Why Don't We Taxidermy Humans

The good folks at V Sauce present a very interesting short video in which they explains different ways by which a human corpse could be preserved, and the legal and technical reasons preventing the taxidermy of human beings.

It is a must watch for anyone interested in what happens post death. Also, if you go on youtube, in the description of the videos, there is a cornucopia of links about the different subjects addressed in the video.

Good to pass an hour or two of your time!

Insects Preserved in Amber (NOT!)

Carim Nahaboo, Illustrator and all around great artist, shared on his blog these pictures of what looks like ancient insect specimens preserved in amber.

However, he created those beautiful things by the much simpler (and quicker) method of casting the insects in tinted polyester.

This method should probably be quite simple to replicate with a little resin casting know-how, and has the potential to produce quite convincing fakes; right now, I imagine mixing this process with Shadow Manor's mummified fairy tutorial I covered before.


More pictures HERE and HERE.

Alligator Boy Hatchling for Sale

The talented Steve Cotroneo at Autumn's Oddities currently has a gorgeous, creepy alligator boy gaff for sale on Ebay.

According to the listing, it is made of latex, polymer clay and urethane foam, and comes nestled with an authentic ostrich egg inside its wooden crate.

At 350$, it's a bit too expensive for a broke student such as me, but considering it's a piece of original art, it's still quite a good deal!

Artist Feature - R. S. Connett (possibly NSFW)

Hey there!

First off, let me introduce you to something I want to implement in this blog.

When you take a look of my posting history, you can see it is very sporadic. If we take the year 2011 for example, we could even say "non existent". This is something that I need to remedy, so I started wondering why posts didn't happen more often.

The reason I came through was that although I am quite passionate about the content that comes into this blog, I simply have to broad a range of interests to cater exclusively to this niche of which my blog is part. Thus, when you see months that are busier than others, it's simply that in these periods, instead of sharpening my woefully poor animation skills, or perhaps painting a few canvases, I crafted something nifty that I wanted to share with you, and thus dove right back into this creepy crafting niche.

Thus, I believe if I want to make my posting more regular, I should broaden a bit the range of topics I discuss over here, and perhaps talk about other things I'm passionate about. One such interests is art history, and visual arts in general.

In this mindset, I thought about featuring now and then artists whose works I enjoy, and which would fit in the general thematic of my blog (i.e.: no kittens and cute little cherubs!). Sometimes, it'll be artists with an historical importance, artists whom everyone and their mothers know about, but whose work I believe should continue being celebrated. Other times, it shall be more underground artists, folks who don't know much fame, but have the talent and creativity to catch my attention. This, I hope, will garnish the pages of my blog, and will be of interest to you guys.

In any case, the first artist I want to present to you is Robert Steven Connett.

HADES, R.S. Connett, ACRYLIC on Canvas - 16" x 16" 

Hominid

A short, creepy animation by Brian Andrews based on his series of photo composites mixing human and animal parts.


Hominid from Brian Andrews on Vimeo.


I love how the shading of the characters so closely ressemble diaphonized animal specimens, a chemical process which stains the skeleton and makes the flesh transparent.

Photo of diaphonized minnows from The Brain Scoop

Via The Art of Darkness

Amazing Robotic Dress

From Youtube:
"Exploration within the realms of robotic dresses; a spider dress gave birth. A cute little host creature created by fashiontech designer ANOUK WIPPRECHT and hacker & engineer DANIEL SCHATZMAYR - A prototype of a mechanic dress equipped with sensors indicators and controllers, created with the aim to give more power and 'psychological thrills' to the sugar sweet character that performative wearables often have. Sensoric, servo controlled, mechanic, microcontroller based and reacting//attacking upon approach, inspired by the game LIMBO. "



Via Neatorama

The Hand of Glory - Part 2

The hand of Glory is finally finished, looking all pretty in its shadow box, and ready to... hang! (BWAHAHAHAHA! HANG! like, it's already been hung? y'know, hand of a hangman? no? someone?)

If you stumbled here first, I strongly recommend you to read Part 1 of this tutorial, 'cause we're jumping to the finishing touches right after the break!

The Hand of Glory - part One

In the good old days where you could be accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake for the simple act of living past 40 years old (Caveat Lector! I may or may not be making this up.), the european continent was riddled with strange and creepy beliefs.

One of those was the Hand of Glory; the mummified hand of a criminal who died at the gallows. It was believed that lighting a candle, made from the fat of the same man, or each individual finger, depending to whom you ask, would plunge a whole household in a deep sleep, which would last until the flame had been snuffed, either with blood or milk.

This made the Hand of Glory the perfect tool for burglars and other sly folks with crime on their minds.

Following the reading of this post by the good spirit behind Propnomicon (Is it a man? a woman? an unspeakable horror? who knows!), I decided to make myself a mummified hand. Not only that, I was also going to make it with some ghetto-ass materials.

The Finger of Nephren-Ka

Propnomicon just posted pictures and a very detailed walkthrough of a mummified human finger prop he recently made, using traditional gaff making techniques. The results & presentation are quite impressive, and makes me want to try making a whole hand. That's definitively on my to-do list.

You can go take a look at it and gather all the info you need by clicking HERE.