Pretty Loaded is an online museum of flash preloaders culled from the vast interwebs. Each preloader is handpicked and high-quality, resulting in a wonderful range of inspired flashiness. Enjoy!

Isometric pixel art is an odd sub-niche in the illustration world, a tribute to jaggedy proto-3D video games of the 80s that used the projection. Without pesky vanishing points, you could scroll a background forever, while retaining more depth than a frontal (Duck Hunt) or birds-eye (Spyhunter) projection.

Of course many of these new pieces are taken to the extreme: start with the German collaborative eBoy, and continue on. And if you’re really inspired, try your hand at it. It’s probably the only form of illustration that’s best suited to MSPaint. A couple hints: in Photoshop, lock a guide layer with an isometric grid, and work with the non-anti-aliasing pencil tool (the only good use for that, as well!)

But it does help to really understand the projection, and mechanical illustrator Cody Walker has written two extremely good tutorials on creating isometric illustrations in illustrator. They are non-pixellated, but the same principles apply. Enjoy!

Working with Orthographic Projections and Basic Isometrics

How to Create Advanced Isometric Illustrations Using the SSR Method

Real-life Photoshop. Print and poster work for software-asli.com, by Bates141 in Jakarta.
Check out the Flickr set for cool shots of how it was made. The diorama was much larger than I’d imagined.

I’ve been meaning to write about this one for a long time. The Superest is an ongoing drawing game between Kevin Cornell and Matthew Sutter. Kevin once drew a superhero called The Unopposinator, and Matthew responded with Someone. (Someone: He’s Not No one)

Kevin drew a hero to defeat Someone, and the madness has continued ever since. There are now dozen upon dozens of heroes. Visit, get the feed, and enjoy.

Much applause goes to Axel Peemoeller, who design this painted signage for the parking garage in Melbourne’s Eureka Tower. Trompe l’oeil, indeed!

From designer Marion Bataille comes this fantastic alphabet pop-up book that belongs in your library. Young children need to be exposed to this book!

Buy your copy today on amazon.com.

Yeondoo Jung is a Korean artist who reinterprets childrens’ crayon drawings as live-action tableaus, then photographs them. His website is currently down, so I’ve compiled some of his work here for your enjoyment.

The Sitepoint Photoshop anthology is a great reference book, containing many tricks it tooks me years to discover. It contains lots of meat, and very little fluff. Of course there any many such books out there, invaluable resources all, but this one happens to be a limited-time free download.

The press-quality PDF is a whopping 278 pages, and contains great information for young grasshoppers and Grand Viziers alike. It’s available until mid-June, so act quickly and save 30 bucks.

This was fun- I installed some decals on my dream bike, a Vespa Rally 200. Snazzy!

Finally, an excuse to blog about the beloved 80s-era intro: Starship HBO. If watching the extended version wasn’t enough of a magical experience for you, try this mini-documentary - a 1982 behind-the-scenes look at making HBO’s miniature model city. Apparently they fabricated tiny bums and hookers to ease the boredom of the 3-month project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Et_LsxlX8Y