What a beautiful weekend it turned out to be here in NYC. I really do like the crisp cold weather but it does tend to make me feel a bit sick so I'm forced to dream of the warm sea.

A strange underwater scene this week. While masks appear to be a theme throughout a lot of my sketches, I think they turn up in so much of my work because its an easy, and cool looking, way to resolve a mismatched face or dead look on a character. Sticking to the dark and weird, this week we have the gritty work of Blaz Porenta. It almost shames me to put my own subpar work I banged out in an hour above this but here we go. Through his coarse and complicated dry (digital) brush work and some truly emotive compositions, Porenta's work conveys both a captivating and kinetic energy.

Even better Porenta has a detailed walkthrough of his process for the piece directly above to help out budding digital illustrators like myself. I will definitely be stepping through this later on (though work of this level is so very time consuming, especially when trying to acclimate to the digital medium). On his work, I love the way he manages to use a very bright, thorough, color palette despite the apparent darkness of each piece. His use of color in fact contradicts one's assumptions for the scene drastically adding to the piece. Especially in the second work above, we can see a Crayola's box worth of colors used throughout the piece to great affect, keeping the eye engaged and the scene interesting.

Speaking of kinetic, the site for 901 Tequila (Justin Timberlake's own tequila brand) is truly dynamic. As appears to be the fashion, this site is a long-form anchored site with responsive scrolling (every cool new site now is either like this or filled with heavy vector graphics on an intriguing layout).

While sites like this are becoming more and more common despite their heavy reliance on this single gimmick and apparent inflexibility of content, I feel 901's is worth mention for its use of user generated content. Though somewhat hidden, the site contains user tweets from different timeframes throughout the page in keeping with the company's "night starts at 9:01pm" branding. Furthermore, the small self contained widgets like the user sunset photo gallery or the small tequila process slideshow are cleverly designed and fun to use. An especially cool inclusion is the built in Google maps zipcode search to find the product near you accessed by clicking "Find 901." In fact, the only problem I have with the site is that besides the five sections clearly marked on the left hand side, much of the best functionality is hidden by either a lack of a clear calls-t0-action or the sometimes crowded layout of the subsections. Regardless, overall a great example of combining responsive scrolling, interesting content, social networking and clear branding all into one site.

Lastly, I'd like to share this well done documentary I have to thank for introducing me to my new favorite band: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Not only are they super hip (since they're relatively unknown) but their sound is very unique and varies nicely song to song while staying firmly in the electronic dance/ambient camp. Beyond their music, it's clear that the band has a strong bevy of visual artists working with them. From their neo-electro costumes to their bright pink videos I thoroughly enjoy their unique homespun aesthetic. I only wish they had more work easily available in the US. Their recent single "Garden" seems to have gained a good bit of attention lately due to a Nokia spot so here's to a bright future.

The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.

Busy Monday here at the Mechanism. So much so, in fact, that our Monday meeting was pushed to Tuesday and as such so is my morning sketch. I wish you all a very happy, over-stuffed, Thanksgiving! And feeling the spirit of the season I decided to fill your turkey-induced coma on Thursday with scary dreams! Enjoy!

Choosing stills this week was tough since there's so much out there in such a wide variety of mediums. However I don't know if I've done a photography highlight before (excluding photographs of street-art of course) so today we take a look at the work of Michael Wolf, namely his new "Tokyo Compression" series. Being a daily commuter in NYC I can commiserate with these people yet their commute feels somehow worse through Wolf's lens. He captures the sense of profound claustrophobic isolation one feels in that morning hustle and bustle. The frames of the subway doors and windows add texture and depth to the pieces while also further isolating the subjects in their discomfort. The varying states of distress, boredom, awareness and general diversity of the commuters pulls each one out of the random press of people, shining a light on their moment of introspection and invasion.

Today in web we have the brilliant personal site for and by Martin Gauer. It actually reminds me, at least in concept, of my own site due to to the street setting. It also does what I think all truly innovative web design strives for: to make the browser an engaging window onto another world born entirely of the site's purpose. Here the message happens to be "I make really freakin' cool websites!" The use of parallax motion fortifies the first person perspective illusion to the point of realism. I'm just a little upset there isn't more content in the portfolio section...from what I can see; one downside of such experimental sites is the risk of muddled navigation though Gauer makes it clear enough with a little experimentation. Regardless, this site does perfectly what it sets out to do a.k.a. blow your HTML/CSS/Javascript-coding fingers clean off.

Motion was another very difficult category to pick this week. What with killer cyborgs, samurai swords, two Skyrim musical tributes and my new favorite band all coming onto my interwebs radar in a seven day period or so. However, in the spirit of these blogs only one video could reign supreme (or well at least embed supreme since I cheated with hyperlinks). "Keep Drawing" is a collaborative animation effort...or is it? In fact its the work of a fairly small animation team who rotoscoped a series of clips drawing every frame, I'd guess on the threes, in widely varying styles. It reminds me a lot of the crowd-sourced animation used to make the Johnny Cash music video for "Ain't No Grave." Moreover it's like my menagerie-mess of a sketchbook come to life which is awesome! Well done.

Eat well and prosper my friends.

The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I know mine was filled with Skyrim and that experience is amazing. The boundary between reality and entertainment is truly starting to blur. As such I was inspired to draw a dragon but it seemed to take on a sci-fi spin. Add in a tribal priestess I drew over the weekend and voila you have a strange summoning scene. I'm trying to maintain last weeks precedent of simply having a more finished sketch with a splash of quick color added behind.

My weekend was so filled with playing Skyrim in fact that I had little time to hunt down any interesting videos to share today. Luckily I have a back catalog of content from last week. Firstly, in motion, we have this extremely surreal and ambient piece that plays with our sense of reality and physics from London-based artist Bif.

This piece is extremely interesting to me since 3D animation has always fascinated me. I love how Bif uses the unique capabilities of the medium and its rendering to create these hyper-unreal scenes  that defy our instincts. The small plastic figures become characters unto themselves despite their static poses and almost join us, the audience, in their disbelief and surprise. Lastly the sound, by artist Azael is an interesting mix of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), glitch and ambient.

For stills we travel to Spain to observe the breath-taking street art of Aryz (with a great website by the way). While the scale of his works alone is enough to merit his mention, he proves throughout his works at every scale his ability to create stunning scenes of pure imagination, often with an emphasis on the skeletal, in a gorgeous muted pastel palette.

I can only dream of a day when large-scale street art like the above takes over American streets and isn't limited to feel-good murals in run-down communities and quickly sprayed tags hiding in plain sight. I fully support the "art everywhere" movement and hope that someday all outdoor advertisement is completely banned (thank you for setting such a good example Sao Paolo with your "Clean City" law) and replaced with massive art space (get on that Brazil!). To me art in any form is a a daily requirement and how could one miss a giant installment on modern-day advertising scale.

This weeks bonus video is a short clip documenting how artist Alexandre Farto (aka Vhilis) executes his unique pieces of street art by painting and carving into eroded walls and plaster. Truly and interesting process. The soothing music and seeing such art emerge from these shattered abandoned surfaces is a joy. Definitely look at his other works on his website (though much plainer than our other featured artist's, still quite functional).

The Sketching Mechanism is a series of weekly posts, published on Mondays, containing the artistic musings of Mobile Designer/Developer Ben Chirlin during our Monday morning meeting at the NY Creative Bunker as well as his inspiring artistic finds of the week.

My fantastically packed weekend went fairly well as I hope yours did. Despite tons of travel and sleeping on floors and couches I had a good time, though I still find going back to visit my old school feels a bit strange. I spent most of my drawing time developing a character for yet another comic idea I had. I hope to actually develop and release this one online soon. Our meeting was very brief this morning and I barely had time to draw a face. As such, today's sketch will be an old portrait from a few meetings back that didn't fit with the doodles I typically post as its a full piece. I took the extra time from the short meeting to quickly add some splashes of color.

And now on to our inspiring works of the week. First off is this stunningly beautiful music video for "In Your Arms" by Kina Grannis. Though I generally wouldn't hunt down this type of music, this video's got the song stuck deep in my head and I'm pondering buying her album.

Obviously the impressive part of this video is the method: stop motion Jellybean art! What's even more dumb-founding is that it was all done practically, even poor Kina who had to lay on a glass sheet above the art for each frame (and she's in most of the video). The entire production took 2 YEARS! I can only imagine that the label and artist had no idea what they were signing up for when they agreed to this brilliant concept. 288 000 Jellybeans later they gave us this. Check out the behind the scenes to gain a better appreciation for the effort put in here.

For stills lets take a look at the work of Kim Keever who creates ravishing landscapes using fishtanks, light, pigments and a nice camera. I love dream-like art and these pieces are truly magnificent dreamscapes of epic proportions (namely of the small fish-tank-size variety).

The amount of work and preparation that goes into such pieces must be staggering. And then once he begins mixing pigments into the tank I imagine his shooting windows are fairly narrow. Though at the same time, these terrarium-like worlds have the added benefit that they change and evolve with time so one model could lead to many  derivative works when photographed differently. The behind the scene shots really give you a good idea for the kind of work that goes into his process.

And lastly to get your blood good and pumping, just don't look down...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RdA1nPINVZw

We had quite an eventful weekend in the Big Apple this weekend. A surprise snow storm wiped out most people's Halloween plans. I hope you all had better luck. I remembered part way through this morning my intention to do a Halloween-themed Sketching Mechanism today so enjoy, demons and all (its Orange for Halloween)!

My Paul Bunyan costume never came together and I don't see myself trying to go out again tonight but who knows, at least I got a nice flannel and some bright orange suspenders out of the attempt. I also met a Minnesotan who gave me Bunyan advice being from his alma mater. Beyond that it was quite a relaxing, though somewhat unproductive, weekend. I finally baked my Oreo-stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies which I brought to the office today to share with everyone. They are a delicious, fattening, dessert which I highly recommend. Really fun to make as well (though they burned out the hand mixer I bought for the project!).

Found quite a good bit of brilliant inspirational content this weekend. First this fan-made unofficial opening title sequence for the new Adventures of Tintin film coming out from Spielberg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqS1G9nGwLQ&list=FLipu_lHPh6Rc5uO-eXyDOzA&index=1&feature=plpp_video

I was a huge Tintin fan growing up and I'm excited to see if this film finally overcomes the dreaded uncanny valley in realistic animation so often bungled by films like Polar Express and Beowulf. This sequence is not only a fantastic example of beautiful vector art but also a brilliant exploration of the many tales of Tintin using a simple sphere in interesting ways.

For live action we have the work of the filmmakers of CANADA based in Barcelona who have created some beautiful videos like the one below (c/o Lost at E Minor). [I just realized CANADA is behind most of my favorite music videos from the past year and change erego they have a large effect on the music I listen to. Check out their Vimeo channel for other gems from El Guincho, Two Door Cinema Club and more]

I've always been a fan of dreams and this music video contains some truly universal dreamscapes that move with the music and dance. I love looking for Easter Eggs and themes in these types of videos (i.e. the reoccurring glitter on her hand indicating her many dreams). The dancers, costumes and sets are incredible and achieve via practical, real-world techniques, other-worldly affects. In this regard, their work reminds me a lot of Michel Gondry's early music vidoes and I hope to see longer features from them in the future. I love this zero-CG approach to film making. A slightly stranger animated dream-like video can be seen here...it might not be for everyone though as it contains some very strange themes and messages about youth, intimacy and swimming pools. Still the gorgeous animation and original story are hard to beat, not to mention the great song it accompanies (I'm a big fan of the 80's retro electro...retrolectro?).

Keeping with our dream theme; in stills lets take a look at the work of Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon. Some beautiful work from these two based in my very own Brooklyn. I should see if they have works on display anywhere nearby.

More inspiration to create some actually finished works. I think watercolor would be a great idea since you can create some very subtle and colorful works very quickly. They also seem to do a lot post-color using Photoshop mixed with real materials. Must look into this. Have a good week everyone and don't eat too much candy. Remember, candy corn contains no actual corn!

EDIT (11-1-11): For more Halloween fare, check out this list of amazing(ly geeky) costumes with tech appeal. I can't decide which is my favorite but tech-wise the camera is clearly the winner. Geek cred-wise I'm torn between Hypnotoad and Fallout guy (I think making a Pipboy iPhone app could be a super fun geeky open source project).

Happy Halloween week everybody! I hope you all have great costumes lined up. I have a couple of ideas but still need to drop by the many Halloween shops that sprout up around this time of year to pick up a few items. Still no idea what I'll actually be doing this weekend. The morning sketches today were fairly easy and I threw in some older stuff from last week as well. The large headed robotic character near the bottom is something I thought of last night and would like to further develop.

For some inspiration in motion I highly recommend the following music video done in one take with hundreds of real customized vinyl album covers. This makes me long for my meager record collection left in DC but I own neither turntable nor amplifier. Despite the awkward size of the medium there's something amazing about their full bodied sound and the role that the album art plays in the music experience. This video seeks to explore the idea that those beautiful large album images, now lost in the iDistribution jumble, can cause us to hear the music that resides beneath that paper sleeve. I definitely feel that the simple soundtrack of this video is altered with each passing image though I recognize only a few.

For stills this week I'd like to share the work of Sam Weber. His work is very similar to last week's but each image feels slightly more developed, the palette remains much the same however. His process leads to some beautiful images. It would seem most of these artists now spend most of the process working with real-world materials and then bring things into the virtual space to Photoshop in the final touches.

Lastly just an interesting Youtube video from Occupy going on downtown. I still haven't visited but am now more interested than ever. True, some of the people there might not be the most representative of those who believe in Occupy's ideals but the democratic system they've developed there is truly inspiring. I think it would be brilliant to digitize the system and work it into an universally functioning political body. Also there's something truly moving about seeing so many people working together for something they believe in. The "human mic" is a bit silly but still very stirring.

Many Monday meetings means many Monday sketches (is there a synonym for doodle that starts with an 'M'? Alliteration is key here).

Many interesting finds to share from over the weekend. For our inspiring line art of the week I bring you the intriguing work of Andrew Zbihlyj. His inky works should be familiar to anyone who has read a major magazine in the past few years. What is truly interesting about his work is the combination of the unfinished pure black ink lying in direct contrast to the chosen sections of detail. The abstract ink hints at motion, form and structure while the detailed faces and characters within these monochrome microcosms give us reason to pause, linger and digest the work as a whole. I would love to see him attempt more colored, filled out works as opposed to these fantastic sparsely dense works.

On the tech side this great little tool will help you move into the CSS3 era with ease by simplifying and consolidating all those annoying new prefixes due to all the different browser standards/capabilities out there. It's called PrefixFree and looks to be very hand. Smashing Magazine did a great little intro article.

And lastly, for our inspiring video of the weekend we have this beautiful animation for Twining's Tea of all things. However the animation itself is simply gorgeous. It reminds me of those great United Airlines ads that looked to be paper-cut animation mixed with digital. However this takes 3D animation in a direction I thought was nigh impossible. The entire thing is almost a watercolor or pastel drawing. Simply amazing. I'm willing to bet some of the elements (the white caps on the waves, the birds and other subtle beautiful water effects) were done in 2D by hand and comped in. Regardless, this will take your breath away (watch in HD!).

Brief morning meeting this lovely Monday (where did this sudden heat wave come from?). Injured a finger on my left, dominant, hand over the weekend but I can still draw and type fine thank god.

Some really interesting stuff coming out of Siggraph 2010 it seems. Some of the texturing papers, like the polished chrome one in this trailer, are simply amazing. Won't be long before we're seeing these technologies (more realistic hair anyone?) in Pixar and Dreamworks films, slowly followed by the gaming industry.

An interesting, and inspiring, link from over the weekend: this mesmerizing music video for the song "Look" by Sebastian Tellier (possibly NSFW). I'm still undecided as to if this is 3D, 2D or a mix. It could possibly be layered 2D animation but parts definitely feel very 3D ramp rendered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aawnQPN-Y4k&list=FLipu_lHPh6Rc5uO-eXyDOzA&index=1

And lastly a truly original exploration of the power of line in 3D space using wire. Gavin Worth takes Calderesque wire sculpture to a whole other, though granted 2-dimensional, level. I feel like this would be great practice for any sketch artist. It's almost like amazing real life vector art. I especially like how the work takes on the texture of its environment (here a lightly patterned white wall). Simultaneously, the figures illustrate just how much information our brains fill in, giving these flat pieces  an extremely strong illusion of depth. Click here for more.

The sketching was a bit slow this morning since I had trouble falling asleep last night. However the sea theme is largely based on this strange dream I had Saturday night. All I remember is it revolving around a strangely shaped rock with sea life growing all over it (see the "Sea Chunk") and there was strange amphibious man/god throwing it about at me. I tried putting the scan on a texture to give it a bit more life. Enjoy.

Another relaxing but exhausting weekend. I feel like my life may actually settle into a rhythm in the coming month. I've been thinking about Halloween and what I could dress as. A favorite Halloween memory of mine was a group of my female friends dressing as the Adobe creative suite; they wore all black with large square icons hung around their necks for Ps, Ai, etc. Recently one of them told me someone they met thought they were dressed as the Elements! Ha! Though that did get me thinking if any elements share the same abbreviations with Creative Suite...any how I think I'll either go as Paul Bunion (or some other fairy tale character) or a steampunk gentleman. That's why I got my beard going after all!