Hasta La Gadget!

Watch out Ken. Barbie’s packing some steel. Actually Jim Rodda’s Barbie armor is made of biodegradable plastic. Jim originally wanted to print glitter cannons that fit on My Little Pony toys as a birthday gift to his niece, but it proved to be too complicated. Four cups of coffee and a hot shower later, the idea for Barbie armor sprang out of his mind, fully formed.

The field plate armor in the image above and in the video below is one of Jim’s first prototypes. He’s currently designing a parade armor, a more detailed version of the field plate armor that has “filigrees, engravings, gewgaws, gubbinses, and assorted skeuomorphisms.”

Aside from being silly, Jim is also generous. He’s sharing the 3D files for the Athena Makeover Kit, another Barbie costume, on his website.

Pledge at least $5 (USD) on Kickstarter to get the 3D files for the field plate armor as a reward, while a pledge of at least $10 gets you the files for the parade armor. Jim will most likely make those files available after the Kickstarter, but he isn’t planning on selling the printed armor themselves because that would be beyond his means.

If you want to get the printed armor right away, pledge for the higher reward tiers ASAP because Jim probably won’t print anymore of them after his fundraiser ends. Pledge at least $200 to get the field plate armor set and at least $250 to get the parade armor set. This reminds me, I’ve yet to finish Jeanne D’Arc.

Nintendo’s “enhanced remake” of the legendary N64 launch title Super Mario 64 was a Nintendo DS port that added new characters, game modes and more. With his remake, YouTuber Aryoksini is going to improve at least one aspect of the game: its graphics.

Aryoksini is remaking Super Mario 64 using Blender, an open source 3D animation suite that has a built-in game engine. He has a long way to go – and that’s if Nintendo allows him to go on – and makes it clear that the video you see below shouldn’t reflect the finished game.

Keep an eye on Aryoksini’s YouTube channel for future updates. Nintendo’s lawyers You can also watch him work on the game on his Twitch channel.

[via CVG]

Sideshow Collectibles will release two Xenomorph busts this year. Both the Big Chap and the Alien Warrior will be in “Legendary Scale”, the toy maker’s term for 1:2 scale. Unless we’re talking about a Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann scale model, I refuse to call anything that’s half the size of the original “Legendary”. That said, these busts are freakin’ scary.

Come on Sideshow, use a banana. Get with the program. The Big Chap is 14″ high and has its trademark slimy shine, semi-translucent head and French kiss-ready mouths. It also bears a relief of a xenomorph egg and a facehugger at the back of its base. It also comes with a plate that bears the Alien movie title in its stylized font.

The Alien Warrior is not as slimy or imposing as the Big Chap and has its distinctive ridges. Its bust also has an egg and facehugger relief has an Aliens film plate.

Get in the power browser and head to Sideshow Collectibles to pre-order the busts. The Big Chap costs $400 (USD) and will be released this November while the Alien Warrior costs $350 and will be released this July.

[via GeekAlerts]

Dustin Evans’ Tesseract case replica may not have the power to destroy worlds or foretell the future, but it can open portals to other realms. Aside from a glowing cube, the case also has a 7″ LCD monitor and a Raspberry Pi running the popular media player XBMC through Raspbian.

Dustin also wrote an Android app to control the LEDs on the case. He also uses his Android phone to send video to the case with the help of AllCast. Dustin also added audio and video outputs to the replica. You’ll see him connect it to a projector in the video below.

Assemble a browser and head to Dustin’s blog for more on his project.

[via Hack A Day]

Before its Diablo III art contest, DeviantART also held a competition for another major video game – Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. The contest called for the art community’s members to show their own take on the heroine Lightning. The entries were judged by none other than Square Enix’ artist, designer and director Tetsuya Nomura.

The contest was held last month, from February 11 to February 20. Out of the 4,655 submissions, Nomura – known for his character designs for Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, X and XIII and the Kingdom Hearts series – chose three grand prize winners.

Below is Nicolas Barge’s winning piece, of which Nomura said, “At first glance it looks like a CG, and it has a level of quality that makes it look like it was captured as a screenshot.  While there were many heroic costumes for Lightning, I was drawn to the femininity of this costume and her hairstyle.”

Nomura was also impressed by Randis Albion’s piece, saying, “It’s wonderful as an illustration, but in addition to that, the artist drew in both the front and back views, so I felt the artist’s clear intent when they created this piece. The red and blue color scheme was very beautiful, too.”

Marga Donaire’s submission is one of my favorites among all of the entries, and it sounded like Nomura felt the same way too: “With one look I was hooked. The costume itself is sophisticated, and it’s also very well done as an illustration. The background that reminded me of the Japanese flag (Hinomaru) matched well with the piece and was beautiful.  As an artist, when I look at different works of art, I think to myself “If it were up to me, I would do it differently,” but that thought didn’t cross my mind once when I saw this picture.”

As if earning praise from such an accomplished artist wasn’t enough, Nicolas, Randis and Marga also won an original sketch from Tetsuya Nomura, a custom Xbox 360 and controller, $1000, a keychain, a shirt, and copies of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy. They were also featured on the front page of deviantART. Congrats guys! Switch to your browser costume and head to deviantART to check out all of the entries.