Samurai Age.

Samurai Age.

Have a craving to put Samurai armor on your cat? Dog? Child? Partner? That big bottle of Saké? Samurai Age has you covered.

While it’s been over 150 years since the heyday of the samurai class, the fascination with them lives on. The talented craftsmen at SAMURAI AGE are doing their part to honor samurai tradition with handmade, high-quality samurai armor for you and your pets.

One of the selling points of this Fukuoka-based brand’s armor is how lightweight it is. Unlike traditional samurai armor, which could sometimes weigh over 60 pounds, SAMURAI AGE’s pet armor is constructed from light plastic that they claim can be worn for long stretches of time without tiring out its wearer. So although your pet will probably not be protected from any katana strikes, they will at the very least feel both badass and comfortable.

Samurai Age.

Human-sized armor for adults and children is also available for purchase, as well as helmets and bottle covers. All items are made of the same materials as the pet armor. The website suggests wearing the armor for birthdays or special occasions, but given the stylish, lightweight material there’s no reason not to wear it on a regular basis, too.

For those interested in a more “casual” look, SAMURAI AGE offers samurai helmets fashioned from polyester baseball caps. Customers can choose helmet designs based on those worn by famous Japanese historical figures such as Tokugawa Ieyasu, Oda Nobunaga, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

A cap based on Fukuoka daimyo Kuroda Nagamasa’s helmet. Mustache included. Samurai Age.

You can see and read more at Spoon & Tamago.

Taco Power!

Steven Georges/Orange County Register.

This is nice, I get to say Hey, that’s my hometown! Go Santa Ana! Any native SoCalian can tell you the wonder and pure mmmmmffff oh gods so good, can I have more of Mexican run food trucks. Some of the best food in the world, that. Back when I worked in Costa Mesa, the only time you took your life in your hands was the rush to the food trucks at lunch.

Good food has a way of bringing people together around a table. You could say food trucks do the same thing, but on the street and sidewalk.

That’s part of the idea behind an ongoing campaign in Southern California called Taco Trucks at Every Mosque, timed to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. And it has caught on fast in the parking lot outside the Islamic Center of Santa Ana, California, which largely serves the area’s Indo-Chinese community (Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim populations).

“It was so exciting to see people that have that have fasted … break their fast — many of them for the first time in our lives — to tacos,” says community activist Rida Hamida. She co-organized the campaign with Ben Vazquez, a history teacher in Santa Ana, and Resilience Orange County, a community non-profit. The campaign launched on Twitter as #TacoTrucksAtEveryMosque.

With fasting during daylight hours being one of the demands of the celebration of Ramadan, they arranged for the community’s iftar meal to arrive in a brightly painted, green taco truck.

This is wonderful and warm story, full of wonderful and warm people. A lot of Americans might want to note that it’s those brown peoples who are making inroads at community, peace, acceptance, and togetherness. Lots of pasty types could take a lesson. Full story here.

Peeling Paint.

Yesterday, I started the process for some peeled paint pieces. As noted before, acrylics are, of course, the paint of choice for this type of thing. However, if you have inks or other non-acrylics you’d like to use, just lay down a nice puddle of fluid medium first. I use Liquitex. I lay out my paints on the waxed side of freezer paper. It’s lovely peeling fluid medium, because you can do it in one lovely piece. (To be torn apart later, or not.) I took this one outside to photograph, had some fun with it. Then it was time for the more painstaking peel. Click for full size!

© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

At Play.

I love doing peeled paint pieces. They are sheer fun. The hard part is waiting for it all to dry, so you can peel it. Acrylics, of course, are the medium of choice here. For paints, inks, and so on, which aren’t so peelable, you can use a fluid medium laid down first. The transparency is nice, and can be used on its own too. I prefer Liquitex, but most any would do. I did a peeled paint piece for Marcus, on a canvas with a heavily textured, black background.  Click for full size.

[Read more…]

The Remains.

After finishing Rose Hork, I scraped it all into the blender, and had a bit of fun. For what was basically syrup and rose bits, it dried remarkably well, and is quite stable. I did add a bit of food colouring, which never made it into the original. Oh, and on the Rose Hork post, I said I kept my hair out of the syrup. I was wrong.

© C. Ford.

Cool Stuff Friday.

Sharif Hamza.

Sharif Hamza.

London-born, New York-based image maker Sharif Hamza collaborated with make up artist Georgina Graham and video artist Tony Oursler to create the photography project “Purple. Oursler”.

You can see and read more at iGNANT.

 

無料欲望/yoshi47 from GOOKUDA on Vimeo.

Mural for “Forest For the Trees” in Portland.

The art of Yoshi47 is a must see, vibrant, engaged, happily psychedelic, and mindful. You can see much more, and read more at Spoon & Tamago.

 

And last, but not least, TOIO!

Toio, at first glance, is stunningly simple: the core of the toy is just 2 white cubes with wheels. But don’t be fooled by their appearance. The tiny cubes pack a whole lot of tech. They respond to motion, are able to detect the exact location of the other, and can be programmed but also remote controlled.

It would seem that the possibilities for toio are endless, which is why the developers teamed up with various creatives and designers to come up with various craft sets that help kids explore what robots can do. You can create your own robotic beast and battle others, you can play board games with them and you can make obstacle courses for them to go through. Sony has even teamed up with Lego for this project, allowing kids to build Lego structures on top of their robots.

But one of the most attractive features is a craft set designed by the folks behind the lovable PythagoraSwitch TV segment. It’s a simple paper set that encourages kids to join the two white cubes using paper. The cubes then interact with each other and come alive, resulting in different movements.

Check out the videos to get a better sense of what toio can do. Sony has released a limited quantity of toio sets that start at 21,557 yen (about $200 USD) and go up to 33,415 (about $300 USD) depending on how many craft sets you want to add on.

Via Spoon & Tamago.

Wonder Woman Verdict: Great!

Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman in the awesome movie of the same name. All Images: Warner Bros.

The Wonder Woman Movie Is Even Better Than You Hoped It Would Be.

Also, Wonder Woman scored 97% on the Tomatometer. So, could all those people who just had be asses and insist the movie would totally suck because DC please be quiet now? Thanks.