Viking

Created by the Emmy Award-winning creative collective called Shilo, Viking was created in collaboration with the Natural Museum of Denmark as part of an exhibit for the world's largest recovered Viking ship. The project was executed using a series of flash animated frames that were painted over by hand in Photoshop, frame by frame. Incredibly epic, and stylishly presented, Viking does a great job presenting the a little depth to these warriors, including showing a gentler side and a glimpse of their family life after battling to provide sustenance for them.

Prelude To Eden By Michel Gagne

Prelude to Eden is a 1995 animation created by Michel Gagne during his time at Don Bluth's animation studio. The animated short is a ground breaking one for the fact that it was the first one to be painted and composited digitally, while still retaining hand drawn, animated frames. The technology developed for this short (Animo) subsequently went on to be used on animated features including The Iron Giant, Space Jam, Osmosis Jones and many to come.

Michel Gagne took it upon himself to restore this short into an HD format and rerelease it 15 years after the fact, after finding out that the original tapes containing the short had become corrupted. Gagne has since contributed to projects including the excellent videogame called 'Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet,' and an animated followup to his famous children's book, 'The Story Of Rex.'

The LEGO® Story

In honor of the 80th anniversary of Lego (1932-2012), the company has released an awesome little look back at the history, and humble beginnings of the company as a carpentry business. The CG animated retelling of the companies history goes into the idea of a carpenter called Ole Kirk Christiansen, who spun a wooden toy idea into the famous interlocking brick business millions have come to love.

It's an amazing story of a man with an ambition, who one day took the Danish phrase 'Leg Godt,' which meant 'Play well' and created the famous company name (It also means 'I put together' in Latin).

If you've ever loved the plastic bricks, you'll love hearing about how this company came to be, especially when it came to Ole's uncompromising standards when it came to quality. The story spans 3 generations, and features a narration from the perspective of the latest generation of the Christiansen line.

A Look Back At Retro Gaming In Japan

This 14 minute video from the Japanese Youtube user/archivist known as Soikll3 covers over a decade of amazingly retro videogame adverts, covering everything from crude handheld LCD games, imported American systems, and glorified calculators up to the advent of the groundbreaking Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom) and Super Nintendo. I honestly had no idea what the pre-Nintendo gaming landscape was like in  Japan till I saw this, so I can definitely appreciate the historical value of archiving and compiling these ads together.

As a bonus, I threw in another amazing compilation I found randomly while browsing Soikll's massive archive last night, featuring half a decade of hilarious ads that Arnold probably assumed the West would never know of.

Roman Army Knife: Not Quite Victorinox

Maximus probably had one of these too. (Via)

In what would be a little expedition through the world wide web domains, I came across this amazing little artifact, the ancient cousin of what we know as a Swiss Army knife/multi tool. Many people also have this belief that the Victorinox emblazoned tool was developed by the actual Swiss, but it was actually the product of a German company first released in 1891. The silver and iron multitool pictured above dates back to the 3rd century Roman Empire featured a fork, spoon, knife, toothpick and a spike.

Its pretty amazing to think that this type of technology, which provided utility on the battlefield dates that far back. Check out more images after the break!

Florence Fight Club

In some areas of Italy, its all abut maintaining tradition and keeping old practices alive.. This version of soccer, known as 'Calcio Storico' (Historical Soccer) is a tradition that goes back to the 16th century..In which gladiators representing various houses would battle in this no holds barred version of football. Its so violent that the only move that is banned is kicking people in the face. But hey, fists are ok! Must be a great way to destress, and maybe lose a few teeth in the process.