After looking into it a bit, I found out that these pictures were all by Kimiaki Yaegashi, a 40-year-old, Tokyo-based illustrator with a simple, pop art style. It reminds me a lot of a 60s- or 70s-style, like a cel from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

There are lots of bizarre, recurring themes in Yaegashi’s work. You have lots of women in bikinis (even though the men are usually fully clothed); you have Japanese mythical figure Kintaro, the Golden Boy; you have supernatural creatures like tengu, kappa, and Michael Jackson.

But mostly there’s pizza; lots and lots of cheesy pizza.

One of the cuter projects that Yaegashi’s done is something called Kintaro from A to Z, 26 illustrations of Kintaro in different scenarios corresponding to letters of the alphabet. It’s a project simple enough that if you’re a beginner or intermediate Japanese learner you can probably read through it yourself!

Yaegashi also did a great illustration to benefit victims of the 3/11 disaster last year.

You can find him on his site and various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr (warning: his Tumblr is NSFW at times).

You can also find prints from Yaegashi on Thumbtack Press, and shirts on Tee Party.

It’s also created art forms that weren’t even possible twenty or thirty years ago. While animated GIFs were once simply just another file format, they’ve quickly become an art form in its own right.

I mean sure, there are plenty of funny or goofy GIFs around for memes and reactions, but some people elevate GIFs into high art.

Nowhere has this digital art flourished more than Tumblr. I’ve already covered one Japanese artist from Tumblr, the beautiful, bizarre body art of Chooooosan, but recently, I’ve found some more Japanese artists on Tumblr, who’ve created some really incredible images.

They go by the name “rrrrrrrroll,” and the premise behind their art is simple: every GIF features something spinning (or rrrrrrrrolling, I guess) in place, while the scenery around the person or thing stays eerily still. Sometimes it’s a woman spinng around, and other times it’s a random object twirling on its own.

While the concept is very basic, these pictures still blow me away. The contrast between an eternally spinning object and a still background is just really cool to me.

You can find more Rrrrrrrrolling GIFs on Tumblr (mouse over the text at the top), Facebook, or Twitter.

We’re actually looking for a couple different types of artists for a somewhat-but-not-really secret project we’ve been working on. There’s a few different types of art we need, and we’re actually planning on paying out the big moderate bucks to get our hands on your fabulous art. Plus, of course, you’ll also get recognition, which is just icing on the getting-paid-with-green-paper-I-can-buy-cake-with cake.

Here’s kind of what we’re looking for, maybe you’re interested in helping us out (or know somebody who would be?).

The Project

All the projects revolve around this half-crab, half-alligator half-manbearpig silhouette I whipped up when we first named our project. Of course, I suck at drawing, photoshopping and everything like that, so we won’t be using the image up above, but it sort of gives you an idea of what we were originally thinking when we came up with all this. There’s a couple totally different art styles we’re looking for though (all spawning off this half-alligator half-crab thing). They are:

Art-Type #1: Cartoon Epic

EPIC

I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe things, but the first thing we’re looking for is an illustration that is sort of on the realistic side of things (but not too real), containing our crab-alligator (I’m thinking a giant version) ravaging a city / doing battle with something, kaiju style. This piece of art would go on the landing (home) page of the website. There’s also going to be potential for more in the future as we want to rotate out the art to something new later on, but that’s the future, and most people can’t tell the future, so we’ll see.

Art-Type #2: Cute, Mascot

 Freddie The Mailchimp is awesome!

The second thing we need is a simpler version of the alli-crab. This would involve darker/stronger lines, more solid colors, and a much simpler (though not necessarily easier) illustration that we’d use for the mascot. We hope that the person who does the mascot can also do add-ons later on (like, monocles, top hats, and other fancy things) which we can just add to the original alli-crab you draw for us. Although the first illustration should be epic style, gritty, and more detailed, this one should be more cute and lovable (but not toooo lovable). It’s a alligator-crab hybrid after all, so it does need some spunk.

Art-Type #3: Badges

Some examples of what I mean by “badges”

We’re also looking for someone to illustrate badges for us down the line. We’re not quite ready for this side of things right now, but in a month or two or three, we’ll be needing quite a few of these. They’ll be for completing various tasks, etc., etc. We’d be interested in collecting names for this for the future and then getting back to you a bit later on when we’re ready, though we’re not ready right at this moment.

Send Us Your Portfolio!

Right now we’re just looking to narrow down options and get some sketches going. We obviously can’t hire everybody (gotta pay those taxes soon!), but we are hoping to get a few people picked to help us out in the next couple weeks, maybe quicker. I know a lot of you are fabulous artists, so I’m hoping a few of you will be good fits!

So, here’s what to do:

1. Send an email to art@tofugu.com
2. Inside, feel free to put whatever you want, but I’d recommend a few sentences about yourself / why you’d be awesome for this / which project you were most interested in (all of them is okay too). Don’t write too much though – almost everybody at Tofugu is illiterate.
3. Add a link to your portfolio (or attach art to the email).
4. If you’re feeling really fancy, you could attach some sketches relating to the alligator crab, too, but you don’t have to.
5. Let us know what price range you’re thinking. We’re kind of poor right now. Seriously, taxes, wth.
6. Give us some tiiimmeeee.

Although I was pretty specific about style and such up above, I’m definitely open to changes / alternatives. I’m not the artist, obviously, so feel free to tell me what would be better, and maybe I’ll agree ;)

We’ll need your submissions in the next couple of weeks – let’s say by March 16, 2012. Then we’ll get rolling with things pretty soon after that.

On a side note, there’s also other art-related projects I’ve wanted artists for that have nothing to do with the allicrab too (things for Tofugu/TextFugu), so there’s a chance that there’ll be more than just this, if you’re interested too. We’ll see though – one thing at a time.

Hit me up in the comments if you have any questions! Thanks much!

Header Image

Although her photoblog has changed over time, the two main features are the “levitation” photos and the 3D photos. Both are really cool, and her regular photos (though you’ll have to go back in time for those) are nice too. Personally, I was captured by the levitation side of things.

Magic?

The thing that mainly amazes me is how natural she makes the levitation look. It’s not photoshopped, and there aren’t really any tricks. According to her About Section, she sets the timer on her camera, uses intuition, and jumps right when she thinks the photo’s going to take (though sometimes she uses a friend for the button pushing for far-away shots). Obviously she’s had quite a bit of practice, but just imagine having to take the above picture over and over again in the middle of a train. Good thing Japanese train-riders will just ignore you, no matter what you’re doing.

Still though, the “levitation” is really natural. I can’t jump in the air and make it look like I belong up there. You’d just end up with a dumb picture of me jumping while making a stupid face…

It’s not just levitating she does, though – there’s also flying.

Seriously, though. How do you look so calm and relaxed while jumping like that?

When she’s not doing levitation photos, she’ll occasionally dabble in the third dimension as well. THREE dimensions, you ask? How is that possible with a photo? Actually, this technology has been around for a long time (and is even present in the oldest pictures of Japan). The hard part is the setup, though. You need two identical cameras that take pictures at the same exact time (so you need something that presses both picture-taking buttons at once). You put the two cameras next to each other (just like eyeballs) and then put the two pictures you’ve taken next to each other too.

In order to see the 3D, you have to cross your eyes until the two pictures come together as one. Then, relax, and enjoy the three dimensions. I think it really adds a lot to the photos in a quirky sort of way. Here, give the 3d a try for yourself – click on the pictures to get a bigger view:

In fact, these are all half levitation, half three dimensions. What more could you ask for in photography?

If you go through her blog, you’ll definitely find a lot of gems. I think she’s gotten better at levitating over time, so I hope she continues to post. Maybe one day she’ll discover that if you forget to fall you’ll just be able to fly all the time…

Vacuuming just got a whole lot easier

You can find Natsumi’s blog over at yowayowacamera.com. She’s also on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Levitate on over to your favorite social network and give her a “hallo.”

The service I use to listen to and get access to new music (or, in my case, lots of really old classical music) is Last.fm. There’s a competing product out there, Pandora, but to be honest, I’m not a fan of their user interface. I like last.fm’s desktop app, and I like how there’s always a ton of information on the song / band that’s playing available at my fingertips. Plus, it’s a lot easier to use, and integrates some nice social elements (which I don’t use).

Last.fm is an “internet radio” service, which means it’s more like an actual radio as opposed to playing whatever you want on iTunes, though there are some things that give you a little more control over what you listen to (and more importantly, what you don’t want to listen to). Although you can’t actually play specific songs in most cases, you can listen to “stations” that you create either based around an artist or tag. So, for example, if I wanted to listen to artists similar to Orange Range, I’d type that in and my Last.fm radio would play songs by artists similar to Orange Range (or songs by Orange Range themselves). Conversely, if I wanted to put in a tag, I could put something like “Japanese” in there to listen to music that’s been tagged with the word “Japanese.” For example, here are the first ten songs I got when using this tag (Japanese):

1. How Beautiful by 土岐麻子
2. Morning After by Boom Boom Satellites
3. Love Forever by 加藤ミリヤ×清水翔太
4. 1970 by Boris
5. Nabbed by Yoshida Brothers
6. Kodou by Dir En Grey
7. Funky Town by 安室奈美恵
8. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni by 島みやえい子
9. Molecicco by Boredoms
10. Zombie by Versailles

As far as I can tell, this list of songs was pretty random when it comes to styles, etc., and to be completely honest, I wasn’t a fan of at least half of these, but that’s why you have the option of skipping tracks you don’t like, marking them as “hated” so they never show up again, or marking them as “loved” so you can keep track and listen later. Although the tag feature is a great way to find new music in a particular genre, to find stuff you like it’s probably best to play stations based off of artists you already like. That’s gotten me the most luck.

Another thing I like is the ability to see the top artists within a particular tag. For example, the Japanese tag.

I’m a bad music listener, so I don’t know who most of these people are, but I bet you do! Lastly, you can even see local gigs happening in your area by tag. Apparently Utada Hikaru will be coming to SF soon?

Anyways, I hope this helps some of you out there find some great new music to listen to. Of course, if you want to learn what people are singing about, you’ll probably want to learn Japanese.