Joe Mills

Pi Visuals

I wish I would have posted this a while back, but I just thought about posting this, well, now. Anyway, I have a friend that has been working with 3D animation for a while, and I really like the work he has been doing. Above, you will see part of an episode from a series he created called University State. Here is an explanation of it from his site:

University State follows three extremely powerful individuals as they attend college. Even though these anime-esque students possess superhuman abilities, they live and interact with the rest of mankind in their pursuit for a higher education

The animation is certainly worth checking out, but I like it mostly for the off beat humor. (I loved the part about the gloves.) Anyway, check him out over at Pi Visuals.

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Why Won’t My Mom Talk to Me?

I’m posting this for two reasons. First, I’m trying to use my cell phone camera more often to capture things I see…unfortunately, it is a difficult thing for me to remember. Two, since I’m a teacher, these are things I pay attention to. This little girl and her mom got on the green line that I was riding and the mom did not say one word to her daughter the entire trip. This wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that the mother had headphones on the whole time and this girl had a hang dog expression for the entire train ride. She picked at the grates near the window, played unjoyfully with her umbrella, and stared in to space. To be honest, it is inspiring to me because I’m learning how not to treat my children.

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Moist Production

Image courtesy of Moist Productions

This work by Jason Freeny is some of the more interesting, innovative, and creative work I have seen in a while. It has a great balance of humor, seriousness, and technical skill. I find myself staring at the details of his work. Plus, I think the ridiculousness of the idea works so well because the execution is pretty much flawless. Check it out…

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Capitalism

I wrote recently about having a style as an artist. I worried that I just did not see myself as an artist who had a style. I like experimenting with different styles, trying things out, and being involved in different types of art-making. It is not that I have these grand plans of being a successful illustrator or that I want someone to hire me for my “style”, but it is nice to be recognized. Anyway, I was relaying this to an acquaintance of mine recently, and he basically said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “That’s the capitalism side of art.” I liked that. It made me realize that I should just keep doing what I’m doing and if I’m destined to be recognized…well, so be it.

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Markerbored

Image courtesy of Markerbored

I heard about Markerbored recently, but was not expecting much, but I just love these drawings. Here is what they have to say about it:

We’re roommates. We make call-and-response baroque scenes on a dry erase board. They usually have nerdy characters from nerdy things in them. We’re Pat Barrett and Todd McArthur

I like how the drawings are very free and spontaneous, but they seem to be planned out. I think this sketchy type of artwork is so hard to capture because we are so used to expecting polished work. And, sketchy artwork can look, well, unpolished and sloppy. I guess there is a fine line., but left alone, I think the artwork on Markerbored is just right the way it is.

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Muxtape

I gave Muxtape a shot recently, so I wanted to let everyone know about my mix tape that I made. The link is here, but it is also on the right if I ever decide to change the playlist…it’s not a bad idea overall. I’ve already seen it mentioned a few times, but sites tend to rise and fall quickly.

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Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

These are seriously irresistible to me…this particular competition is probably the most famous. It is sponsored by the Purdue chapter of Theta Tau. This year, they had to create a burger-making machine. I’ve written about these types of machines before and I think they just show a level of thinking and creativity and ingenuity and persistence that is remarkable.

Thanks Gizmodo!

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College

I’m doing this mainly to give a “shout out” to my friend Edwin, but I needed to give this an artistic spin. Edwin got a hold of me through my blog after we hadn’t talked to each other for almost 8 years even though we live in the same city. (These things happen.) So, I decided to dig up some old photographs I had taken during my black and white photography class at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I think it is hard to dislike black and white photography because it just has a different look and feel that I think is hard to achieve with color photography. Anyway, the above pictures were two of my favorite that I shot during that class and they all feature friends of mine…including Edwin. Enjoy and thank you for indulging me.

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Brian Ulrich

Image courtesy of Brian Ulrich
I wrote about Brian Ulrich a couple years ago, but I wanted to bring him up again because I saw that he added some new work to his site. I’m a big fan of his work for a number of reasons, but one thing that always strikes me is how he takes the relatively mundane settings and makes them, for lack of a better word, amazing. There is an underlying social commentary for all of his work which I detailed before, but I think the aesthetic quality is enough to grab your attention.

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