Quick Pic: Mini Death Star

Mini Death Star Carved out of a Ping Pong Ball by tatumaru5963

This impressive miniature Death Star created from a ping pong ball and card stock recently appeared on a Japanese website along with some commentary by its creator “tatumaru5963″. It is reproduced here in broken English thanks to the magic of online translation:

“Things repeatedly cutting the ping-pong ball, plastic board was finely cut of 0.2, we reproduce the internal structure.”

Diorama: The Mystery Box

The Mystery Box by Mick Minogue

Mixed media diorama inspired by the worlds of J.J. Abrams. Created for the Bad Robot art experience at Gallery1988.  If you don't get the "Mystery Box" reference, you need to watch Abrams' explanation of where he draws inspiration for his writing at TED. (See the video below.) It's a fantastic talk.

Diorama: Ancient Marienburger

"Rime of the Ancient Marienburger" Warhammer diorama by GMM Studios

"Here is my finished Adepticon army. Thanks to all of those that followed and/or commented on my blog. I hope you like it!

It is inspired by Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem has always been a favorite and has inspired a lot of my other work and tastes in art. I love all things nautical (even though I rarely see the ocean funnily enough). Empire, cephalopods, old time imagery, movies, the trunk itself (a 100 year old family heirloom), and all things in, on, and around sailing ships have always been interesting to me, so they all come together to make an army that is very sentimental to me.

If anyone is interested in the process of building the display over the past month or so, please check out my blog thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/515905.page" 

Paintings: Tiny Paintings

Tiny Paintings by Turkish artist Hasan Kale

Kale paints on every small objects. Coins, needles, seeds, or even butterfly wings turn into canvases in his hands.

Diorama: Consolidated Life

"Consolidated Life" by David Lawrey and Jaki Middleton, 2010.

Exhibited at the Australian Museum of Arts and Design

"In Consolidated Life the artists have recreated the scene of a seemingly endless corporate office, a recurring motif that has been repeated in a sequence of films: The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928), The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960), The Trial (Orson Welles,1962) and The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen, 1994). This scene merges the mundane and the spectacular, and is a metaphor for all that is at once immense and insignificant."

Crafts: Movie Miniatures

Movie Terrariums by Face of the Earth

Terrariums available for purchase from Etsy. US$185 - US315

Rachel at Face of the Earth creates miniature ecosystems that are already populated with little lifeforms, along with the added bonus that they’re recognizable ones as well: you can find the Crystal Ship RV from Breaking Bad (along with Walt in his undies), the haunted house from Beetlejuice, and a Hobbit Hole with nary a Dwarf in sight to intrude.

"This terrarium is a 10" tall ecosystem. Inside this jar holds a VERY detailed miniature sculpture of a Lord of the Rings hobbit house, from the hanging lamp down to the sculpted bricks. Using reference from the films shots of the Baggins home, I sculpted a replicate of the structure which is built into a hill of moss, creating a multilevel terrarium. From the door a stone path leads to stairs. Reindeer moss, lichen and tiny fake flowers decorate the tiny, Middle-earth dwelling.

These terrariums create a sustainable ecosystem that you can keep anywhere in your home or office. With easy care instructions, anyone can care for these tiny worlds, from the most experienced botanist to those with a brown thumb. Included with your purchase is an easy care instruction fold.

Moss is harvested in the surrounding forests near me, and are 100% living and ready for someone to care for them!"

Papercraft: Minature Star Wars Ships

"Millennium Falcon" by David Canavese

"This Millennium Falcon model is approximately half an inch long (1.27 cm) and is made entirely from paper. It took about eight hours to complete."

Quick Pic: Feeding Time

"Feeding Time" by Yohanes Sanjaya

Sculpture: Bag End Bonsai

Bag End Bonsai by Chris Guise

Diorama: Battle of Hoth

Battle of Hoth Diorama by Barry

Source: Fighting 118th

"This dio is in my living room. Thanks for looking. No photoshop in any picture."

Barry had a spare 140 square feet in his living room. Some folks would've bought another couch, but Barry went in a different direction.  He re-created the Battle of Hoth in excruciating detail. Take a look! None of it is Photoshopped.

Link Round-Up: February 1, 2013

Micro-Fig Millennium Falcon by Flynn2000

Built for Palpatine's Shrink-O-Matic Ray Contest on FBTB.

These 55 Amazing Lego Riddles Will Push Your Brain to the Limit

This awesome King of the Hill animator's guide of "Do's and Dont's" demonstrates just how much thought goes into the composition of an animated television show.  Other users pointed the way to similar guides such as Brad Bird on How to Compose Shots and Storyboarding The Simpsons Way. Via: Reddit

Gizmodo celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the LEGO brick by remembering the Best LEGO Sets in History

S.H. Figuarts Iron Man Mark VI and War Machine pack a lot of firepower appeal, even if Iron Man 3 toys are already arriving in stores.

Crafts: Model of Bag End

Hand Made Model of Bag End by Maddie Chambers

When her twin sons were one, Maddie Chambers took a course on “the importance of play.” This model was her final assignment. She began with Warhammer scenery components, just making a little hill with a front door, but the project just got bigger and bigger. The end result was a complete Bag End “doll house” made entirely by hand.

"Anyway I decide to take on this project as part of a college course I was doing part time when my twins boys were 1 year old. The module was called ‘the importance of play’ and we had to make a toy to hand in at the end of the term. Of course me being me, I took it to the extreme and at first I decided to make a little hill with a front door like Bag End. I used to play Warhammer and make scenery and paint the little models so the idea was to make an A4 type size model hill using my Warhammer scenery stuff (foam, static grass etc) Yes I am a geek lol."

Installation: The Keyboard of Isolation

"The Keyboard of Isolation" by Jody Xiong of DDB China

"The Keyboard of Isolation" features thirty-six families depicted by hand-crafted nine-centimeter tall figurines sealed in 115 glass keys arranged in the shape of a five-meter long keyboard.  The tagline of the piece reads "go online and family is isolated."  Created for the Family Care for Grassroots Community in Shanghai, China, the piece is a commentary on computer addictions.

Sculpture: Microsculpture

Microsculptures by Willard Wigan

Diorama: Star Wars Models

These Star Wars dioramas were recently presented at the Shizuoka Hobby Show in Japan, and they pretty much blow every other Star Wars model you're ever seen out of the water.  In fact, I'm pretty sure a few of these are more detailed than the models actually used in the original films.

Source:  Gigazine

 

Crafts: San Francisco in Miniature

Scott Weaver's Rolling through the Bay from Learning Studio on Vimeo.

Artist Scott Weaver recently unveiled "Rolling Through the Bay," a toothpick Rube Goldberg machine of the Bay Area. A product of 35 years of work and over 100,000 toothpicks, the piece can be explored via a number of ball runs that take you through toothpick replicas of Bay Area sights and attractions.

Diorama: Miniature Apocalypse

Lori Nix's Stunning, Tiny Dioramas Depict an Abandoned World. For some reason, human beings can't get enough of imagining our own destruction. From REM and Roland Emmerich to National Geographic and NASA, the apocalypse never goes out of style. Now fine-art photographer Lori Nix is adding her eerie vision to the mix with an exhibition called "The City"

The twist is that Nix's photos aren't Photoshop manipulations -- they're real images of tiny, painstakingly detailed dioramas that Nix has designed just for these photographs. She built the 3-D scenes in her living room on nights and weekends with the help of an assistant, with each one taking anywhere from two to fifteen months to complete. Nix then shot the dioramas on normal 8x10 film, making her minuscule creations -- about 20 x 24 x 72 inches small -- appear nearly indistinguishable from full-size scenes.

Check out the article and photo gallery at FastCoDesign