Rabbit

I am sorry to hear via Metafilter that Run Wrake died of cancer at only 47. You may know him from the video above.  If you've never seen rabbit you should check it out. It made a big impression on me.

1925 aka Hell

1925 aka Hell (by Max Hattler) from Max Hattler on Vimeo.
An animation loop inspired by French outsider artist Augustin Lesage's 1925 work A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World:

Here is Lesage at work:

There is also a heaven.  Something about these reminded me of little netherwerks.  It really reminds me of the limits of language.  I'm not sure I could describe a passage like this to players.  I wish video game makers would focus more on this kind of thing than worrying about storylines.  If I lived closer to Cyclopeatron maybe I'd get to travel through this on a rickety, wooden, space-voyaging wizard's tower.

via Metafilter

The Adjuster

Did you think you could travel time, traverse the planes, even jam the void with impunity?  That nothing would be noticed, imbalanced?  Many before you have thought the same.  And then the Adjuster came.

Is there just one?  Is it a race?  None know but that what comes looks like a jellyfish or man-o-war floating, its tentacles flicking over the object of attention while it trills.

And then things happen to them.  Here is a list of possible adjustments, from the trivial to the fatal.  Season to taste.

The idea come from this song by The Octopus Project:


But the more I think about it, the more I think it sounds like this (starting at the 30 second mark):

Animals Island in the Mountains

Seems like everyone is focused on Gencon.  I'm heading up to the mountains to DM my players up there, have some BBQ, show them the giant Sequoiahs etc.  First time I've managed to get someone up there to play D&D and I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not really prepared because I procrastinated as always, but I'm planning on finally trying out the Ark Island/Animal Alchemist site I started a while back.  Players should expect to encounter skunk-bats, flamingo-giraffe hybrids, the beautiful snake swans, and the obnoxious parrot-pig.

Now, in honor of Jeff bestowing a ruckus award on ZakS here is a video that cracks me up. Keep on ruckusing!



ps I'll try this new design for a bit. I'm tired of being constrained by the narrow column. Let me know if it causes you problems.

Mark of Uru

Animation by Nigerian Obinna Onwuekwe.  The production qualities of this are pretty crude. But I'm fascinated by fantasy coming from a different cultural perspective.  It's also interesting to see Onwuekwe use techniques/tropes right out of anime.

Apparently this and two other cartoons were released on a DVD called African Tales.  The first two episodes are still available online:

Fantasy Animation Using Free Tools

Thought this might interest you for several reasons: Its got a dragon, it uses tools that could aid DIY, and Blender is an example of a project that was successfully "ransomed" as Rob Conley talks about here.

"'Sintel' is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate the free/open source 3D creation suite Blender. With initial funding provided by 1000s of donations via the internet community, it has again proven to be a viable development model for both open 3D technology as for independent animation film."

via Metafilter, with more info on the project there.

Sand Storm

I think someone disturbed an ancient pyramid somewhere.



Incredibly ominous to see that coming, to see how dark it got, and to know it lasted for four hours.

via Neatorama

Fire Tornado

For all the pyromancers.

via Neatorama

Clockwork Animals

Andrew Chase's mechanical animals seem to have been around for a while, but they're new to me. This seems especially relevant to me because I was recently thinking of some posts on clockwork creatures but just couldn't come up with illustrations I was satisfied with. I like these, they seem rough enough to fit in a fantasy milieu but elegant enough to appear as if they were crafted by the best engineers of the ancients.


There are some more pictures here.

via Neatorama

D&D Commercial

I never saw a D&D commercial on TV. I didn't know they even made commercials! And with Jami Gertz, I loved Square Pegs!

Saw this on Boing Boing who saw it on Laughing Squid who saw it on RetroJunk.com. (What's blogging etiquette for references? Do I have to hunt down the guy who video taped this before I share it? haha)