Now here's an animated movie that SF fans should watch for : Wind Walkers.
No to be confused with Zelda the Wind Waker, it is the English title for Alain Damasio's novel "La Horde du Contrevent". I was thrilled to learn that a movie adaptation is in the works with none other than Jan Kounen to helm the movie, and Marc Caro for the design. This definitely looks like a dream team !

Damasio's first book, "La Zone du Dehors", is also a must-read if you haven't tried it yet : a fantastic tale about human nature, anarchy and utopia - and one of my favourite SF books.

There's also a very beautiful game coming up based on a storyline from Alain Damasio - helmed by awesome art director Aleksi Briclot : Adrift, a neo-Blade Runner vision of Paris in the future. Adrif depicts a society where augmented reality and memory manipulation have invaded everybody's lives, and where you can buy, sell or trade your own memories...

Still speaking of games, I'd already praised Sword & Sworcery, a beautiful and inventive iOS game that is now also available for PC on Steam (so no excuses to skip it !). Well, the dev team put up a genuinely inspiring "Jam session" that encouraged people to submit pictures and music inspired by the game.
Their tumblr website, which welcomes all these contributions, is just brimming with wonderful stuff ... definitely worth a visit !

Bob Basset and Stéphane Halleux, amongst other steampunk artists, are featured in a Paris exhibition ending this week, "Futurs Antérieurs" (galerie Point du Jour). Here's a few pics of Basset's impressive creations, including a a cool Cthulhu inspired leather mask!

And finally, here's a look at the great works of RacinedeCha's Cabinet of Curiosities - mutant insects, dryads and other chimerae :

http://www.calameo.com/read/0010430990acef09dea10

Yay ! Samorost 3 is under way - here's a look at the first pictures...
I'd mentioned the lovely Machinarium a while ago, as well as the movie that was designed by Samorost's creator... People who love textures and the feel of a "hand-made" game will no doubt be thrilled !

Pierre Matter does some marvelous biomechanical creatures :

And finally, Peter Konig is one of the concept artists who worked with Guillermo Del Toro on his Lovecraft film project, you can understand why when browsing his sculptures :)

All right. 2012 resolutions (yeah, I know, it's a bit early) : more frequent updates, instead of condensing lots of things into a single post. Starting now :

- beautiful doll pictures from Marina Bychkova. I wouldn't be surprised if Barbara Canepa had one of her creations in her collection... Creepy, sad, beautiful - but definitely not ordinary dolls.

- sculptures from Cliff Wallace, master of make-up and creature effects, whose company sculpted many amazing creatures for Guillermo del Toro's movies, amongst others.

(Speaking of Del Toro, if you haven't seen his notebooks yet, have a look at this video. Impressive, isn't it ?)

- pictures from Manuel Albarran, a "metal fashion designer" who dresses people with intriguing metal helmets or accessories. It reminded me of the mask borne by the female protagonist of the movie "The Cell". 

And finally a couple of photos from the great Eugenio Recuenco. I had erroneously attributed one of his photos to Tim Walker in a previous post, my mistake ! You can also discover some pretty cool short movies by checking his website.

Arghh. A few more months, yet, before the English version of "Ni No Kuni", the amazing PS3 game coproduced by Ghibli Studios and Level 5, is finally available (early 2012). Just drooling over the latest TGS trailer...

Very different but beautiful too : I remember sharing the beautiful short film "Tale of How" a few years ago on Facebook...and I recently discovered that a very stylish artbook also tells the story, with its drawings reminiscent of Bosch. Check out the video if you've never seen it ! 

I love books in their physical form - there's stuff that you just can't replicate digitally, which is why I think that artbooks with special production values will continue to be meaningful for a long time. Look at the feel of the cover for Lady Cottington's pressed fairy book, or the wonderful "Wicked" grimmerie, which gives you the impression to hold an old spellbook...

However, I very much enjoy digital books too, and believe that artbooks can go into wonderful new directions with devices such as the Ipad. The "Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore" is a great example of an illustrated children's book which hits the mark. Beautiful art, mingled with simple casual gaming elements that you can just skip if you want. Even if you don't have an Ipad, you can check a sample here :

Not everyone can afford to create such Ipad apps, unfortunately...  But there's hope for less costly ways to enrich books, when you look at what's possible with the latest version of Epub. (Epub being the format used for "traditional" ebooks on Ipad, versus native "apps")
Companies like Walrus Studios, who have published a couple of impressive demos, are clearly set to prove it.

I'd love to see more experiments like "Mr Lessmore" - based on, for example, the art of Franck Dion - who also masters miniatures, computer animation and illustration.
Franck recently did a children's book and is preparing a new short movie - "L'inventaire fantôme" is one of my favourite shorts.

One could certainly do cool and innovative stuff with physical books too, and create high-end artistic objects.
Amongst new publishers, les Editions Volumiques, dedicates itself to researching new technologies for books, resulting in some intriguing concepts, such as this book which burns itself progressively as you read it !
http://www.volumique.com/blog/?p=10

All in all, I'm sure books have a bright future, even if their form might change from what we're currently used to !

Après moult recherches et tatonnements techniques, je suis très content d'annoncer la mise en ligne de "Bienvenue à Wonderland" sur tout plein de supports différents !
(petite dédicace à Apple quand même, qui ne facilite vraiment pas les choses pour les auteurs désireux de se lancer dans les e-books :-P)

C'est un de mes premiers textes, dans un genre très différent d'Ysambre, et c'est un peu un galop d'essai avant des projets plus ambitieux... si l'intérêt des gens est là :) .
Donc si vous avez envie de découvrir un univers un peu spécial et de soutenir mon travail, c'est le moment ! (Le début de la nouvelle est accessible gratuitement sous forme d'extrait - cliquer sur le livre ci dessous.)

Une nouvelle courte et déjantée dans un univers de fantasy urbaine, qui mêle allégrement vaudou, haute technologie et steampunk.
Environ 1900 mots / 3 pages PDF.

Acheter la version intégrale (PDF) pour 0,99€ (sans DRM ! via Paypal/CB) :

Vous avez un Ipad ? Vous pouvez télécharger la nouvelle ici :
http://itunes.apple.com/fr/book/id446139743?mt=11

Vous avez un Kindle ? Vous pouvez télécharger la nouvelle ici :
http://www.amazon.com/Bienvenue-%C3%A0-Wonderland-French-ebook/dp/B004XN581Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313075274&sr=8-2

Vous avez un Iphone ?
Vous pouvez télécharger la nouvelle en installant une de ces deux apps gratuites, qui permettent d'accéder à un très large catalogue d'ebooks - ça vaut le coup.
Ibooks : http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8
Kindle : http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/kindle/id302584613?mt=8

 

I've been too busy to post this earlier, but in case you missed it, "Sword & Sworcery" is awesome. Really, really awesome if you like videogames and have been playing for a long time...

It's more an art experience than an adventure game, really, but it draws many references from unforgettable classics, and even pop culture. (And something that quotes Princess Bride and Twin Peaks can't be bad ;-)

The landscapes made me think of Eric Chahi's Another World, or Fumito Ueda's Shadow of the Colossus. Beautiful, beautiful pixel art... and the soundtrack - be it music or sounds - is so good you might want to consider buying the music EP on Itunes.

Quirky dialogues and writing, too, which mix modern slang and mythopoetic fiction... it may look weird to some people, but I loved the fact that there's a narrator introducing the game sequences - it actually reminded me of Lars Von Trier's introductions to the episodes of his wonderful, crazy TV series the Kingdom.

Reading about the game's inception was interesting too. I believe it demonstrates that passion and mutual respect for two person's art (in this case, a musician and a graphist) can go a long way...  Go buy it now :). It's available on Iphone and Ipad

Oh, and one last picture - unrelated, and yet... I loved what these guys created with a costume, it made me think of the Scythian (Sword & Sworcery's hero) and Ueda's game Ico...

It's been a long time since my previous post, so I'll try to compensate by sharing more cool things...
This blog is really becoming more of a collection of links than anything else, but it doesn't really matter, I guess :)

Alexandre Day's black and white drawings are amongst the most compelling illustrations I've discovered recently. His graphite sketches have a unique dreamy quality - and look at this girl's eyes... Wonderful ! It's cool to see that he's already exhibited in the US, in the Nucleus Gallery which I knew from a James Jean exhibition, and which apparently set up a very nicely curated "French art" show last year.
http://alexandre-day.blogspot.com/

Amateurs of weird festivals will no doubt know about Burning Man, the crazy annual gathering in the Nevada desert which I hope I can see one day...
I already mentioned some artists who have performed there, but I discovered recently that there was a woman behind much of the Burning Man neo tribal aesthetics. Tiffa Novoa unfortunately passed away, but she inspired many designers and fashion creators.. Check out this couple of pictures of her work - and if you like it, you will probably drool when looking at clothes from the Five and Diamond store in San Francisco - which I could have included in my previous post.

Being in love with ruins and post-apocalyptic landscapes, I was recently amazed by how the entirety of Detroit seems to be a hunting ground for photographers of abandoned places. Great set of pictures over there : http://www.marevueweb.com/photographies-artistiques-de-la-ville-de-dtroit-en-ruine/

"Game of Thrones", one of my favourite book series, is about to be released by HBO as a wildly anticipated TV series. The attention to detail and "realism" for a fantasy setting seems to be spot on
I was therefore thrilled when I learned that they had started a transmedia marketing campaign around it : check out the gorgeous package that some lucky bloggers and journalists have received...JC Hutchins, the author of "Personal Effects", captured its unboxing in a video.

"Eye of the Storm" is a beauty, an animated steampunk short movie which is mostly a moody clip - to me, it doesn't actually tell a very engaging story, but it's worth seeing nonetheless as it features gorgeous sights.

Finally, a couple of exhibitions not to be missed in Paris :
- Jean-Marc Laroche - his biomechanical creatures and erotic skeletons are really impressive. Those who remember the Rascar Capac mummy in one of the Tintin books will certainly enjoy one of his works, which was clearly inspired by it. (Galerie Mouvances, 2 place des Vosges - March 7 to 17)

- Galerie Maghen will feature an Ashley Wood exhibition in May ! :)

That's all for now !

This time, a short article on some of my favourite places abroad, full of vintage, antique stuff, curiosities or just plain steampunk decoration...