Optimum Wound

Filed under cool shit that shows up in my inbox. Artists Aaron Crawford and Scott Saw have joined forces to put out a new print. Aaron ‘redrew’ one of Scott’s paintings in his style. We’re big fans of Aaron Crawford here at Optimum Wound and were pretty stoked to get a chance to interview him last month. And now I’ve been officially introduced to the art of Scott Saw thanks to Aaron.

It’s cool to see more poster artists making more waves at Comicon as well.

From Aaron’s blog:

I only recently became familiar with his work through the power of twitter. We started chatting one day about collaborating, and long story short,
WE FINALLY DID! It wasn’t your traditional collaboration, because we live 28736 miles away from each other, but with the power of the internet, and a few massive file exchanges, we made it happen.

He sent me one of his paintings titled “The Good Fight” and I basically went and redid the concept in my style, which is going to be made (by Scott) into limited edition prints that will be available at this years COMIC CON!

I’ve always hoped to be involved somehow in the Con, so Scott is sort of making a dream come true here, by having this print available at his booth. (#4632)

I unfortunately won’t be able to attend, but you if you are going, you HAVE to, I repeat, HAVE TO go check out his booth and all of the art that will be available there. There will also be a few other goodies available from yours truly.

And here’s the original Scott Saw painting ‘The Good Fight’ that this new illustration and print is based on.

by Jason Thibault

Yesterday we collected four awesome videos that showed up online this week. Now it’s time to take a look at some of your other favorite stuff around the web.

This is where I take a look at the 10 most popular items that YOU clicked on in my Twitter feed over the past week.

Hands down this week, Chris Sims’ post The 18 Best Batman Panels Ever over at Comics Alliance was your favorite thing on the web this week (after the Mortal Combat 7-minute short film). If you haven’t seen the piece yet just head on over there.

Chicago Now’s Life and Style section had a slideshow featuring 36 regrettable tattoos and they definitely chose some doozies.

Comics Alliance also had a hilarious piece on possibly the world’s worst Batmobile. The car is described as a “wrecked 1994 Pontiac Grand Am purchased for $100 last summer at Dave’s Towing in Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

Environmental Graffiti featured half a dozen incredibly realistic pencil renderings of animals. The drawings were done by Hong Kong artist Paul Lung who takes between 40-60 hours to complete each drawing. And this is just his hobby which he fits arounf his day job as a graphic designer. Beautiful Life has even more of Lung’s drawings.

Tim Bradstreet Covers Judge Dredd – Tim was hired to provide the cover for MEGA CITY MASTERS: VOLUME 1 coming out soon from Rebellion Publishing. It’s great to see The Judge finally get the Bradstreet treatment.

Blogger and writer Sean Kleefield pointed us to How to Build a Comic Shop where retailer Terry Grant documented in photos how he constructed Third Coast Comics.

SlashFilm pointed out that “Warner Home Video has greenlit a DC Universe animated adaptation of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchilli’s Batman: Year One. According to the report, the film will be directed by Sam Liu” who has previously directed Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

99% presented us with the 10 LAWS OF PRODUCTIVITY. My favorite was number 5, Work on your project a little bit each day.

“With projects that require a serious infusion of creative juice – developing a new business plan, writing a novel, or just learning a new skill – it’s incredibly important to maintain momentum. Just as when you run everyday, the exercise gets easier and easier, the same thing happens with your brain. Stimulate it regularly each day, and those juices start to flow more freely.”

And finally for the writers: Over at Write To Done Brenda Hineman wrote about the journey of a writer and conquering that first sentence.

It was a banner week for badass videos showing up online. ‘Fake’ video game shorts, ‘real’ video game shorts, crazy ass metal videos and of course ninjas. Here’s four of the more noteworthy ones.

Mortal Combat

The internet was taken by storm when a Mortal Combat 7-minute short hit the web on Monday. As I write this the video has been viewed 2.4 million times via YouTube. The clip was put together by Fame director Kevin Tancharoen in hopes that Warner Brothers woud give him a shot at the franchise. SlashFilm has more details on this.

This was really well put together and more polished than a ‘fan film’ due to the fact that it was Hollywwod pros donating their time to put this together making it look many times more expensive than its’ reported $7500 budget.

This was really well put together and more polished than a ‘fan film’ due to the fact that it was Hollywwod pros donating their time to put this together making it look many times more expensive than its’ reported $7500 budget.

Red Dead Redemption Short Film by Director John Hillcoat

Director John Hillcoat was commissioned by Rockstar Games to create and direct a short 30-minute based around their Red Dead Redemption video game universe.

“It was created and directed by John Hillcoat (the director of The Proposition and The Road) and chronicles a slice-in-time of protagonist John Marston as he tracks down his former fellow outlaw and friend, Bill Williamson. Along the way, Marston encounters many of Red Dead Redemption’s eclectic cast of dreamers, misfits and liars.”

Parkway Drive – “Sleepwalker”

Metalcore may not be your cup of tea as far as music genres go but hot damn is this a visually stunning music video. I’m not sure where an Aussie hardcore band would obtain the funds to pull something off this dazzling but I’m not complaining. This video hauls ass. High contrast black and white imagery, swarms of locusts and buildings that come alive as monsters. I had to watch it a couple of times to take it all in.

If metal or hardcore ain’t your thang then keep the volume low. Personally I turned it UP.

Alien vs Ninja – Trailer

Damn do the Japanese know how to have fun or what? Twitch Film posted the Alien vs. Ninja trailer this week and I’m stoked. Usually I like my movies hard and serious but I’m a sucker for any film produced by anyone that anything to do with VERSUS. Yuji Shimomura was the action director on VERSUS and the director of DEATH TRANCE which I also enjoyed. Yeah I’ll be checking this one out.

It’s been a good week.
-Jay