1909 - City Hall and Home Insurance Building (New York City)

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Charles will once again be offering collectors and fans of his illustration work a Christmas holiday special.  This year, the special will include a free print of your choice.  In addition, the artist will include a free limited edition pastel print of the Joseph Horne Co. Christmas tree.  The lighting of the Horne’s Christmas tree has been a long-standing family tradition in the city of Pittsburgh.

The Joseph Horne Co., often referred to simply as Horne’s by Pittsburghers was an iconic regional department store located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   It was one of the oldest department stores in the country after being founded by Joseph Horne (1826-1891) in 1849.   The department store chain operated for nearly 145 years until it ceased operation in 1994 after it merged with Lazarus, a division of the Federated Dept. Stores, Inc.

Joseph Horne was born in Bedford County, Pennsylvania.  He moved to Pittsburgh where landed his first job in the retail trade with Christian Yeager.   At age of 23, he bought F.H. Eaton store and eventually renamed it the Joseph Horne Co.   It became the leading department store in Pittsburgh, along with Kaufmann’s lasting for generations.   In 1879, a new central location was built at the corner of Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street.   The building was a 7-story landmark and the first department store in the city’s downtown district.   The annual lighting of the Horne’s Christmas Tree at their flagship store was a long held family Christmas tradition.   The Christmas tree display was six stories high and erected on the building’s corner.  Although the store ceased operation, it remains a tradition with Pittsburgh’s annual Light-Up Night festivities.   Crowds would also gather during the Christmas season to view the Christmas display windows, which often were very elaborate and included animated moving characters.

Charles thanks the many people from around the world who have visited his website at http://www.steelcityartist.com  and continue to be wondered by the artist’s incredible artwork.   Charles would like to wish you and your family the blessings for a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday.

The ten minute segment takes a look at a scene in the film when Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) fly together on Banshees for the first time. This is apparantly James Cameron’s favorite moment in the film.

I am slowly beginning to get excited to see Avatar. I still think the plot will be the weak link in the film, but in 3D this should look amazing. Mind you so far it just seems like one long cut scene in a video game.

However, it is good to see just how much work and technology went into making it.

gh17m166 made this fan made video.

planet 51 director jorge blanco co directors javier abad and marcos martinez 2009 the idea girl says

(November 13, 2009 – Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images North America)

Here is the team behind the making of Planet 51, which I heard took 8 years to make!

A lot of work was put into this movie and I’ll be looking for video’s on how they did it.

Director Jorge Blanco, with his co-directors Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez pictured here at the premiere of Sony Pictures’ “Planet 51″ at the Village Theater on November 14, 2009 in Los Angeles, California.

Actor Dwayne Johnson, director Jorge Blanco, co-directors Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez

planet 51 mann village theatre director jorge blanco co director javier abad , marcos martinez

made by youtube Planet51themovie

I really enjoyed this movie and it’s not just for kids, adults will love it too.

It’s like Shrek, where there’s a wicked sense of humor mixed with romance, adventure and awesome 50’s hits music.

I’m definitely going to buy the soundtrack when it comes out.

I loved 50’s rock n roll and that’s what this movie is about.

The good old 50’s where the village of aliens, is invaded by a human astronaut.

They argue about who is the alien then the little green guy LEM has to rescue his friend before it’s too late and his brain gets removed for scientific experiments.

planet51 the idea girl says

planet-51-wallpaper

planet-51

arturogalonso from youtube wrote:

Dirigida por Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad y Marcos Martínez. En el Planeta 51 la vida es agradable, sencilla y tranquila, pero un día, la gente vive atemorizada por la llegada de un alienígena.

Película distribuida por Videocine.

Con Música de Blink 182 canción: Aliens Exsists

Tekkonkinkreet (2007)
★★ / ★★★★

Based on a manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, “Tekkonkinkreet” was about two children aimed to protect their city from people who either wanted to change the city for the better or demolish it altogether to build an amusement park. Although the medium is animation, the story is not for children because it is very violent and the issues it tackles are geared more toward adults. While I did admire its ability to take risks, it did not completely work for me because it started out as a story grounded in reality but elements of the paranormal or fantasy somehow was added into the mix. It became really confusing, especially toward the end, not only because the movie simultaneously showed events that were actually happening in the real world, it also showed what was in the characters’ heads, and possibly scenes of the future. Perhaps the reason why I didn’t quite get it was because I needed more background information. But then again I always judge a film as a stand-alone piece of work; it should be able to hold up without having to read the source from which it was based on. Undoubtedly, there were some positive things such as the intense chase scenes and the imagination embedded in the metaphysical and surrealistic scenes. Directed by Michael Arias, I wish “Tekkonkinkreet” had less visual stimulation and instead worked more on its emotional resonance. I was interested in the two main characters’ relationship with each other and their society. It would have been a great opportunity to explore how their role as homeless kids, who had to steal from citizens and live in an abandoned car, was directly affected by cops who really cared about their well-beings (and vice-versa). What I love about animes and animated features in general is that it is limitless when it comes to giving its audiences images and emotions. However, there are those animes that simply fail to get me to care or keep my attention due to that lack of balance between the two. Unfotunately, this film is one of those animated pictures that left me bewildered in a negative way.

Dolphin became the default file manager when KDE went to 4.0, so Kubuntu users already know what a great program it is (unless they preferred to stick with the previous default file manager, Konqueror). While Ubuntu’s desktop environment, Gnome, has certainly stepped up of late when it comes to visual effects, screenlets and the like, KDE has always been about “bells and whistles”. And while Gnome can end up looking pretty stunning, the same can’t be said about its default file manager, Nautilus, which is about as plain as they come.

Dolphin, on the other hand, has the little niceties one would expect of a KDE file manager, like animated folder icons, and a lot more. There is an easy to access zoom slider for thumbnails, and has some pretty unique “views”. You can customise it in ways you could only dream of in Nautilus or Thunar, like not only add extra panes, but also move them where you like, and resize them to your needs.

If you look at the above pic, you’ll see that you can add a Folders (“tree”) pane and put it above the Information pane on the right (you could put it under Places, of course, but why not save that for shortcuts). Also, you can add a Terminal to the bottom, so whatever folder you’re in, you can just type commands without having to open a terminal in each folder (or continually change paths).

The views are “Icons“ (like the same in Nautilus, but smaller, and just the icon, no preview), “Details“ (your standard row-by-row format with information next to each file), “Columns“ (starts off with 2 columns, and every sub-folder you click on opens another), “Preview“ (turns your icons into thumbnails, and folders will show previews of pics inside), and “Split“ (gives you 2 columns you can browse with).

When you are in “Split“ mode, you can look at the beginning and end of a large folder at the same time, or use the second column to browse another folder or drive. The “Columns“ mode offers another interesting and useful way of browsing, so you certainly have a few choices in ways to browse.

Some things to note are that with Dolphin, like other KDE file managers, the default is to treat a single-click as a double-click. This can confuse Gnome users, as even slowly clicking a file will open it. All you need to do to select a file is click the green + that appears in the top left corner when you hover your cursor, and it will select it. But if you’re selecting a file simply to know the filesize, like you would in Nautilus, then you don’t need to, as that information will appear in the status bar and the Information pane simply by hovering your cursor over the file.

Not only that, but if you are in “Icons“ view, hovering over picture files will show the preview in the Information pane. In “Preview“ mode, another nice feature is that when you hover your mouse cursor over a folder, its preview thumbnail will cycle through other pictures in the folder (which you can see in the second pic, as the selected folder looks different from the preview in the Information pane).

So there are some great reasons to try out Dolphin. There’s a lot more you can do to customise its interface, and if the single-click/double-click issue ends up annoying you, then don’t worry, you can change the setting to what you’re used to. You can change that and other default settings via Settings > Configure Dolphin.

While Dolphin needs certain KDE libraries, etc, to function, any such dependencies will be installed with the program into your Ubuntu/Gnome system. Mark it for installation in Synaptic, or enter in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install dolphin

In my first ever blog, I was a high school sophomore complaining about my English 2 reading list. My first ever blog under the name “DaemonCorps” was part of a group list ranking the best animation villains. Both those occasions, I wasn’t really considering what I was typing to set up the tone of all my future blogs, so for my first wordpress blog, I really wanted to write about something that would prove a good example of everything I’m about… but what?

Then I checked my twitter feed:

Hooooly crap, a new Ninja Turtles movie? (stretches arms) Hokay, time for a history lesson

No disrespect to my parents whatsoever, but I consider myself to have been raised on TV. There wasn’t a day in my life that I existed without cable at my place; I preferred VHS tapes over story books as my bedtime stories; the one time I went camping, I was totally elated to find the van had a TV installed in it. You get the point. That said, I’ve gone through quite the number of television series that I was absolutely crazy about—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of the first, if not the first) of them. I remember having ninja turtles rain boots and insisting on wearing them even when they got too small for my feet to the point that the zipper would always snatch my foot whenever I tried to zip it up. I had a ninja turtles bike helmet and would occasionally bug my mom whenever I wanted to switch the color of my headband. I remember taking the turtles action figures for adventures in the garden and garage. Hell, on one occasion, I even cried during my grandma’s funeral—not for her death, but because I left my turtles action figures at home.

From the age of three to around seven, the turtles were my life.

Flash forward to 2003: a time when Toonami was king and action cartoons ruled every network that aired any kind of cartoons. In a time when goofy action heroes were fading to the background, I was absolutely surprised to find one Saturday morning that the turtles were back in action, brought closer to the Mirage Comics they originated from and were able to hold a flame to Goku, Gundams and the like. While nostalgia freaks did what they did best, I was just glad that the turtles were back.

Now five or so seasons of the 2003 season and the ‘80s series still big with hipsters in the form of ironic graphic tees and such, the turtles are celebrating their 25^th anniversary in style with Blu Ray movie releases, ‘80s and 2003 series alike with season sets… and quite the awesome movie taking the best of every turtles universe.

The made-for-TV-but-still-pretty-awesome movie pits has the turtles from the ‘80s series transported to the universe of the 2003 turtles. Great, so it’s a crossover series? While I think movies and episodes with a crossover as their basis are generally pretty crappy, “TMNT: Forever” makes a pretty decent explanation of it all. I mean, from the little I remember of the ‘80s series, it would get pretty goofy at times, so the idea that a freak explosion during the latest of the turtle’s scuffles with Shredder and Krang transported the gang to the 2003-verse makes total sense.

One problem I’ve seen viewers have with this movie, however, was the portrayal of the ‘80s turtles. Rather than being portrayed as lovable and kid-friendly, yet still able to put up a decent fight, the ‘80s turtles are more a parody of themselves more than anything else. Personally, I have no problem with this, since most turtles fans I’m aware of know it mainly for its goofiness more than anything else, so it’s completely understandable. Besides, it looked like they put up a pretty decent fight in their first fight scene—that ain’t too shabby, right?

And if a crossover with the ‘80s turtles wasn’t enough, resurrected 2003 Shredder expands his plans for world domination, taking things one step further: taking over the multiverse! However, he’s got one problem: no matter which universe he tries to take over, he notices that those darn turtles are always there to try and stop him in some form or another. Following these turn of events is a series of references of turtles series, from the live action movies, to the Japanese adaptations and all other ones in-between. Without spoiling too much, I’ll just say the end results are pretty sweet. And this is from someone who generally hates multiverse crossovers.

From the start, you can just tell that “Turtles: Forever” was made with quite the amount of tender loving care, paying respects to not just the two animated series, but absolutely every incarnation of the series you could think of. If you’re a turtles fan of any kind, definitely check it out.

1904 - Walls of Jerusalem and the Ferris Wheel looking from West Restaurant Pavillion, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, U.S.A.

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1900 - A Sad Predicament

Another drastic angle, but I couldn’t resist!

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View the full collection at  clicksypics.com.  To find out how these are created, go here.

While on the planet Hoth and being chased by Darth Vader (Stewie Griffin), young Luke Skywalker (Chris Griffin) has a vision of his dead mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Herbert), who tells him to go to the planet Dagobah and learn the ways of the Force from Jedi Master Yoda (Carl). Luke has a vision of the Empire capturing his friends. Believing this to be true, Luke forgoes his Jedi training in order to save his friends and confront Vader.

Elsewhere, Princess Leia (Lois Griffin) finds herself attracted to the scruffy pilot Han Solo (Peter Griffin) and, against all odds, the two fall in love.

It’s out on the 22nd December. Alan S let me know what it is like.

Judging by the photos it looks like they were filming a photoshoot, I wonder what it was for because you can tell that it was a while ago when G-Dragon had his hair like that. Never mind, it was for their calendar/diary photoshoot. The animated pictures are really cute, and they’re basically just showing the same thing that each of the boys is doing but in an animated way. Check them out under the cut.

About two years ago Family Guy aired their hilarious Star Wars episode.  Despite that being the best Family Guy episode in recent history it took them a long time to finally release this one.  I’m sure this episode/movie will be just as good as the original, but surely it didn’t have to take this long.  And I hope they don’t wait this long for the Return of the Jedi parody.

I still have s light problem with the “casting”.  Cleveland should have been Lando.  Instead they made him Artoo, and they have Mort playing Lando.  And Joe should have been Artoo.  Mort jokes won’t make any sense coming out of Lando.  Besides that it looks good.

Click poster to watch the trailer.

From Apple.

- izi

Check out this bad boy, which I purchased today 2nd hand on VHS for 99p ($1.62). It’s none other than Disney’s classic animated movie, The Lion King. With an awesome musical soundtrack by Sir Elton John, Tim Rice and Hans Zimmer. Ideally I’d have liked the DVD, but with copies online going for upwards of £20 ($32.80), I think it’s best I stick with the VHS for now. Thanks for reading.

Is finally released today in theatres! So make sure you go see the sequel to Blue Harvest.

]]> http://martinbaena.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/review-mary-and-max/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:26:27 +0000 martin baena http://martinbaena.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/review-mary-and-max/ http://clicksy.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/1923-barnum-clown-stereoscopic-animation/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:11:40 +0000 clicksy http://clicksy.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/1923-barnum-clown-stereoscopic-animation/

1923 - Barnum's clown -- woman holding weights labelled 250 lb. over clown lying on floor

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1919 - The Giraffe

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1904 - From Lily Pond near Agriculture Bldg., N.E. to Observation Wheel (250 ft. diam.), World's Fair, St. Louis, U.S.A.

I wasn’t too happy with the girl, the angle of the lenses was too drastic for a good animation. However I know I have a lot of ferris wheel fans, and I liked the wheel and the pond, so I included it.

Click pic for full size.  View the full collection at  clicksypics.com.  To find out how these are created, go here.

The folks over at Pixar just released a new short from “Up” titled “George & A.J.” The cartoon follows the two Shady Oaks Retirement Community employees after Carl Fredricksen’s house takes off.

The cartoon isn’t done in the slick CG animation you’re used to seeing from Pixar, but it’s still a fun little short to sidetrack you from all of that boring work you should be doing.

It was written and directed by Pixar’s Josh Cooley.

Here you go:

Justin Shady Oaks,

-Shady