The Clockwork Hand by deviantart user Astalo is lovely in it's craftsmanship. It is, however, a strange cross between cyborg upgrade and flirtatious torture device- wear it for super strength or make someone else wear it, turn the crank, forcibly making the 'come hither' motion , over and over and over. 'Who, me?'- I would say, blushing- 'I do declare, I thought you would never ask..but oh, Mr. Wingspatersonton, however will you dance, tied to that chair?'

I want it.

Typography can be (and usually is) tremendous amount of stress. I, for one, tear my hair out every time I see the currently ubiquitous Bleeding Cowboys; another friend has a dysfunctional relationship with Papyrus- over and over he vows it's over- only to be found trysting at midnight, kerning.

That being said, I find Vtks Revolt , by Douglas Vitkauskas,a rather handsome little font; if oddly named.

The long awaited (release has been pushed back several times) cover art book for Fables has come out today. It compiles all the amazing and moving covers that James Jean has done for the series, issues 1-75.  The cherry on top that is really making me squeal with happiness- each and every one is accompanied by sketches and progress shots. Yoyza.

Every Wednesday since I've been traveling, I've searched out the local comic book purveyor to see if this book had come out, and the wait has been more than worth it. James Jean is a jewel of an artist- creepily beautiful, deadly sexy, and intriguingly surreal; his art knocks my socks off every time.

For some reason, Amazon has the release date as next week, but your comic book shop should have it now.

Cal Lane is quite a lady. Oxy-acetalyne torch in hand, she intracately carves out lace-like patterns out of shovels, wheelbarows, cars, and most impresively- full sized I-beams. Just looking at her work, I wish i was able to experience it first hand- These formidable, unwieldy, solid hunks of steel transformed into objects that look as light as a feather. It's both industry and craft. She has quite a bit of work on her unfortunately flash-crippled site.

I have been tootling around Austin for a couple days now, guided mainly by locals scribbling favored destination on scraps of paper. I've visited (and took a dip in) Austin's famed Barton Springs park ("dude" an old hippie told me "it's, like, Austin's spiritual center"), drank Shiner Bock at the Driskill Lounge while the jazz band played the Super Mario theme, astride a couch made of a cow; and I've been attacked by a flock of Grackles.

One thing that has been bothering me, however, has been the total prevalence of the "keep Austin weird!" bumper stickers I've seen gracing every bike, minivan, lunchbox- If you're from that area, it very much akin to the "keep Tahoe blue" stickers adhered to a million car bumpers. I've been having a great time, to be sure, but I was beginning to think that the slogan was more of a city aspiration than actual reality.

Then I met the Junk King, and his home made Cathedral.

Much more after the jump..

Pin from Democratic Stuf

thanks, Aaron!

As you might have noticed, I spent the weekend being continually shocked at Maker Faire: Austin; not to mention 3-d scanned, felted and laser etched.

Out of all of this, though, there are a few projects and people who really stood out as being extra-super-special-spice awesome.

(note: do to my camera being ganked from my clutches, I lost my photos from the event. Which sucks.)

The 3d Ink Scanner, by Friedrich Kirschner  is the bigger, badder, blacker version of his earlier milk scanner. To do this for you, I was dunked into a bath of ink-laden water, practically affixed to a board while onlookers gasped at my ability to inhale (and violently exhale) large amounts of said water through my nose. For Science! A video of my 3-d scan can be found here.

Dominique Vyborny, on top of being a snappy dresser, is also an incredible artist-  she brought along two of her kinetic bicycle musicmajigs, Plucky and Cranky. Plucky was a coil-shaped steel instrument with steel strings, while cranky was a megaphone-like sculpture with a multitude of hand-cranked music box innards attached, so that when cranked (get it?) they  produced a tune to rival the creepiness factor of any doppler-affected ice cream truck.

Arc attack made the Doctor Who theme even more awesome (it is possible!)  playing it through their twin singing tesla coils.

Aaron Ristau made my day with his kinetic and interactive sculptures made from medical device detritus. 

These are the things that for me, made me want to take over some shop, lock myself in with a palate of Top Ramen, and do nothing but Make. Which I'm pretty sure was the point all along.

Lucky lucky Meredith Scheff is at Maker Faire Austin right now and she's twittering everything she sees! You can follow her here or add satiredun on Twitter.

It's only two days until Maker Faire: Austin, and my mad scientist bones are a-tingling with excitement. I'm downright giddy.

I know from previous experience that there is no straight forward way to cover the Mass Awesome that is Maker Faire- all I can ever do is run around like the proverbial beheaded chicken (or sugar filled human larvae child) to each exhibit squealing and poking and making and hoping to the dear and fuzzy lord that I remember to take photos. It is for this purpose then, that I have recruited a second chicken blogger  to do the same. I'm operating under the fudgy logic of  "two overstimulated nerds are better than one".

So let me introduce to you, dear readers, dear friend Richard DaLuz of www.stupidfingers.com. Rich has made some amazing mods, most recently the Nintoaster which garnered many a sinister chuckle; and the Super Genintari, and all-in-one Super Nintendo, NES, Atari, and Genesis. It is good.

On the road to Maker Faire: Austin I realized I was happening through Albuquerque just in time to see the largest gathering of hot-aired wind-bags since the Republican National Convention (ba-dum-ching!).

But seriously, folks. I tried my best to channel my inner Ford Prefect and smooth talk my way onto one of the balloons, but no dice.

Still, though, watching these things spew 15 foot flames into a bag of fabric and then gracefully glide into the air? Fantastic.

The landing part, though, is a little less graceful.

Mass Ascension - via a4gpa's Flickrstream