Spotlight: Ksenolog

It's been a while since I've done a Spotlight post.  It's also been a while since I've done an artwork inspiration post.  I'm combining the two today.

Ksenolog is an artist who posts to a daily tumblr site.  He tends to be a bit of a workaholic and he also tends to beat himself up about his artwork.  Honestly though, his artwork is fantastic.  Here's a few random selections to give you an idea.

That club is great.

I think I can make those legs in Lego.

I dig spears.

This one gives me ideas too.

I can see that gun existing in Lego.

New Anime

There's been a bit of discussion lately, on some of the different sites I frequent, about a handful of new mecha anime series.  I figured I'd share them with you as I haven't been watching much in the way of Giant Robot/Real Robot anime recently.

The first is Aldnoah.Zero.  The plot is that history diverged in 1972 and we settled Mars.  That settlement eventually became the Vers Empire which declared war on Earth.  In 1999 a ceasefire was declared.  At the start of the show the Vers Empire has started attacking Earth again.  It's available on Hulu, Crunchyroll, etc.

The second is Argevollen.  This one features a long running war between two countries and a new super mecha.  It's available on Crunchyroll.  I watched most of the first episode and the mecha designs look pretty neat.

The last is Knights of Sidonia.  It's set in the far future where the ship Sidonia may carry the last remnants of the human race.  Giant mecha, called Guardians, defend humanity from the Gauna, a gigantic, alien, shapeshifting race.  It is only on Netflix.

I hope you enjoy these shows.

Model Kits 2

Here's the second half of the list.

Black Lotus (Accel World)

Engage SR3 [Normal Ver.] (Five Star Stories)

SA16d Kfanjal (Frame Arms)

32 Series Type 1 Gorai (Frame Arms)

SA-16 Stylet (Frame Arms)

Type 32-5 Zenrai (Frame Arms)

SA-17 Lapieal (Frame Arms)

SA-17s Lapieal Zephyr (Frame Arms)

NSG-12 alpha Kobold (Frame Arms)

Blitz Gundam (Gundam SEED)

Gundam Astrea (Gundam 00)

RGM-79(G) GM Sniper (Gundam 08MS Platoon)

RX-79 Ez8 Gundam Ez-8 (Gundam 08MS Platoon)

Gouf Custom (Gundam 08MS Platoon)

MS-07B-3 Gouf Custom (Gundam 08MS Platoon)

TYPE J-9 Griffon `Aqua Type` (Patlabor)

TRT66 Extoll (EX) (Patlabor)

Hannibal (GSDF Specifications) (Patlabor2 the Movie)

Hell Hound (Patlabor2 The Movie)

Model Kits

I've used model kits of giant robots as a source of inspiration for a while.  They provide a three dimensional look at a normally two dimensional object.  Here are a bunch of links to model kits I've found interesting.

Adele (Gundam Age)

Adele (Diva Color) (Gundam Age)

Image 

Dark Hound (Gundam AGE)

Gundam AGE-1Normal (Gundam Age)

Gundam AGE-2Normal (Gundam Age)

Genoace Custom(Gundam Age)

Gundam AGE-1Normal (Gundam Age)

Gafran (GundamAge)

Image

Gundam AGE-1Spallow (Gundam Age)

Image 1          Image 2

Baqto (GundamAge)

Image

G Exes (GundamAge)

Gundam AGE-1Titus (Gundam Age)

Image

Zeydra (GundamAge)

Zedas R (GundamAge)

Dorado (GundamAge)

Gundam AGE-2 Double Bullet (Gundam Age)

Genoace II (Gundam Age)

G Bouncer (Gundam Age)

Shaldoll Custom (Gundam Age)

Image

Giraga (GundamAge)

Blog Flogging

I stumbled across this site because he visited my Flickr stream.  LegoRobo.com  Whomever is writing it, he don't seem to build anything in the scale MFZ normally uses but, he has posted a bunch of what look to be instructions.  And he makes mecha.  That's all we need to know.  It is written in Japanese so use a browser that has a translation feature.

The "Concept" Sites

There are a string of blogs that have the base idea of presenting images of a central concept.  These sights can be excellent sources of inspiration.

Concept: Tanks

Concept: Robots

Concept: Ships

Concept: Vehicles

Concept: Guns  This one's still in the beta phase.

Concept: Aliens  This one might not be as much use but, I'm including it for the sake of completeness.

Take a look.  See if anything catches your eye.