RoboGal's Weekly Cute Mixtape

"A bath?! Bit of an overreaction, yes?" (Via)

You were all thisclose to missing out on the Cute Mixtape this week: I thought it was Wednesday, and that I had already done it yesterday. So, for your mid to late day pick-me-up, I have brought you my weekly offering of silly and sweet beasts.

More after the break!

Art Of Zach Montoya

Digital Identity (Via)

Zach Montoya is a half Filipino, West coast illustator/freelancer with a cool style that mixes painterly and graphic elements to create some very eye catching pieces. Good illustrators employ this technique to great effect, creating an eye popping visual contrast between the different elements in illustrations. I really enjoyed his more surreal works, and hope to see a lot more work from the artist, who has a relatively small portfolio at the moment. Its interesting seeing the styles of up and coming artists coming together over time, and seeing a distinct, reoccurring visual language develop. Check out more of Zach's illustrations after the break!

Making Of The Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings Intro

It seems this week is getting off to a Witcher flavored start. I recently ran into Platige Image's making of featurette, showcasing all the visual R&D that went into creating the beautiful, and impressively violent intro for the game. Making of up top, fantastic final intro below. The intro was directed by Tomek Baginski for CD Projekt.

Mass Effect 3 : Best Worst Ending

As the ongoing debate rages on as to how Bioware will 'address' the entire Mass Effect 3 without compromising their 'artistic vision,' there's been no lack of awesome parodies exploring how the revised trilogy will come to an end. Egoraptor recently jumped into the fray with a group of awesome animator friends to deliver 5 mind blowing endings, as well as totally destroying any notion that gamers could have come up with a better ending. Go figure!

Wasa By Michael Lahal

We featured Michael Lahal back in 2011 for his 'Arrange Your Room' animated short, and he's back with a brand new short bringing the infamous 1999 'Whassup' Budweiser ad into the animated realm. I think this was the 1999 equivalent of 'taking an arrow to the knee.'

Ted: The Red-band Trailer

I'm a huge Family Guy fan, I've spent countless hours watching episodes over and over on TBS, Cartoon Network, Netflix, etc. I've seen most of the episodes several times over, and it just doesn't get old to me. That is, up until a few seasons ago. I'm not sure what happened, but the newer stuff just wasn't doing it for me anymore and its been on a steady decline. Same goes for American Dad, which I never got into as well as the countless awful spinoffs which aren't really worth mentioning. Seth MacFarlane is making his first foray into films, with his teddy bear comes to life story, Ted.

Based on the recently released red-band trailer, the style and humor is very notably MacFarlane-esque. The two main characters (one played by Mark Wahlberg, the other voiced by MacFarlane) seem to have a Peter/Brian relationship going on. I didn't finish the trailer thinking, "OMG, I can't wait!", but I quietly chuckled at least once or twice. The US release is July 13, 2012, so it seems like it could be a brainless summer entry. Nothing out of this world perhaps, but worth a few guilty laughs.

Zweizwei's Singapore Timelapse

This beautifully graded timelapse by Zweizwei covers the incredible city of Singapore, and is arguably one of the best I've seen yet. Set to the classic Young Blood track by The Naked And Famous, this timelapse offers some truly beautiful, grand sweeping shots of the incredibly progressive Southeast Asian city. Vibrant and stimulating, this is the perfect type of video to awaken your senses on a Monday morning.

The Art Of Sam Weber

The Crow Procedure (Via)

Sam Weber is a Brooklyn based artist who has been making waves over the last few years with his excellent mixed media approach to illustration. Incorporating the old with the new, Sam typically starts off his paintings with a mix of watercolor and acrylics before finishing doing a digital treatment. What I love about this approach is that it gives his work a truly natural, textural quality typically missing from digital art, mixed with smoky, at times unsettling compositions. After studying Sam Weber's work, I kind of realized that he's inspired quite a few other artists with his groundbreaking process, which brings to mind artists like Jeff Simpson.

The caliber of Sam's work has brought him a great deal of amazing projects, not limited to illustrating the covers and inside illustrations of various literary classics from the last few decades. Among some of the projects he's been involved in: Lord Of The Flies, Fahrenheit 451 and Ender's Game. I think any artist who looks at his approach of bringing the best of both worlds (Analog and digital) would agree that he's created something truly unique, and striking. Check out more of Sam's beautiful work after the break!

Tokyo Jungle Continues To Confuse And Amaze

Tokyo Jungle has truly never failed to blow my mind since its first appearance in 2010, with its absolutely baffling, yet intriguing premise. The game, set in a deserted Japan features a veritable smorgasboard of animals competing to survive in an urban jungle with an action survival gameplay style.

With a stable of over 50 playable breeds, and 80 types of animals, I'm actually starting to feel like I'd actually play this game due to the sheer variety of gameplay styles that this game will probably offer. The fact that you'll be able to grow packs to have strength in numbers against larger, more dedicated predatory animals is a cool gameplay element that will even out the playing field. Single player will focus on figuring out what happened to humanity through missions played through the perspective of a Pomeranian and a race horse. I can appreciate this concept for its sheer originality, so I'll be keeping an eye out for more updates. The game is set to release in Japan on June 7, 2012 with no mention of US localization just yet.

Attack Of The Batmobiles : The Purpose

A few images featuring all the Batmobiles from every incarnation of the series in one place have been circulating recently. What I assumed was a meeting of some collectors with some seriously deep pockets turned out to be an event organized by WB on March 30th, 2012 to shoot some bonus footage for the Dark Knight Rises Bluray release, whenever that's going to happen.

Josh Turchetta, an avid movie vehicle fan (Judging from his other videos) shot this up close and personal footage, showcasing Batmobiles going all the way back to the Adam West version of Batman. Check out a bonus video of an incredible replica of the Ghostbusters Ecto1 from Josh after the break!

The Witcher: Assassin Of Kings Animated Teaser

The developers over at Cd Project, the studio behind The Witcher 2 recently released this cool short animated video that expands on both the story and traits of a Witcher, giving us a little bit more background story about the mythos surrounding these characters. The short uses the same techniques employed for Guild Wars 2, by using static images as the base and giving them a sense of movement via Aftereffects and other post processing tools. Enjoy!

April Fools Roundup

I'd drop my life savings on this, Kodak (Via)

April Fools everyone! Though we didn't try and trick anyone with some elaborate joke about the website shutting down this year, many other sites did! Some of them were actually pretty cool, funny and original. We already covered the Google 8bit Map and IGN's Mass Effect cartoon, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites from other websites. Check them out after the break!

Harry Partridge Sends Mass Effect Back To The 80's

Harry Partridge decided to be sane today and simply drop a new video on April Fools, showcasing the 'upcoming' 80's flavored cartoon about the Mass Effect crew. Commander Shepard and the gang have to make a difficult decision between saving earth from the Reapers, or making it to the battle of the bands. Which priority will reign supreme? The power of bionic rock will determine the outcome.

Foosball : The Teaser Trailer

Academy Award-winning Argentine filmmaker Juan José Campanella (best known for the thriller El secreto de sus ojos, or The Secret in their Eyes) is making his foray into animated films with Foosball (also known as Metegol). The film is about, you guessed it, foosball. The tabletop soccer players come to life to assist an underdog when he needs to go against a pro soccer star, in an attempt to save his village.

I'm getting some initial Toy Story-esque vibes (not a stretch, I know), but for some reason I have a feeling that will probably not be the case. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking, only time will tell. That is, if we get a US release date, which we don't at this point in time. However, since a English-language teaser trailer was released for a film that will reportedly be in Spanish, I have high hopes. We'll keep on eye on this, and update as we learn more.

Exothermic By Ognian Bozikov

Exothermic was an interesting short to watch, created by Ognian Bozikov during a 3 month break from college as an application of various techniques and concepts he'd been wanting to experiment with. The end result is unsettling, disturbing and all around solid. The short follows a girl experiencing a sort of nervous breakdown, traversing the world in a sort of manic dream state before ending up back where she started. The short brought back memories of Jacob's Ladder and David Lynch films, especially with the whole aspect of turning an otherwise normal looking environment into a bizarre, distorted version of reality.

Ognian was nice enough to release a really cool making of called 'Innards' with Exothermic, showcasing the incredible amount of post processing work that went into creating this striking short.

Swedish House Mafia : Absolut Sellout

There's been an increasing amount of product placement in music videos recently, ranging from subtle to obnoxious and in your face. Swedish House Mafia, the Stockholm based DJ collective just decided to walk a fine line with this interesting music video. Lets just say that the concept of the music video was really well executed, featuring a futuristic greyhound race taking place in a desert.

The music is typical club fare, but the fact that the music video is littered with shots of Absolut Vodka bottles just felt a little forced and heavy handed. I know its a collab between the two, but where's the subtlety here? From the statements released those affiliated with this project, it looks like they couldn't be more excited about this genius, revolutionary piece of in your face product placement. Brace yourself for what the creative directors of this music video had to say about this piece of 'high art':