’t go wrong with  the new FRAMEicariums, by Hugh Hayden and Katie Vitale.

Ant-farms are an interesting concept, but the two artistic duo have taken it one step further, and turned it into an original form of wall art. Using salvaged picture frames, artistic backgrounds and ant farms, they’ve come up with the FRAMEicariums, living paintings that change to the work moods of the ants that inhabit them.

FRAMEicariums come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, from luxurious to minimalist, and have a price range of $80 – $900.

via Inhabitat

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Fan Makes Coolest War-Machine Costume Ever

I’m sure you’ve seen Iron Man and War-Machine cosplay before, but I’m pretty sure you’ve never seen anything like this before.

We’ve seen some work of Iron Man fan, Anthony Le, in the past, I’ve even posted another War-Machine costume he made a while ago, but his latest masterpiece is simply too awesome for words. This talented costume creator built his first version of the War-Machine costume, before any footage from the first Iron Man movie came out, and he only used comics for inspiration.

But Anthony has come a long way, since his first costume, and is now sporting a kick-ass replica of the War-Machine costume worn by Jim Rhodes, in Iron Man 2. For the armor he used thin, high-impact urethane plates, joined together by around 1,500 rivets and washers, the helmet was sculpted from clay and enforced with a special resin mix, and the mounted shoulder gun was made from pipes and an old engine.

LEDs in the eyes and armor, and a small servo-motor that lifts the faceplate make this War-Machine costume even more real. As you can imagine, Anthony Le is a big hit at conventions, and he’s now working on other awesome costumes, for himself and clients. Chapeau!

Check out more awesome photos and a video, below.

Photos via Anthony Le

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Make Art, Not War

I guess it’s true what they say, guns really don’t kill people, they can actually be used to create original works of art.

Come May 21, The Rusian city of Perm will be hosting an important exhibition of modern Ukrainian art, called YAKSCHO. It aims to reflect the situation in this country: productively unstable, full of contradictions, promises, hopes and disappointments, bursts of protest and creative energy.

One of the most interesting displays at YAKSCHO will definitely be the shot-up BMW. A local shooters group was asked by the Museum of Modern Art, in Perm, to take part in an unusual, but fun shooting session. Participants were promised a BMW X5 to shoot at, but in the end they were happy to empty their guns into an older model.

Volodymyr Kuznetzov, the man behind this unusual art project, decorated the car with flowers and other ornaments, marked with nail polish crosses, but the shooters, weren’t really able to follow the pattern. Still he was pleased with the final result and believes his shot-up BMW will be a hit when the exhibition opens.

via ilipin

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Christian Boltanski’s No Man Land

French artist, Christian Boltanski, uses a huge crane and a giant pile of discarded clothes to explore the notion of mortality.

Located in New York City’s Park Avenue Armory, Christian Boltanski’s No Man’s Land art installation was created using 30 tons of used clothes, a metal crane, and 3,000 stacked cookie tins that block views from the outside.

Even after hearing the artist reveal the ideas behind this art project, ideas that include life, death and futility, you can’t help but compare it to that frustrating arcade game where you had to control the crane, using a joystick, without dropping the prize. Still, in Boltanski’s vision, his project is dead serious.

Every few minutes, the metal crane will drop down and randomly grab some clothes, from the 45 rectangular plots of clothes around the armory, and drop them in the big pile, in the center. This apparently symbolizes the arbitrariness of death and survival. Visitors get to see this weird art display with a background soundtrack of human heartbeats.

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Star Wars Fan Builds Awesone Imperial Walker Bunk Bed

A perfect example of how to turn a problem into an awesome solution, the Imperial Walker bunk bed was the perfect idea to deal with lack of space.

Jonathan posted some photos of this awesome bed that he built for his mother, on Gizmodo. She moved into a new house that didn’t have much of a yard, and needed something that would keep her grandsons entertained, without taking up too much room. Taking advantage of the 10-foot-high ceiling, and being a huge Star Wars fan, Jonathan decided he was going to build a bunk bed based on an Imperial Walker.

Going for a more realistic look, the DIY master designed the walker as if it were moving, and even added a complete Hoth LEGO display case, on the second level of the bed. He began working on the bed, at the end of September 2009, in his modest wood workshop, and managed to complete it in February 2010. Jonathan estimates he put between 300-400 hours into the Imperial Walker bunk bed.

We’ve seen other Star-Wars inspired beds before, and some pretty impressive Imperial Walkers, but Jonathan’s bunk bed definitely takes the cake.

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Cool Van Gogh Mosaic Made from Polo Shirts

A giant reproduction of Vincent Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait, made out of polo shirts, is now on display in the lobby of the Marunouchi Building, near Tokyo Station.

The 10 by 10 meters mosaic was created using 2070 polo shirts, of 24 different colors. The unique creation is part of a campaign by Onward Kashiyama Co, a Tokyo-based apparel maker, to use painting colors into shirt designs. The van Gogh mosaic will remain on display, until May 16.

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The Steampunk Creatures of Daniel Proulx

Using copper, brass and gemstones, Daniel Proulx creates steampunk sculptures and jewelry, inspired by the fantasy imaginary worlds he’s so passionate about.

His career as a steampunk jewelry designer began when Catherine, his life partner, took a two hour lesson on how to make wire rings. He tried it himself, and then spent a lot of time perfecting his own technique. Before he knew it, Daniel quit his job and decided to make a living on his original creations.

He never knew what he created was steampunk, until one of his friends told him. The Montreal-based artist was always interested in steampunk, but didn’t know there was actually a name for it. He started studying the culture and creating intricate artworks that are now sold on his Etsy shop.

Some of his works are so good that the Museum of the History of Science decided to include them in one of its displays. You’re about to see some of Daniel Proulx’s awesome steampunk sculptures, if you’re interested in the jewelry he makes, head over to his website and check it out.

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Armless Embroider Heads to Shanghai Expo

Looking at her embroidered art, you’d probably think this woman has golden hands, when in fact, she has no hands at all.

Gao Baoying has learned to use her feet to do everything we usually do with our hands. I don’t know if she was born without hands, or if she lost them in some freak accident, but one thing is for sure, this woman is a true artist.

Gao, who lives in China’s Tianjin municipality, began practicing embroidery with her feet, when she was just a teenager. As time passed, her skills improved, and now she creates the most beautiful embroidery. As recognition of her skills, Gao Baoying was invited to showcase her work, at the Shanghai Expo.

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The Wearable Weedrobes of Nicole Dextras

Weedrobes is a series of ephemeral sculptures, created by Nicole Dextras, to emphasize our dysfunctional relationship to both our bodies and the environment.

Nicole Dextras’ collection of eco-wearable dresses is made of live plants, including flowers, leaves and even thorns. We’ve seen live plant dresses before, during PETA protests, but Nicole Dextras’ creations are true environmental works of art that could actually be a part of a fancy fashion show.

Images courtesy of Nicole Dextras

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Don Porcella Turns Pipe Cleaners into Art

Pipe cleaners aren’t the most common art medium an artist can use, but that’s just what makes Don Porcella’s creations so special.

His art consists mostly of “humorous representations of a widely imaginative reality” made with lots and lots of pipe cleaners. Some categorize his crazy sculptures as creepy, while others find them amusing, but personally I think they’re a fluffy combination of both.

Don Porcella was born in 1963, in Modesto, California, but has lived and worked in Staten Island,NY. Check out more of his artworks here.

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Cecilia Cassini – The 10-Year-Old Fashion Designer

While other little girls were watching cartoons, or playing with Barbie dolls, Cecilia Cassini was reading fashion magazines and learning how to sew. Now, at 10 years of age, she’s already an established fashion designer for kids.

Cecilia Cassini, from Encino, California, began her career as fashion designer, when she was just 5 years old. She cut up her sister’s Betsy Johnson dress, when no one was looking, and adjusted it to her own design. For her 6th birthday, she received a sewing machine and began taking sewing lessons. At 7 years old, she wrote a letter to her favorite fashion designer, Coco Channel, for school, and designed her own logo, at 8.

It’s safe to say Cecilia was very creative, from an early age, but she got her big break last year, when her mother mentioned to a store owner that her daughter made dresses. During a trunk show, the fifth-grader sold 50 pieces. Things started happening, from there, and now Miss Cassini has her own manager, no other than Pilar DeMann, the woman behind the Kardashians’ rise to power.

Cecilia Cassini  and her fashion creations are becoming more and more popular, with each passing day, and she’s even opened up a cool-looking website, where people can check out and order her works. Another super-kid that’s going places, fast.

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LOTR Fan Builds Bag End Hobbit Dollhouse

After reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy, over 20 times, Maddie Chambers decided to take her passion for the LOTR saga to the next level, and created a dollhouse replica of Bilbo Baggins’ Bag End.

This mother of twins took on the hobbit house project when her boys were just 1 year old. At first, she thought she’d just build a hill with a round door, like the one of Bag End, but being a perfectionist, Maddie kept thinking of things to add. First she decided to make a removable roof, then she started drawing up the project, and adding more rooms, until she put it in her mind to build a replica of the Bag End featured in the LOTR movies.

Between taking care of her two children, and keeping the house from falling apart, Maddie Chambers managed to create her hobbit house replica, in just one year. If you think that’s a long time, you must know the whole thing is hand made, from the house itself, to the dollhouse furniture, and even the tiny food. And she only worked two hours a night, and during nap times. But Maddie says she’s always been a crafty person and this was a labor of love.

For more details about the building process, and even more photos of the Bag End dollhouse, head over to the blog Maddie set up for her impressive project. All I can say to this true geek is CHAPEAU!

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The Art of Bones, by Francois Robert

Francois Robert creates iconic shapes, using dozens of real human bones. He spends entire days on his knees, but the results are truly exceptional.

Francois has always been fascinated by skeletons, but it wasn’t until a day, in the mid 1990s, that he came face to face with one. He was at a yard sale, in Michigan, checking out some desks, for his office. He stumbled across three, two of which were empty,m and the third, with a complete human skeleton, inside. He took them all to his studio.

In 2007, as the recession began to think its teeth into the economy, Mr. Robert had so much time on his hands that he decided to turn to the skeleton in his closet. Because its parts were wired together, for educational purposes, the artist decided he needed one that could be broken down into pieces. So he traded his skeleton, for a box filled with 206 real human bones.

Since then, Francois Robert has been spending most of his days, on his knees, arranging even the tiniest bones into the right position, for the perfect shot. His collection is called “Stop the Violence”, and it was inspired by the author’s fear of death. He says “”The bones are something left behind, a form of memory, I try to treat that person on my studio floor with respect.”

via DesignObserver

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Spain’s Electronically Animated Giant Baby

Miguelin, is a 6.5 meters tall animated baby that Spain has created for its pavilion, at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

And if you thing this toddler’s just a big old doll, you’re sadly mistaken. Miguelin breaths, blinks and dreams of the cities we leave to our future generations, while smiling to visitors that walk by. The baby’s “mother” is Spanish film director, Isabel Coixet, who picked this theme both because of “the passion China and Spain share for children”, and as a way of showing that our actions have consequences on our children.

Miguelin, who was constructed in the US, dreams of the future,and his dreams will be animated, for all visitors to see. I’m sure this big baby will become a star when the Shanghai Expo opens, on May 1st.

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