I didn’t know that the Army of Two franchise was such a huge hit but apparently, it’s enough a cash cow for EA that it’s decided to create some sweet-lookin’ action figures based on the game’s characters. I wish these were around when I was a kid. Look at the detail on these fuckers. Toy maker NECA really knows how to make a decent figure.
Now this is a true work of art. Picasso and Da Vinci are incredibly overrated anyway. Real art comes from passion, which in this case is Jim Rossignol’s model of the third stage boss from R-Type. Words can’t do it justice. Look at the detail, from the cannons on the ship down to the small R9 fighter right below it. It’s incredible. Simply incredible.
I thought I was really into Star Trek. I have every episode from the original series and TNG as well as many articles of clothing and a beer bottle opener shaped like the Enterprise. However, Bob Prior’s passion and fanboy-ism for Star Trek far surpasses my own. He’s created Star Trek replicas from Rice Krispies boxes. From Kirk to Picard, Spock to LaForge, Bob has created over 50 models which include the Starship Enterprise, its command bridge and captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. The funniest part of the whole thing is that his wife hates the show but has been putting up with his obsession all these years.
Says Bob:
“I’ve made models from the start – right through Deep Space Nine, Voyager and the films up to First Contact.”
Deep Space Nine? Ew! Now I know for sure he’s suffering from dementia.
If you thought that you looked real when staring at yourself in a mirror, think again. Compared to the photo-realistic computer animation of Emily, you’re a closer to a plastic doll than real flesh and bone. Using new modeling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured, Image Metrics have created the first ever animation to overcome the longtime obstacle known as “uncanny valley”. This is the perception that animation looks less realistic as it attempts to approach realism.
“Ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real,” Mike Starkenburg, chief operating officer of Image Metrics, said.
A lot of precision and detail goes into calculating the most precise way that a human should look and I must say, Emily looks more real than those Beijing fireworks, or even the highly-detailed, corporeal robot. I can’t wait to see this kind of computer animation in movies and video games. We’ve finally reached that point where we can’t differentiate between real life and computer graphics. This makes Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within look like Manos: The Hands of Fate.
