Hasta La Gadget!

I love flipbooks. They just have this classic and nostalgic feel to them that makes them so special, both to the creator and to the spectators of the moving art that they hold within their pages. Now bringing mechanical flipbooks to the mainstream are kinetic artists Mark Rosen and Wendy Marvel.

Mark and Wendy created a series of motorized flipbooks last year, which became such huge hits after they were released to an adoring audience. Now they’re back with their flipbooks, but this time they’re giving everyone a chance to create their own masterpieces using this unique art format through FlipBooKit. These little mechanical wonders are available in either hand-cranked or motorized versions.

FlipBooKit is currently up for funding on Kickstarter. For a minimum pledge of $43(USD), you can get your very own kit with includes a vintage-looking flipbook shell, 30 flip panels, you-print-it printer sheets, a pre-printed trotting horse animation, a single hub, and assembly tools and on-line step-by-step instructions and flipbookit creation tools. A pledge of $66 to $76 lands you one of the first of the motorized versions of the FlipBooKit, dubbed the MOTO-FLIP. (Doesn’t that sound like a phone from the 1990s? – Ed.)

They begin shipping out this December, so they’d totally make a cool Christmas gift for both budding artists and art enthusiasts.

Not every fairy tale ends in happily ever after. You’d be surprised at how many Disney stories actually ended in tragedy. Did you know that the Little Mermaid actually turned into foam because the prince married someone else? Or that Cinderella’s step-sisters had their eyes pecked out by pigeons because they were trying to fool the prince?

Obviously, kids won’t want to see movies ending in such tragedy. But what if the villains prevailed in Disney’s version of the tales? These digital paintings by artist Justin Turrentine still portray a happy ending – only for the villains, and not for the princesses that little girls (and even boys) have grown to love over the years.

Check out the rest of the series in the gallery below. (Poor Flounder!)

[via Geekologie]

I couldn’t sleep for days after watching Carrie. I cringed every time I saw someone with a video camera after I watched The Blair Witch Project. And don’t even get me started on The Exorcist.

Some people say that you’ve got to immerse yourself in the things you fear the most so that you’ll get over them. And what better way to get over these horror flicks than by chomping on the women featured in them? That probably sounds a little wrong, but you’ll get it once you see this series of cake pops that Miss Insomnia Tulip whipped up recently.

Each horrifyingly detailed pop features the leading ladies of all three movies I mentioned earlier, plus Misery (which I have yet to watch.) They’re made and painted wonderfully, but I’m not sure I can stomach these cake pops, much less bite their heads off in the process of eating them.

[via Eat Your Heart Out via Laughing Squid]

People with flawed morals and thieving hands would steal a laptop in a heartbeat, but I doubt any of them would want to steal your newspaper. So put this knowledge to good use and protect your notebook in more ways than one with the Urban Camouflage case.

It’s basically a cushy sleeve that looks like a newspaper on the outside. The catch is that the newspaper isn’t actually in English, so that knocks a couple of points off believability – unless you happen to live in Spain – then it’s perfect.

But at least that also reduces the possibility that someone grabs it accidentally because he or she actually thought that it was their newspaper, right? Right.

These quirky Urban Camouflage cases are available from the Fancy for $80(USD).

Here’s a neat LEGO trick that I haven’t seen before. Made by husband and wife team Sean and Steph Mayo, their Invert Island enlists the help of your computer to show off its trick:

That is not the actual appearance of Invert Island. Here’s what it really looks like:

As you may have deduced, the island was made with blocks that have the inverse colors of the objects they’re supposed to represent. If you want to see the switch for yourself, just hold alt+shift+print screen on your keyboard if you’re using a PC, ctrl+option+command+8 if you’re on a Mac (or follow these directions if you’re on Mountain Lion.) Of course, there are other ways to invert the colors of your browser or screen. I highly suggest you head to Sean and Steph’s Flickr page so you can switch while viewing the high resolution image of the island.

[via Brothers Brick]