You may well get sick of me extolling the awesome virtues of the Super Art Fight all next week. But serious, it’s going to be freaking awesome! Audrey and I will have a small merch table. Audrey will be selling some really cute Quintapod plushies that she’s sewn by hand. I’ve got some screen prints that I’ll be selling. I’ll have a video of both posted sometime next week. And of course, we got a whole box full of limited edition Super Art Fight Monskey toys for sale.

The suggestions for topics to draw are really great. Any ones we miss this time around will be saved for the next event so keep them coming. There are also some loose plans for an online version of Super Art Fight. The winners might get invited to participate in the live event. But we’ll have more on that once we actually set something up.

Next Saturday, September 20th, six artists attack the Ottobar with some of the sickest art you’ll ever see performed live! This is just the start people. It just gets better and better from here on!

Share This

Can origami master Norio Torimoto fold an origami robot faster than a computer can design and actual robot? Tune into to Torimoto’s kick ass 3D show! Head on over to the site to check it out.

Skynet is using SolidWorks which is sort of like AutoCAD light. It’s used to make 3D objects that can be used in rapid prototyping machines or converted to blue prints for real world construction. You can actually make physical interactions with parts that you create so that you can simulate how they’ll interact with each other in real life. This is great for designing almost anything with moving mechanical parts. And the best part is, once you send your finished model to a rapid prototyper, you get back an actual model that functions the way you designed it.

Anyway, yes, robots are fucking awesome. Origami robots, doubly so.

You can download the pattern for Torimoto-san’s origami bot and download free versions of SolidWorks.

[Via SolidWorks]

Share This

Instead of jizzing over Apple’s new technicolor sex toys (dude, you know they’re the sex), let us ponder Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s “I’m a Smug Hipster Shit, I’m a PC” ad campaign.

Hmm…

This is known as the “soft sell,” an ad that barely even mentions the product. Sometimes, these ads can be more effective than traditional advertising which bashes you in the head with slogans and product. “Apply directly to the forehead, apply directly to the forehead, apply directly to–” you get the idea. Soft sell ads tend to stay with us longer because we end up pondering how the hell the ad relates to the product.

Jerry Seinfeld, the man who created a career around a show about nothing brings us a commercial about… um… nothing. When I first saw the ad, I bristled. What kind of dumb shit is this? But it stayed with me. And now I can see the genius behind it. In some ways, it’s certainly effective. There’s no question what is being advertised even if the Microsoft logo only flashes briefly at the end. Bill Gates = Microsoft. ‘Nuff said. It’s much less snarky than its Apple counterpart which, even as a Mac fan, kind of turns me off. Even so, it feels like there’s something missing, that we’re only getting a part of a longer narrative.

Take a gander. Maybe two. So what do you think? Genius or pretentious crap?

Share This

Would you like to get your hands on the series 2.5 Monskeys and the Giant Monskey plus the limited edition Super Art Fight Monskey designed by our very own Nick Borkowicz that I reviewed last week? You could order them from the site Now’s your chance! Enter the Mighty Monskey Series 2.5 Giveaway contest and you could be the very proud owner of seven freaking awesome toys!

Here are the rules. To enter, simply add a comment to this post. Be sure to include your real email when filling out the comment form so I can get in touch with you. Comments will be collected until September 19, midnight EST. I’ll use a random number generator to pick the winner who will be announced September 20. One entry per person. Past winners, please sit this one out. Duplicate entries will be void. Anyone can enter. I will ship anywhere in the world!

Big thanks to Jason from Octopus Design for hooking us up with the Monskeys and big shout out to Dern from Dear Pirate for the awesome photos. Be sure to visit Monskey.us to check out other toys from the series.

Share This

Been a while since I’ve done one of these, but here’s a quick toy review of the new Monskey Series 2.5 and Giant Monskey Series 1! You can buy them now from the Monskey store. The little guys go for $6 and the big guys go for $25. And you get a sneak peak at our custom Super Art Fight Monskey that we’ll have on sale at the show! They did an amazing job with Nick’s design.

And for all you artists out there, they have an open submission policy. You can download a template from the website and submit your designs for the next series. So get them crayons drawing!

[Via Monskey]

Share This

Little known fact, but Ananth Panagariya of Applegeeks fame is a fairly accomplished designer (read: FUCKING AWESOME!). I’ll have to corner him to ask him what his duties were on this gig, but one of the groups he works for has just released Snapture, an awesome app for your iPhone camera that adds quite a lot of functionality. There’s a free version and a premium version which you can pick up for $7.99. But you’ll have to haxxor (jailbreak) your iPhone. You can’t get Snapture through the iStore.

Congrats Ananth! The app looks fucking sweet and brings me ever so closer to giving in and purchasing an iPhondle.

[Via SnaptureLabs]

Share This

Angry Zen Minion Kevin Bahrt sent along this piece about Apple yanking Apps off their App Store without explanation. Three apps in particular found themselves pulled from the store within days of their release.

• BoxOffice - This free app lists movie times, locations, and reviews. DO! WANT!
• Nullriver - With this app, users can turn their phone into a wireless routers using AT&T’s G3 or Edge networks depending on availability.
• I Am Rich - For only $999.99, this app displays a little red gem on your iPhone or iTouch dsahboard.

Now before I start railing against my former master, Apple has never said that the iPhone would be an open development platform. It’s their technology, it’s their store, they can choose to sell whatever they want.

Having said that, pulling apps just without explanation is bad business. I could understand if the apps in question were malicious and bricked your phone or stole your data. But if they’re not malicious, why shut out developers? As a movie geek, BoxOffice would be a perfect app for my phone. Nullriver is just full of awesome. And if you’re dumb enough to purchase I Am Rich, all the more power to you. It hurts Apple in no way to allow these apps to be sold. Now that they’re no longer available, the only option you have to get these apps is you unlock your phone and seek out the developers.

The app store is a closed systems and by shutting out developers for no apparent reason, Apple is depriving users of some potentially awesome apps.

However, having now said all of that, the list of apps that have been pulled pales in comparison to the apps available for purchase and download. And if you did manage to snag one or all three of the apps discussed, they still work. The culling could be an attempt to come up with some sort of official release policy. Who knows. Until Apple makes a statement, all we can really do is complain and speculate.

So are practices like this enough to make you resist the sexy temptation of fondling an iPhone G3 of your own? Or will you give in to temptation and purchase one knowing that some developers will be left out of the party?

[Via Fortune]

Share This

Our first AZM Allstar review!

AZM Allstar Kevin Bahrt uploaded his review of Bandai’s Gundam Seed MG 1/100 Lukas Strike E + I.W.S.P. (which you can pick up from AZM preferred vendor HobbyLink Japan). I never put on the decals either Kevin. Tweezers might work, but I never like the stock decals. This was recorded on Kevin’s phone. Pretty sweet looking kit. I swear, someday, I’ll get back in gunpla.

So if any of you AZM readers out there have some video reviews of toys or movies or just whatever, send em along and I’ll pimp them out!

Share This

Want to take your Art Fight on the road? AZM ally Hawk sent along this awesome Netsketch app for the iPhone and iTouch that lets you collaborate and battle on a shared canvas which appears to be infinite (infinite canvas, *groan*). It’s all vector based so you can draw as big or as small as you like without loosing image clarity. You can pick it up from the iTunes store for $7.99.

So… anyone got a spare iTouch lying around? I would love to try this out, but I have neither device. Ah well. It would be interesting to see a web application that does the same thing. You’d have to agree on a time to battle, but I think there’s a lot of potential there. Hmm…

[Via Netsketch]

Share This

Okay Winger fans! This week I got my hands on Bandai’s HCM Pro 1/220 scale Gundam Deathscythe! And there’s some Kiva action in there, too. As always you can purchase Deathscythe and Kiva from HobbyLink Japan.

Oh, I forgot to mention the action base for the Deathscythe. It’s a clear plastic platform with a clear plastic ramp that you can snap one foot into. With one foot stationary, it kind of looks like a ballerina of DOOM. Deathscythe is flexible enough to get some really dynamic running poses or swiping poses with the scythe. Very nice display piece.

Uploaded this one directly from iMovie 08 to YouTube. I’m not happy that iMovie 06 has features that 08 doesn’t, namely time remapping and some of the effects, but one-click uploading is quite nice. Although the ones I compress myself turn out fairly decently. I’ll keep mucking with things.

Thanks once again to HobbyLink Japan for the hook up. And be sure to check their latest podcast where Scott interviews Bandai’s Katsumi Kawaguchi about the MG Gundam ver. 2.0. Good god, I’m going to have to start building kits again!

Share This