The Serpent Princess

Barbarians, buxom babes in distress and giant serpents: The three ingredients for The Serpent Princess, a short film created as the opening for the 19th Russian animation festival called Suzdal 2014. Playing out like a scene straight out of a Frank Frazetta painting, mighty beasts are felled, battlecries are heard, and a bound prisoner looks on, hopeful to be rescued.

The absolutely fluid animation seemed a little familiar, until I realized that it was created by Team Arctq17, who also directed an earlier opening for the 2013 Suzdal festival called The Goose. If anything I wish The Serpent Princess was something a little more long form after getting a taste of this particular barbarian's utter badassitude.

The Art of Halil Ural

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As soon as I saw Halil Ural's portfolio, I knew I had to post him on Awesome Robo. Gorgeous color compositions, a brilliant pulp sci-fi aesthetic, and epic alien worlds both bizarre and beautiful. It's genuinely hard to look through his work and have to choose which pieces to spotlight, this guy is sick.

Halil is a professional illustrator based out of Turkey. Besides just being all around awesome, he also created the impressive cover and promotional art for the action platform-shooter Gunlord. Check after the break for more of his artwork!

Chromeo - "Come Alive"

Chromeo returns with an amazing new electro funk jam, taking a page out of the amazingly cheesy 1987 movie Mannequin, which revolved around a man falling in love with a magical store mannequin. Starring Toro Y Moi's Chaz Bundick as a janitor and Chromeo's very own Dave 1 as a dreamy mall dweller, they both bust out their best moves on a small armada of truly sexy mannequins who come to life. Tracks don't get much catchier than this.

Kim Jung Gi - The Insane Dakar Rally Drawing Timelapse

More madness from the Korean artist who's been described multiple times as a 'god of freehand' drawing, this demonstration time lapse from a performance at Pohang (포항) will blow you away. In this demonstration Kim creates a sprawling scene of a Dakar rally-esque pit stop and rest area. Dozens of intricate vehicles, dozens of characters and a grasp on perspective and foreshortening that's just...Dizzying. No layout, no sketches in advance, it's all improvised from the incredibly expansive visual library he's accumulated in his head over the years.

And as a medium? A simple Pentel brush pen on a large sheet of paper. However, we should all know by now that it's not the tool that makes the artist, but the other way around. More of Kim Jung Gi's work coming soon.

Brian Whitmore's Blur Animation Reel

If you're unfamiliar with Blur Animation studios at this point, they're THE premiere North American animation studios specializing in cinematic production for video game studios and other mediums. I'd estimate about 60-70% of triple A studios have at some point commissioned Blur to create their cinematics and marketing pieces over the last few years, as they're just that good at it. Animator Brian Whitmore just recently released an impressive reel showcasing a sampling of his work in the cinematic animation department.

In just the last two years alone they've worked on the cinematics for Batman - Arkham Origins, Elder Scrolls Online, League of Legends, Dishonored, Halo 4, Planetside 2, Farcry 3, Overstrike, Dark Souls II as well as plenty of commercials and cinematic work (Including their successful effort to create the cinematic adaptation of Eric Powell's The Goon). On a side note, if anyone can identify the untitled final segment showcased in his reel, we'd love to know what it is.

3A Shows Off Invincible Ironman Prototype Toy

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I'm not even the biggest Iron Man fan, but leave it to Ashley Wood and his amazing 3A Toy team to turn me into a believer. Approached by Marvel to do his own take on an Iron Man themed toy, Ashley was given cart blanche to do his own interpretation of their property, as well as handing his company the rights to Doctor Doom, Ultron and Spiderman, as well as other as of yet unannounced characters.

No word on the scale or details yet, but based off my experience I'm guessing it'll be a 1/6 scale with a buttload of articulation, awesome light up features throughout and a price point of about $200-300. Start saving up! More shorts of this awesome proto right after the break!

Worth Checking Out - Confederate Express

Confederate Express taps into an awesome retro blend of franchises, including Shadow Run, Xcom, the older isometric Fallout installments and other titles from the golden age of pixel games. This little gem of a tactical RPG is the brain child of Maksym Pashanin and a small team, who are intending to bring the classic genre back with a vengeance with a newly crafted pixel engine that brings that mixes retro visuals with modern lighting effects.

The entire premise of Confederate Express (ConEx for short) is pretty fun as well, starring yourself as a post apocalyptic mailman attempting to deliver packages while faced off against a horde of technologically induced zombies. Depending on the attributes of the package, the gameplay changes..The more difficult the delivery, the higher the rewards: Gear, weapons, mercenaries and branching paths, with a sprinkling of permadeath to up the ante.

With the addition of moddable weapons, a permanent crew and skill trees to boot, this game is shaping up to be an awesome gameplay experience. ConEx is currently halfway through Kickstarter funding, but it has an incredible array of unlockable stretch goals that really need to get funded. Throw some money their way over on their page!

Hyper Light Drifter Releases First In-Game Combat Footage

If you've been following the indie gaming scene you might be familiar with the name "Hyper Light Drifter", a Kickstarter-funded top-down action adventure game known for its pulsing soundtrack (courtesy of FEZ's Disasterpeace), its direct design inspirations (Legend of Zelda, Diablo), and its dreamy mythic atmosphere, like if Journey met Nausicaä. Also, for demolishing its set goal of $27,000 within 24-hours and winning the praise and endorsement of publications across the Internet.

Now after a brief period of PR-hibernation, the developers have released the first extended look at the game's combat system to both backers and general audience alike. This is all early-alpha footage, subject to change. But if I may venture to say: Damn, Hyper-Light Drifter. You are looking mighty fine.

The Art of Jon Fox, "Soul of a Giant"

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U.K.-based oil painter Jon Fox is a mixed-media artist whose body of work resembles what a series of Ukiyo-e paintings would look like if they got hit with a blast from the digitizing grid laser from Tron. Feuding giants and beautiful Japanese architecture are reduced to their most raw and basic shapes and colors, components and emotions.

Drawing a wealth of inspiration from the separate yet equal worlds of animation, fine painting, and experimental architecture, Fox crafts a world of geometric dreamscapes overflowing with otherworldly oddities, spilling out from the point in space where Miyazaki-esque fever dreams and computer meltdowns collide.

Worth Checking Out - River City Ransom "Underground" Looks Amazing

I can't believe we didn't see this earlier, but with three days to go it's them to shed light on the unlikeliest sequel we've ever run into on Kickstarter - a direct sequel to the incredibly charming River City Ransom, an early Technos beat em up from 1990 with pseudo-RPG elements. Now the interesting part about Conatus Creative's approach to this sequel is that they're still sticking to the original NES aesthetics from a visual and sound perspective, but beefing up the animations, scope and character cast. It's a departure from most sequels or reboots, which have always attempted to reboot visuals to mixed results.



In terms of a better explanation of just how updated NES visuals might look like, the team did a really cool job showing that off with their Underground fighting trailer, which shows some truly diverse fighting styles, long form combos and even...Kaneda's bike(?). If anything it looks like this might contribute to replay value along the lines of Castle Crashers, which excelled in compelling players to replay the game to find new characters with different gameplay abilities.

And to top that off, one of the coolest 'cherry on top' selling points came in the form of the fact that Yoshihisa Kishimoto is on the team as a creative consultant, the man behind Double Dragon and Renegade, a title that ended up inspiring River City Ransom. The team also has Rich Vreeland on board, the composer behind the excellent Fez soundtrack as well as another Kickstarter project we recently featured, Hyper Light Drifter. With only a few days to go, you still have time to get on the awesome preorder goodies that they're offering, so check out their project page and back away!

The Olympians

The Olympains is a stylized short animation featuring the Gods of Olympus as they reign their fury down upon the city of London. It's a fast and frantic animation that uses a low-poly count to great effect, offering a unique display of action. I really dig the geometric quality, it adds an interesting level of simplicity to the frantic action on screens and adds an interesting spin on the God design, which holds a similar feel to the style used in God of War.

Ian Finch-Field's Wearable Art

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We've seen steampunk, but we haven't seen steampunk done as throrough and beautiful as this.  Canadian artist/craft-maker Ian Finch-Field's work in wearable art (or, costume, I suppose) is absolutely stunning, and I find myself just pouring over his deviantart page. Some of his work can also be found on etsy.

More after the break!

The M Machine - "Tiny Anthem"

The folks at The M Machine collaborated with the folks behind Superjail! and Ugly Americans to create a truly amazing retro-futuristic visual accompaniment to their latest track from Metropolis Part II, released by Skrillex's label OWSLA about a week ago.

Check it out on the official page for their latest album, and if you're into this be sure to take a gander at the work of the French DJ crew Birdy Nam Nam for a similar style, down to the visuals. A Soundcloud sampling of some more tracks and some kickass album art after the break.

The Art Of Taemin Park

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Taesi (Taemin Park) is a South Korean illustrator who caught our eye via his work on Riot's League Of Legends MOBA. Having started off as a fanart artist on the forums, Taemin progressed up to being a freelance contributor to the game, offering designs for skins and splash screen art for characters.

Taemin also regularly contributes to a variety of other MMO's and App store titles, including Galaxy Saga (Which is pretty fun). With an affinity for creating some truly badass female warriors, Taemin has carved himself out a pretty good niche. Check out more awesomeness after the break!

The Reward

This student project from the Animation Workshop in Denmark is one of the more awesomely original animated shorts I've seen in a while.  The dialogue-less story is told through emotion and the interesting art style.  In short, it's about two men on a quest for some sort of treasure.  The payoff is played out well, if a bit cliche.  But I think there's some truth in the story as a whole: Everyone wants to be a badass sometimes all the time.  In roughly 9 minutes we're given a pretty damn cool story, one that I'd personally like to see made into a mini series or full length film.

Memorize

Created/directed by Eric Ramberg and Jimmy Erickson, 'Memorize' is the short film about a future (2027, to be exact) where humans are implanted with a memory chip utilized by law enforcement during the course of criminal investigations.  It's definitely stylish, and futuristic looking without appearing hokey.  Check out the Ramberg and Erickson's production blog over here for more info!

Playing With Fire

Rather ironically, we came across two rather badass videos that include some risky games with fire. In the first above, a group in El Salvador decide to arrive in some rough looking face paint before playing what looks like fire dodgeball. While I won't find myself playing such a game anytime soon, I was entertained in a "Are they seriously doing this?" sort of way, watching from the safety of my home office. But then comes along a man and his fire whip (see video below). It's a self shot home video of him doing a cool routine with the fire whips, in a way that reminded us of Ivan Vanko from 'Iron Man 2'.

Animated Tower

This has to be one of the most rad projects that I've seen in a long time. A tall building, all with sliding windows, create a animated pixel effect for super entrancing video. I don't even want to begin to think how long this must have took. Between closing the shutters, the glass, and the occasional cheers, it all comes together awesomely to create a super cool effect. Pairing up with the pixel effect is a chill, somewhat electronic tune that is basically on loop the entire video.

The Man With The Iron Fists - Red Band Trailer (NSFW)

Written by RZA and Eli Roth, comes this badass looking film, The Man with the Iron Fists. Set in feudal China, RZA (yep, the writer, starring actor, AND director of the film) plays a blacksmith who must come to the defense of villagers. The movie also stars Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, and Dave Bautista, who I might mention, looks particularly awesome as 'Brass Body.' This martial arts film has some gnarly and creative looking weaponry, as shown in this obviously NSFW red band trailer. Announced back in 2008, the film was filmed from 2010-2011 and will finally be released in the US on November 2, 2012. Goddamn, it looks amazing.

Movies R Fun by Josh Cooley

Pixar artist Josh Cooley put together a really awesome "kids" book, á la Little Golden Books. The premise? Awesome yet inappropriate famous movie scenes. He covers Alien, The Big Lebowski, Fight Club, Terminator, and many other classics. While my memories of Little Golden Books consist of "Hush, Hush, It's Sleepy Time" (totally an actual title), I think a fine book such as Cooley's will finally usher me into adulthood. Though sold out at the moment, you can buy a bunch of "Movies R Fun" prints at Cooley's store! The entire picture link is above, just click through for more!