What started out as a steampunk dreadnought/battleship evolved into a self-sustainable crawler town that roams the wastes in search of valuable resources.

It sounds like the rough plot of a post-apocalyptic flick, but it’s actually the result of Dave DeGobbi’s rich imagination. He pictured his LEGO Crawler Town as a mobile settlement roaming the barren wastelands, in a steampunk universe devastated by excessive coal use.

The Crawler Town is the best of several moving cities, a place where people can enjoy luxuries like pizza and beer. Thanks to its powerful crawlers, the town constantly searches for invaluable minerals and aquifers, and stay away from powerful sandstorms.

Dave DeGobbi’s Crawler Town got the name ‘Eco-punk’, due to its steampunk influences, and features functional powered treads, working suspension, front and rear steering, and lift from lower to upper levels.

Check Dave DeGobbi’s Flickr set for more photos of the Crawler Town

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Apparently, this video has been on the internet since late last year, but for some reason I’ve never heard about it. Better late than never, I guess.

Colorado Springs-based artist Jaon Baalman used over 50 bags of Cheetos to create an ultra-realistic portrait of popular TV-show host Conan O’Brien. Young Jason used Regular, Flamin’ Hot and Natural Cheetos to complete his work, and in some places used two, three layers, to give it the needed depth.

The edible portrait, made out of over 2000 individual Cheetos was supposed to be presented to Conan O’Brien himself, in December of last year, but the artist and his work fell victim to the whole Late Night Show circus, at NBC.

Well, I know it’s not the same, but Jason Baalman gets two thumbs up from me. Make sure you watch the making-of video, at the bottom.

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Hidden deep in an Australian rainforest, the clay sculptures of William Ricketts express the Aborigines’ deep connection with Mother Nature.

Born in 1898, William Ricketts was an Australian sculptor and potter who developed a spiritual bond with the Aboriginal people of Central Australia. The time he spent with them, between 1949 and 1960 inspired his works in Potter’s Sanctuary (now known as William Ricketts Sanctuary).

The 92 intricate ceramic sculptures placed along the passageways seem as they are merging with the surrounding plant-life, thus expressing the strong bond Aborigines have always had with nature. Designed as a place where man’s spirit becomes one with nature, William Ricketts Sanctuary inspires us all to protect Mother Nature instead of constantly exploiting her.

William Ricketts spent most of his life in this sanctuary, located on Mount Dandenong, near Olinda, and died here, in 1993, at the age of 94.

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Why kill an animal and have it stuffed with straw and stuff, when you van have artist Shauna Richardson crochet you the best trophy head you could ever dream of?

Shauna Richardson is a true crochetdermy expert. What is crochetdermy, you ask? Well it’s kind of like taxidermy, only without the dead animals. The UK based artist uses coarse wools like mohair, and glass eyes to create animal models and hunting trophies. She uses a single color and only one type of stitch for an entire crochetdermy model, changing the direction of the stitches to highlight certain anatomical features. She works with a single 3mm hook.

Although it takes Shauna over a month to complete one of her crochetdermy masterpieces, the end result is definitely worth the effort.

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I know they look ‘photoshopped’ but these amazing flowers are the real thing, and can be bought at some select flower-shops around the world.

Invented by Peter van der Werken, the owner of a flower company close to Den Bosch, Holland, rainbow roses look like they’ve been seriously modified in programs like Adobe Photoshop. But, they are actually the result of careful flower engineering. Dye is inserted into the stem of the rose as it’s growing, and the petals simply absorb it. Sounds easy enough, but it’s a very difficult process.

Sadly, you can’t buy rainbow rose bushes, only cut, or dried flowers. And even those come at a price meant to keep most of us away. Five cut rainbow roses sell for $55 and two dozens cost up to $325. But it you’re going to spend a small fortune on a flower, why not buy a freeze-dried rainbow rose that will last for years.

Rainbow Roses are special, but I for one like the common kind better. I guess I’m old fashioned.

via TheFunTimesGuide

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The chandeliers designed by Dutch artist Hans van Bentem are anything but ordinary, taking all kinds of weird shapes, like skulls, revolvers or airplanes. But that’s exactly what makes the special.

Everyone who has set eyes on van Bentem’s glittering masterpieces, from celebrities to members of royal families, have fallen in love with them. Madanna ordered a revolver-shaped crystal chandelier designed by Hans van Bentem, to be hung somewhere in her house.

The artist claims he finds inspiration for his work in everything around him, from culture, to history or the daily news. Thus he manages to take classic crystal chandeliers and, while maintaining their beauty, transforms them into something “contemporary and meaningful.”

The smallest of Hans van Bentem’s chandeliers costs around $23,500, but the larger custom models reach the hundreds-of-thousands level. Every one of them is hand-crafted by Czech chandelier-makers, from diamond-shaped crystal beads, according to van Bentem’s design.

Photos by HANS VAN BENTEM/CATERS NEWS

via Telegraph.co.uk

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French designer and architect Paul Coudamy has created a series of 25 limited edition sneakers, made out of wood and named Woodwalk.

The Woodwalk wooden sneakers were all designed on the computer, but were hand-sculpted from real wood. Each pair has its own unique design and looks good enough to wear. The shoes were all created for sports company K-Swiss.

Paul Coudamy’s Woodwalk sneakers are not exactly new, they were created back in 2008, but the awesome sculpting work make them hip even two years later.

Photos by Benjamin Boccas

DesignBoom via bookofjoe

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A former dockyard worker, Motoi Yamamoto is now one of Japan’s most talented artists, known all over the world for his intricate artworks, made of salt.

His working with this unusual medium was caused by the death of his younger sister, back in 1994. Mr. Yamamoto says that by working with free-form salt he is able to touch precious memories from the time his sister was alive, something he just can’t do by simply looking at pictures or reading a diary.

Some of his most amazing works are the intricate salt labyrinths. When he’s creating them, Motoi Yamamoto feels like he is following a trace of his memory that he can only reach when the work is completed. He stands in a cross-leg position for hours-on0end carefully laying the lines of salt, until he reaches the essential point in his memories.

Salt plays an important role in many cultures Like Hinduism or Japanese Shinto. Motoi Yamamoto uses salt as a life-giving substance, so after his art installations are no longer exhibited, he insists the salt be thrown back into the ocean so it can continue its path.

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One of the most original and well-executed artworks I’ve seen lately, Joana Vasconcelos “Marylin” will be auctioned off on Tuesday, at Christie’s, in London.

Made out of hundreds of stainless steel pans and covers, Marylin was inspired by the high-heel shoes worn by Marylin Monroe in the infamous clip from “The Seven Year Itch”, when the blond bombshell walks over an air-vent.

Through her stainless steel work of art, Joana Vasconcelos points out that modern-day women are expected to look beautiful in public, and do all the work around the house. Despite the seemingly feminist message, Ms. Vasconcelos is actually an advocate for equal human rights.

The 13ft by 9.8ft stainless steel pan Marylin is expected to sell for a sum between $155,000 and $233,550.

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Unless you live in Detroit, you might not have heard about the Ice House Project, but it has really been the talk of the town for the last couple of weeks.

Architect Matthew Radune and photographer Gregory Holm, both living in New York, decided it would be a great idea to create an ice-covered home as an art installation. The idea came to Matthew when he laid eyes on a photograph of a house wrapped in a frozen waterfall.

And what better place for their artistic endeavor than Detroit, a city full of abandoned and foreclosed houses. They managed to convince Michigan Land Bank to let them borrow the abandoned house at 3926 McClellan. The building was scheduled for demolition, but Radune and Holm got it into a program that deconstructs and recycles materials. They also agreed to pay back taxes on a foreclosed house, so a single mother and her family could have a home. This was their gift to Detroit for allowing them to go on with their project.

Day and night the two watched over the house, constantly and stubbornly fighting Mother Nature, who alternated cold days with sunny ones that almost melted their Ice House. The whole thing cost around $15,000, most of which was raised through a donations website. This included the project licenses, the city water and hiring the police to cordon off the street for a few hours. The rest was just watching water ice-up and making shore passers by didn’t injure themselves on the ice.

On Saturday, Gregory Holm finally got the photo he wanted from the Detroit Ice House project, and they’ve stopped spraying it with water. But you can still admire it for a few days, until the sun melts it.

via

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If you’re a fan of horror, monster and gore, then you are about to become a big fan of Undead Ed’s work.

There is a lot of disturbing stuff in Ed’s grave of goodies, on Etsy, but if you want to show the world what a hardcore horror fan you are, these freakish rings and bracelets are just what you’re looking for. They’re bloody, creepy, scary, in one word: perfect!

And if you want your toddler to share this disturbing theme, take a look at the cyclops stroller.

via SuperPunch

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23-year-old Mui-Ling Teh enjoys folding miniature origami creations and talking up close photos of them to tell a story. More information about her work is available at her online gallery where she sells cards, calendars and more items of her work. She also sells additional items at her Zazzle Store.

In February 2010, she was featured in a number of UK publications. However much of the published information and images were not as Mui-Ling had supplied. You can read the true story in her words ‘here’

Photos copyright of Mui-Ling Teh

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) was German-Austrian painter and sculptor most known for his series of canonical grimaces sculptures.

Messerschmidt’s character heads were inspired by the mysterious condition that forced the artist to leave the Vienna Academy of Arts. The undiagnosed digestive illness that caused Messerschmidt so much pain is today believed to have been Crohn’s disease. At one point, he came up with a series of pinches he would apply to his right lower rib. in order to take his mind off the pain.

Looking in the mirror while he was applying his pinches, and seeing his facial expressions, Messerschmidt decided to immortalize his pain in a series of sculptures. Thus, in 1781 Franz Xaver Messerschmidt started working on his famous character heads, using himself as a model.

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Using LowLow mature cheese, British food artist Prudence Staite has created a series of cheesy celebrity portraits and sculptures.

Ms. Staite has been working with food for some time now. She is actually behind the pizza celebrity pizza portraits we featured her a while back. This time, the medium of her artistic talent was LowLow cheese. After working with chocolate, jelly beans and chocolate, the food-artist found low fat cheese is ideal for sculpting.

The cheese art of Prudence Staite hint at how cheesy some aspects of celebrity culture really are. “Dita von Cheese”, “Chedda Cole” and “Low-bama” have been chosen as most representative for these modern times.

The cheesy art of Prudence Staite are on display at Kings Road Gallery in Chelsea, London.

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Michael Paul Smith is an expert model builder who uses his talent to recreate different instances of the town he grew up in. Once again, I’d like to point out from the beginning that these photos are not “photoshopped”.

I know, they look so real, but I assure you they are only miniature models made of “of Gator board, styrene plastic, Sintra [ a light flexible plastic that can be carved, and painted ] plus numerous found objects; such as jewelery pieces, finishing washers and printed material”. They are just 1/24th scale, but by lining them up with the right environment, Michael Paul Smith managed to achieve a “legit” Photoshop effect.

Take a look and be amazed.

Flickr via Digg

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