The Naked and Famous - "Hearts Like Ours"

New Zealand based post-punk bank The Naked & Famous along with director Campbell Hooper have released the music video to the track Hearts Like Ours.  The series of imagery are on the surreal side, with a sense of tranquility, and a few interweaving moments of various hardships.  Full of emotion, and the occasional bursts of energy, it has a lot going on with being over the top.

It Is Not Meant To Be

Created by UK-based Ben Pearce, It Is Not Meant To Be is a wonderfully bright animated short set to Tame Impala's song of the same name.  Beginning at ocean abyss, the camera continually pans upward, giving us a glimpse of a stylized, almost whimsical look at the natural world.  The use of light is exceptionally lovely, from the first ray of light shone through the dark water all the way until the end.  I have to say, on top of the cool animation, Pearce picked a really nice and chill track to go along with it. This is the kind of thing I could have on loop in the background.

Mickey Mouse In "Panda-Monium"

Mickey Mouse resumes his international travels following a brief stint of causing much trouble in his more local haunts. Plagued with a bad case of trying to get a perfect shot of a cute panda at a Chinese zoo, Mickey finds himself faced with an entire crew of zoo fauna obsessed with photoboming his shots. One of the coolest art direction aspects in Panda-Monium comes in the form of traditional Chinese guó huà painting style present in the backgrounds, done with a watercolor style on textured paper.

Cornelis

Japanese animator Ayaka Nakata just recently re-released a high definition version of her moody short called Cornelis, offering a somewhat macabre interpretative dance executed by a color shifting, bowler hat donning protagonist who dives into his imagination, liberating himself from any concept of gravity in the process. The short was originally screened in a limited capacity in Asia, Italy and Brazil and is noteworthy for it's rather unsettling score and sound treatment.

The Beautiful Illustrations Of Chris Schloe

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Christian Schloe is an incredibly talented Chilean illustrator who captivated us with his incredible, surreal visions of themes including love, loss and introspection. Over the course of his career, Schloe has shared very little personal information about himself, instead opting to duck behind a quote from The Last Unicorn writer Peter S. Beagle, 'anything can happen in a world that holds such beauty.'

This simple quote paints a picture of the artists potentially cup half full approach to life and art, although his heavily surreal pieces at times mix the beauty of life with themes of strong personal despair and longing. Schloe's aesthetic are also frozen in time, beckoning to a romantic, Victorian era of painting. Schloe just appeared earlier this year on Facebook, and sells prints of his work via his Redbubble and Society6 pages. Check out more of his beautiful illustrations after the break.

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.

Savant: Ascent Is An Insane Deal For An Awesome Platformer/SHMUP

How much entertainment can you get with $2? Quite a bit with the platforming SHMUP Savant: Ascent a game based off of EDM artist SAVANT. The game is absolutely brutal in terms of the amount of enemies it throws at you, although I wouldn't say it's quite as painful as other titles on the market. Rather than flying, the game has you jumping back and forth as you dodge enemy fire while trying to destroy them yourself as it raises you to the top. It's an interesting twist for a genre that's been around as long as it has and it's quite refreshing. For $2 you can pick up the game over here, it's a steal for that price and you can expect many hours to be sealed away with this game.

Office Posture Matters

Seeing as we spend so much time sitting at the computer, this fun PSA is rather helpful. With bold, bright colors, and stylized design, production team Flikli explain how the modern person sits for far too many hours in the day, and the effects of doing so. If you have a sitting job, what are you supposed to do? Watch for some helpful tips, and enjoy the fun animation in the process!

Bravest Warriors (Minisode 1) - Moo-Phobia

While we sit tight and wait for the newest full length episode of Bravest Warriors and Bee & PuppyCat Cartoon Hangover has released their first minisode. I'd like to be first to admit that this minute long short might be the funniest of all the Bravest Warriors episodes. Yes it's filled with bodily function jokes, but there's really never an age where it stops being funny. 

I still can't get over the quality of animation Cartoon Hangover puts out as frequently as they do, but I suppose that's to be expected with the amount of quality animators they've brought on board.

The Art Of Deseo-One

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Deseo-One is an Austin based freelancer who employs a style and philosophy similar to that of Terada Katsuya, the 'draw wherever, whatever, whenever' principle. Deseo's style is built on a solid lineart foundation, using color washes with the graphite texture below it to allow his cool comic style to shine through.

Using a mix of inspirations from Western and Japanese culture, Deseo-One's style embodies a lot of visual cues from Japanese mythology and tattoos with splashes of vibrant colors to execute some pretty damn cool pieces. The only thing he's missing with this cool formula is a comic all his own, which I'm hoping he'll get around to creating sometime soon. Check out more of his fun, colorful work after the break!

Music Video Roundup - Fka Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Vial Of Sound

Directed by Jesse Kanda, Water Me is an intimate, first look into the deeply personal world of British artist FKA Twig's deeply personal, surreal brand of music. This glitched out track about relationships was created in collaboration with IDM producer Arca, best known for his collab work with Kanye West. Kanda did an amazing job synchronizing the visuals to the dissonant aural aspects of the track, using post effects to transform FKA's face into a canvas of her deep sadness. FKA Twigs' 'EP2' is premiering October 9 on the Young Turks Label.

Wild Casting

The students of Les Gobelins have done it again with the very short, but awesome animation Wild Casting.  Created by a group of second year students, the team was comprised of  Nicolas Caffarel, Thomas Charra, Floriane Marchix, Jérémie Moreau, Baptiste Rogron, and Melvina Wong. Playing on MGM's classic roaring lion, the short tells the story of how such a lion came to be, at least in this short.  Aside from the fun short story, I especially loved the enviorment art, the vast and detailed cityscape.

The Sketchy Art Of JP Valderrama

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If there was one thing to capture my attention with artists, it's Akira fan art, which is what immediately drew me into the work of JP Valderrama. JP has an incredibly distinct style, using a sketchy look and filled in with some amazing color work. The results as you would expect are amazing. Using his distinct style JP's work covers a multitude of pop-culture references from comics, cartoons, to movies and they all end up looking amazing.

After the jump are a few more pieces, check them out!

Controller

Created by Saman Kesh, Controller is a pretty kickass scifi short regarding a psychically gifted female who turns her boyfriend into a killing machine to help rescue her from a shadowy, despotic organization. Part Akira, with a little bit of Ghost In The Shell sprinkled in (The live surveillance censoring is reminiscent of the Laughing Man sage), Controller was created as an international collaboration spanning teams in three countries: Taiwan, the UK and the United States.

Get ready for a kickass 8 minutes of psychokinetic brawling once the boyfriend dons his augmented helmet to help channel his girlfriends powers. Saman also simultaneously released a prequel called I_U for the short, which you can check out after the break to get a better feel of the backstory.

The Making Of ProgV's Lifesized Kitbash Mech

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Just a mech...but a life size model this time! over 4 meters tall!

These were the words that collectively blew the mind of the internet just a few days ago, when Chinese concept artist Prog Wang showed off what he'd done with his dad's retired Nissan truck. While kitbashing has been a popular concept with model kits and 3D programs like Google's Sketchup, I dont think anyone expected a 13 foot mech that looks like Hawken and reality collided.

Prog just shared a series of making of photos showing off the creation of the MA-TP (Mobile Armored Tactical Platform) mech from start to finish, in all it's gigantic kitbashed glory. Check it all out after the break, along with some notes from the creator himself.

Reminder - Dragon's Crown Releases Next Week

After a lengthy and drawn out development process, Vanillaware's side-scrolling beat-em-up Dragon's Crown is finally hitting stores next week. I feel like it's been an eternity since the same was announced, but the wait is nearly over. We got our hands on Dragon's Crown during E3 this year and we were pleasantly surprised at how solid the game's combat and controls felt. The incredible hand drawn art style of designer, George Kamitani is worth the purchase alone, but with a mixture of solid gameplay Dragon's Crown might be one of the best beat-em-ups to ever grace out hands.