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It takes a very steady hand. See more of Jf Lemay's work on Instagram and purchase his t-shirts and pins here.
(via Laughing Squid)
Artist surgically removes Xenomorph from his drawing of a man
Closeness lines
Kottke spotted Olivia de Recat's curiously affecting illustrations of how relationships change over time and I can't help but signal boost. Hopefully she'll be taking orders for prints again soon: "In the meantime, you can take a look at some of her other cartoons (mostly for the New Yorker), peruse her shop, or follow her stuff on Insta." Read the rest
Pop culture characters organized by color
French illustrator Linda Bouderbala did a fun exercise where she gathered some of her favorite characters from geek and pop culture and organized them by color. Read the rest
Simple way to draw a 3D optical illusion of cubes falling through the paper
Circle Line Art School explains how to draw this simple but effective anamorphic illusion of cubes falling into a hole in the page.
(via The Kid Should See This)
Designer creates stylized illustrations of real-life Flint heroes
Brazilian artist Butcher Billy was commissioned by STATE bags to create #FlintsFantasticFive, a series of images depicting several key voices in addressing the Flint water crisis. Read the rest
Absolutely killer 1970s funky fashion illustrations of the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, etc.
Boyd Clopton was a clothing designer and illustrator who created funktastic fashions in the early 1970s for Stevie Wonder and Syreeta Wright (above), The Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, The Supremes, and many more soul and rock stars of the era. See more of his incredible illustrations over at Dangerous Minds.
Hot Cockles and other weird medieval party games
Claire Voon takes a fascinating look at engraver Joseph Strutt's illustrations of strange medieval party games, many of which involve beating the hell out of other guests. Read the rest
Beautiful infographic crib notes for immunology concepts
Nerdcore Medical and Tabletop Whale created this handy and informative graphic of all the important concepts in immunology. It's part of a series of one-pagers on topics of interest to medical students and the terminally curious layperson. Read the rest
Medical student makes biology illustrations out of candy
Mike McCormick is a 2nd year medical student at Glasgow University. His Instagram account has illustrations of organ, microbes, molecules, and other biological structures that he's made out of candy. It reminds me of illustrations from the Time Life Science Series.
17th century illustrations of butterflies
They're the work of Maria Sibylla Merian, a scientist and artist whose meticulous illustrations of wildlife were mostly forgotten until a late 20th century reappraisal.
Hyperallergic's Allison Meier writes on an authority—and master artist—whose recognition was long in coming:
…to Merian “the metamorphosis of the butterfly, which emerges from a lifeless hull and joyfully flies heavenward, is a hope-giving symbol for the resurrection of the soul from the dead physical shell of the Christian’s body.” Yet by the time she published the 1705 Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensum on her research in Suriname, where long-haired caterpillars in the rainforest sometimes swelled her hands up with poison for days and she had to cultivate exotic plants herself to keep caterpillars alive through their life-cycles, there’s no mention of God. Rather, she starts by confidently describing her own life and personal journey, concluding that she has “kept simply to my observations.”
Despite her long career, her influence on contemporary natural knowledge, her vivid descriptions of distant Suriname, and her intrepid spirit, when she died in 1717 the city of Amsterdam’s register of deaths described her simply as a woman “without means.”
[via Metafilter] Read the rest
British Library releases over a million public domain images
The British Library uploaded over one million scanned images to Flickr, designating them as public domain for all to share and use. Quartz has an article about the project.
I like this image from an 1890 copy of The Aldine “O'er Land and Sea Library. It shows a man being attacked by a "school of hungry dog fish." It is exactly the kind of sensationalistic illustration that was used countless times on the covers of men's "adventure" magazines of the 1950s and 1960s. Take a gander at the examples below.
"Spider attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Monkey attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Weasle attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Scorpion attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Monkey attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Hyena attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Bear attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Giant otter attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Monkey attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Rhino attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Flying squirrel attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Bobcat attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Crab attack! How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?"
"Bat attack! Read the rest
18th century book of satanic illustrations
At The Paris Review, Dan Piepenbring looks at the Ouija board-style "Charlie Charlie" teen fad-cum-hoax and finds it lacking in artistic verve. In comparison, he points to the awesome Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros, a book of "Satanic" illustrations from the 18th century (slyly-presented, at that time, as something much older), devised with similar adolescent titillations in mind: "DO NOT TOUCH!" Read the rest
1922 cutaway drawing of the Washington Evening Star Building
Seen at full size, this hand-drawn cutaway of the Historic Landmark building is a wonderful way to visualize how the building was designed to convert people, information, power and water into newspapers.
This building is an organism for making newspapers [Kottke] Read the rest
Empty-eyed animal stickers from Hydro74
Sticker Robot's selling a new pack of great die-cut stickers from Hydro74, featuring five stylized animal heads of daemonic mien, limned and pinstriped and full of empty-eyed menace. Read the rest
The best of the American Museum of Natural History's rare book collection
These coy hippos come from a 19th century illustration in The Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. They're now part of a new book, published by New York's American Museum of Natural History, that combines some of the best illustrations and artworks from the museum's rare book collection. Looks like a great read! Read the rest
Cthul-aid! OH YEAH!
BeastWreck's CTHUL-AID illo is just one of many fabulous monstrous designs for sale on Society 6, available as prints/laptop bags/shirts/etc. Read the rest
Paul Bunyan pinball table ad
I don't think I ever saw a Paul Bunyan pinball table in the wild, but it's a beaut.
