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Dear Puffin
DeviantArtist Mr Bluebird has done some lovely minimal Pixar posters! We have the Sunnyside Daycare and Al’s Toy Barn from Toy Story.
Everyone remembers the Pizza Planet truck, right? The 1978 Gyoza pickup truck that shows up in every Pixar movie? And Insuricare is the company that Mr. Incredible works for while trying to be a normal-type person in The Incredibles. I still love that movie.
This one is my favorite. I loved Ratatouille, and this poster just nailed the movie’s aesthetic. Well done Mr Bluebird.
I also found some great minimal fairy tale posters by Christian Jackson of Square Inch Design. For sale here.
Disney has done a neat little cross-promo, putting Sam the American Eagle in Captain America’s outfit. Via Comicsalliance.
I won’t be writing tomorrow Puffin, since I’ll be bitching my way through a house move. Fortunately I’m moving out of a 6th floor Manhattan building with a flukey elevator, and not into one. Thank god for small mercies.
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
I have received a communiqué from one of our reporters in the field. Bigwig, of The Album Project and Animal News; The Podcast has been working in South Korea for last year or so, and has finally managed to smuggle out a dispatch hidden, as is traditional, in the navel of a lady who is beyond reproach and unlikely to be groped by the TSA. I decoded it for you Puffin, and here it is:
Dear MacGuffin and Puffin,
As a huge fan of your blog, I’ve been keeping my eye out for contributions to it. I love your Asshole stamped posts, and I really enjoy the internet tourism, but by far, my favorite is the various Art related posts that you guys do. So, when I stumbled across Tommervik’s Picasso inspired cubist Star Wars paintings, I knew that I had to send it in.
Look, I love Star Wars. I love the Original Trilogy. I appreciate the intent of the prequels. The iconic visuals of the series are actually embedded in my brain. I remember when I made my first home movies, I purposefully aped the whole thing. So, whenever I see the mask of Vader, or the lightsaber, or R2, I feel my body get involved.
This is why this was such a cool find. Picasso and Star Wars together?
Really, all of them are pretty damn beautiful, but my personal favorite is the Yoda one. I would love to get a print of that for my wall.
Anyway, hope you guys liked these as much as I did, and I hope you guys like this letter. It’s not as good as yours, but it’s words!
Bigwig
PS. If it is cool for me to plug my stuff, I’d love it if your readers would check out my podcast, The Animal News or my music blog, The Album Project. Thanks!
Well Puffin, what do you think? I think Bigwig has stumbled on something quite wonderful. I checked out Tommervik’s site, and there are more Picasso Star Wars pictures as well as some really neat sports paintings. He has a lovely expressive way with curves, which works well with the already exaggerated body shape of football players in their padding. The Star Wars ones would be golden purely for their nerd-cred, and I’m no art critic, but I think these are pretty damn fine art. Certainly a worthy addition to my over-crowded bathroom nerd shrine. Why the hell do I keep my nerd art in the bathroom anyway Puffin? I must move them all at some point.
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin,
As you know, I’m kind of an art nerd. Hence my obsession with poster designs and stuff. I’m also deeply enamored with mashups. I love the idea of combining two totally unrelated but somehow complimentary things. So this was right up my street: Modern Renaissance, renaissance portraits of modern celebrities (although plenty of these stray far fat away from the renaissance). Some of them don’t really work- either they’re too photohopped, or the expression isn’t right, or whathaveyou. But there is an awful lot of awesome hanging around in there, and I’ve picked a few of my favorites. I chose some because they were just plain cool, some because the execution was especially good, and some just because I liked them. But go poke around in the galleries, there are tons and tons more to see. So the challenge: merge the faces of modern celebrities with the kind of art you’d see in a museum.
Challenge accepted! (Click on each image to see the original)
General Neil Patrick Harris, by Katdamage; based on Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington. Neil Patrick Harris, if you ever read this, I hereby demand that you have a copy of this made, put in a gilt frame, and displayed proudly in your home. Normally that would be an Alex Rodriguez level of douchery, but in this case sir, rock on.
King Connery I, by MarcusAurelius; based on the portrait of King Edward VII by Sir Samuel Luke. It is a goddamn shame that this is not, in fact, reality. King James Bond? Oh I think so. See also King Connery VIII.
Mr Bean, aka Rear Admiral Sir Bean, by potikare; based on the portrait of Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, by Lemuel Francis Abbott. See also Sir Horatio Wilson. Yes it’s Owen Wilson, yes it’s awesome.
Harrison Ford, by oilcorner; based on the Portrait of John William Mackay by Alexandre Cabanel.
Jack Nicholson is a mother fucking badass, by Toothfairy; based on ”Self-portrait of the artist in the guise of a mockingbird“ by Joseph Ducreux. And yes, this also came up as the fisticuffs meme. Remember this one?
Save Us Gary Oldman!, by Silkenfairy; based on Portrait of a Knight of Malta, by Caravaggio. See also, this.
This makes me uncomfortable on a lot of levels. Ozzy, by Carol Coelho.
Hugh Laurie, by Mandrak (yes, again. He did a lot of these). Based on a self portrait by Jaques-Louis David. This is just really really good.
Johnny Depp by Ziaphra; based on Willem Coymans by Franz Hals. I feel like this could very well be an accurate depiction of Johnny Depp’s life.
Robin Williams, by mandrak; based on Albecht Dürer’s portrait of Jakob Muffel.
On the left: Kevin Bacon, by mandrak; based on Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington. On the right: George Clooney, by Silentjonny;
The Death of Mr Bean, by Stadsman; based on The Death of Marat by Jaques Louis David. In some ways I think this is the best of the bunch.
I will leave you with this…. picture.
Justin Bieber, by Scott Cecil, who has a really sick sense of humor. I need some eye bleach immediately! Based on Bia de Medici, by Angelo Bronzio.
I put a couple more interesting pics behind the cut. I hope you like these Puffin. You’d better, since this post took forever to write.
Love
MacGuffin
Other posts tagged as art
Christopher Jonasson’s Photography: A Guessing Game
Art Nouveau Slave Leia, sinful Disney princesses, and more
Dear Puffin,
Remember the Firefly travel posters I have in my nerd shrine bathroom? And the art nouveau Doctor Who posters from Bill Mudron, that I talk about constantly? Well, everything seems to have come together. Megan Lara has just released this incredible series of art nouveau, Alphone Mucha style Firefly posters.
I’ve often felt that you can learn a lot about a guy by which Firefly girl he goes for. 99% go for Inara or Kaylee, the occasional one goes for River, but I’ve never once heard a guy go for Zoe. Clearly, none of you have ever been with a warrior woman!
You can buy them all here.
I also found some art nouveau versions of Starbuck and Boomer, from Battlestar Galactica, by Deviantartist Moon-Pookah.
Mudron’s got a new piece out too, although it isn’t art nouveau. It’s more of a Japanese woodblock print knockoff, featuring Madame Vastra and Jenny battling a pair of Cybermen. And it’s awesome! Click to embiggen.
And finally, a little piece of whimsy to brighten this horribly hot and sticky day: The Doctor and the Little Prince, by Deviant artist JaviDLuffy.
Love
MacGuffin
Other posts about Poster Art
Art Nouveau Slave Leia, sinful Disney princesses, and more
Late Breaking Doctor Who Art News!
Star Wars Propaganda posters, redux. Also Doctor Who, Mad Men, Battlestar, etc
Variations on a theme: Game of Thrones
Poster art roundup: Ghostbusters, Narnia, Tron etc.
Dalek Propaganda Posters and Doctor Who Miscellany
Vintage Star Wars Posters (its a compulsion, OK?)
Dear Puffin
What do you suppose these are photographs of? Try to guess. They’re by Norwegian photographer Christopher Jonasson, and they sure are beautiful. Can’t guess?
I thought they were planets.
My dad thought they were pearls.
David thought they were old lightbulbs.
My mom thought they were old marbles.
Everyone was wrong. They’re old frying pan bottoms! You can buy prints from his website here. These are so cool! I want to frame these and hang them in my kitchen.
Love
MacGuffin
Other posts categorized as art:
Created Equal: Mark Laita’s Diptych Photography
Food for Thought: The Value of a Dollar Project
Dear Puffin
I know you are a big fan of urban exploration, so I think you’ll get a big kick out of this book, which was written by an urban explorer, as well as the making-of video that the author made. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children incorporates vintage photos, not just as illustration, but as integral elements of the plot. How does this tie into urban exploration, you ask? Well, like all the best children’s books, the story involves a huge ramshackle house on an island on the other side of the world. And the author, being a conscientious sort of fellow, went to Belgium to find just the right house. Incidentally the author’s name is Ransom Riggs, which may just be the perfect name for a children’s book author.
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children who once lived here—one of whom was his own grandfather—were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a desolate island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.
Mr Riggs seems to be quite the urban explorer. There are a bunch of smashing pictures (see them all over at Mental Floss) of his trip to Poveglia in the Venice Lagoon, which has at various times been a quarantine and burial site for victims of the Bubonic Plague, leading to claims that the soil is 50% human ash, and more recently an institution which was either a mental hospital run by a mad butcher who went insane from guilt and threw himself off the roof, or a perfectly nice rest home for the elderly. Stories differ. Here are a few of my favorite shots, but I recommend reading the whole article, the story is worth it.
Heres another collection, this time of Bombay Beach in California:
Bombay Beach may be the most famously depressing place in California; the poster child for the post-apocalypse. On the edge of the dying Salton Sea, an enormous body of water half the size of Rhode Island and so salty and polluted that by 2030 no fish will be able to survive in it, there is a town. There are several towns, actually, along the Salton’s 70+ miles of rancid coastline, but the most intact, the most iconically awful, is Bombay Beach.
He even made a video about it, which Roger Ebert gave a thumbs up to. It’s freaking creepy.
Here are some pictures of the Mojave Air and Spaceport. (It’s a spaceport! A real spaceport!!!)
The Mojave Air and Spaceport, as it’s officially known, isn’t just a graveyard for inactive planes. It’s an active airport, home to one of the nation’s only civilian test pilot schools, and most famously the place where Space Ship One was developed and performed the first privately-funded human spaceflight in 2004. But it also functions as a giant parking lot for hundreds of jets owned by dozens of different entities, from major airlines to private individuals. If an airline doesn’t anticipate needing some of its planes for an extended period of time, it’s much cheaper for them to park those planes in the desert and have maintenance crews check them out once every few weeks than to keep them active.
I hope these will tide you over till we can launch an adventure of our own.
Love
MacGuffin
Dear Puffin
Wonderful news! I have located Bill Mudron‘s artistic doppleganger! Remember the incredible art nouveau Doctor Who posters? (How could you forget them, since I bring them up every 3 minutes?) Well Deviant Adam Hughes has done an art nouveau Slave Leia and my goodness Puffin, it’s hot enough to fry bacon on!
These look like a pair, right? But no! Slave Leia is by Adam Hughes (see above for fangirl gushing). But the La Dauphine aux Alderaan is by artist Karen Hallion. Why is this important? Because it means that there are two separate artists mucking about with this style!! Plus Bill Mudron! This is fantastic!
Karen Hallion also did a great illustration of Voldemort. I would like to nominate Karen Hallion as the cover illustrator for some fancy cloth bound edition of the Harry Potter series. Something with the same kind of productions values as Charles Van Sandwyk’s Wind in the Willows.
Soooo…. this started as a post about the Slave Leia picture, but then it sort of ballooned as I found more and more awesome art nouveau stuff.
Like this amazing Batman poster by Deviant Iamacoyfish, aka Karen Wang. Also Wonderwoman, who I’m not a huge fan of, but damn she looks lovely here.
Or this neat art nouveau Iron Man by John Tyler Christopher
For the Sherlock fans out there Nero749 has been hard at work on your behalf:
I’m not a huge fan of Disney princesses (that may be the understatement of the century), but I do like these 7 deadly sins (the 7 Disney sins? The 7 deadly Disney sins?) illustrations by Deviant Chill07, aka Chris. I really like how snarky they are!
(Psst: who the heck is that princess for wrath? I realize that I’m displaying ym ignorance of Disney princess mythology here, but I’ve never seen that girl)
Chris also did this wonderfully sinister drawing of the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty, a movie which scared the ever-loving crap out of me when I was 8 or 9.
This is a lovely Padme, found on Miss Chanou’s blog, but done by…… ? UPDATE: found it! She’s by Hriviel on deviantart.
And these two of Padme and Slave Leia are by deviant r4design.
Enjoy Puffin. I hope these fill you with some sort of artistic glee. They sure do for me.
Love
MacGuffin
Other posts about art
Vintage poster obsession strikes again!
Vintage Star Wars posters (it’s a compulsion, ok?)
Poster art roundup: Ghostbusters, Tron, The Chronicles of Narnia etc
Dalek propaganda posters and Doctor Who miscellany
Star Wars propaganda posters (Volume I)
An Implausibility of Gnus: Animal collective posters
Late breaking Doctor Who art news
Star Wars propaganda posters (Volume II)
Hogwarts travel posters and Star Wars propaganda (Volume III)
Dear Puffin,
I know you have a bad case of cold war nostalgia, so I thought you might get a kick out of these new office posters from the much-perviously-fawned-over Steve Thomas. They’re also available in blue on his blog.
We also have two new Star Wars propaganda posters from Deviant Comixmill.
And finally, to address one of my own obsessions, we have some Harry Potter travel posters by Caroline Hadilaksono, via Superpunch:
Thats all for now Puffin. I hope you had a merry 4th of July, wherever you are.
Love
MacGuffin
PS: for those who haven’t noticed, Puffin has not been around much lately. Rumor has it that he’s on assignment in the Upper Volta, but the government doesn’t tell me these things. Someday he will return, and until then all we can do is pray for his safety, and pray for mercy for his enemies.
Dear Puffin
Forbidden Planet is selling Doctor Who shirts for each of the Doctors. It is totally essential that I own all of these immediately. IMMEDIATELY!
I must tragically report that this glorious Art Nouveau style Inara appears to be a once off. I would give my right arm to see a full set of these, much in the style of Bill Mudron. But in the meantime Tiffany is a WINNER.
This purports to be a graphic representation of the development of Science Fiction. I’ll admit that I haven’t really looked at it in detail, but it looks pretty neat. Click to embiggen.
This leaves something to be desired graphically, but the thought behind it is so perfect that I’ll let it pass. From Deviant Summerfic
I also found some fun minimal comic book posters by Greg Guillemin
We also have Rebel Alliance and Imperial snowflakes. Yu can also get them as tshirts at Redbubble. I really want to get these somehow laser cut and available as Christmas tree ornaments.
And finally, someone possesses the greatest of all possible hot air balloons. A Darth Vader hot air balloon, for your delectation:
And on that note, I am off to frost a gigantic birthday cake. Because happy birthday Jeremy!
Love
MacGuffin (who is trying to decide between dark chocolate and bittersweet chocolate ganache for the frosting. Thoughts?)
Dear Puffin
Little known fact: I love silhouettes. I also love movie ephemera and art based on comics, tv shows, movies, etc. So Olly Moss’s Paper Cuts are basically a win-win for me. I found the Calvin and Hobbes one on Epbot and then went on a massive Olly Moss rampage. First I found the Paper Cuts blog and found all these, which were recently featured in a solo show at Gallery 1988. Can you recognize them all?
But then I found more and more stuff from Olly, and now I want to be his concubine. He came up with the Panic and Freak Out mug, that I adore, and can be purchased here.
He also did a series of video game posters based on old Penguin book covers which are EXCELLENT
And Raphi, this is for you:
So yeah, I think I love this guy.
MacGuffin
UPDATE: I also found this, which I think speaks for itself
