Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2058

GAME OF THRONES, a Batmobile Dress, and More Cosplay by Athel Artistry

Athel Artistry, a.k.a. Cynthia Kirkland, has been cosplaying for almost 15 years. Back then, wigs weren’t readily available in a rainbow of colors, thermoplastics weren’t prevalent, and you had to walk uphill both ways to the convention center. It didn’t stop Athel Artistry and her best friend from being captivated and working on their first costumes for Otakon, an anime convention. They made the smaller accessories, and their mothers sewed the majority of their outfits. Since then, Athel Artistry has learned how to sew, and while she lived and studied in Osaka, she attended local cosplay events and was featured in the magazine CosMode.

Her passion for cosplay has even trickled into her career—she’s a seamstress at Walt Disney World.

When she’s not working for the Mouse, Athel Artistry is creating all sorts of gorgeous ensembles. She looks simultaneously frightening and awesome as one of Game of Thrones‘ most reviled characters:

Joffrey Baratheon (Game of Thrones) | Photo by Soulfire Photos

Her design skills are evident with every costume she makes, but she also applies her talent to geek chic designs. She designed this Batmobile dress, modeled by Mew, for the Her Universe Fashion Show:

Photo by Braeby

Batmobile. Dress. What a time to be alive.

Head to the gallery below to see more creations from Athel Artistry, including a lovely Captain Phasma dress. You can keep up with her future projects by following her on Facebook and/or Instagram.

Do you cosplay or take photographs of cosplayers? Then I want to see your work so we can talk about highlighting your creations in a future Cosplay Friday gallery. If you’re a photographer, maybe we could focus on your images from a single convention. If you’re interested, please get in touch with me at alratcliffe@yahoo.com and send photos you’d like me to feature–the more high-res the photos, the better. Be sure to provide credits for the cosplayers or photographers for each image because giving credit is good manners–bonus points if you include links to relevant Facebook pages or websites. Though I wish I knew all the nerdy franchises, I don’t, so please let me know who or what is being cosplayed.

 

Featured Image: Soulfire Photos, courtesy of Athel Artistry

Convert FALLOUT 4 Into a Horror Film with a THE WITCH-Inspired Mod

The Fallout 4 Nuka World expansion added a Crazies-meets-The Warriors vibe to the post-apocalyptic adventure, and now a new mod from l00ping and TreyM transforms your stroll through the Wasteland into a 17th century horror.

Channeling Robert Eggers’ The VVitch, “Pilgrim — Dread the Commonwealth” is an ENB and weather overhaul that adds a graying, desolate patina to the game and a creepy new soundtrack, ensuring a cinematic edge of atmospheric horror to a game where mirelurk kings already jump out of nowhere and you’re forced to hang out against your will with Preston Garvey.

This mod looks so, so gorgeous. I want to revisit Salem with it immediately.

And they picked a spirit animal, too, marrying the old-timey New England religious mysticism in The Witch to the 23rd century nuke-worshipping survival of the game. The pairing works insanely well. That’s probably thanks to a key factor that Fallout 4 and The Witch have in common: a deep sense of loneliness. Yes, there are raiders and cities filled with Super Mutants and settlements filled with ungrateful tato farmers but moving through the universe without fast travel is an exercise in woodsy isolation. Not to mention the shared goal of building a new society out of ash and the fear of what’s lurking beyond the treeline.

For fans of The Witch the most exciting element of the “Dread” mod is yet to come. The team is planning to replace Dogmeat with Black Phillip. For now, they’ve turned the most faithful companion of the game into a hellhound with glowing eyes and a sinister bark. For those who haven’t seen The Witch: what are you waiting for? It’s great. Go watch it.

What do you think? Are you getting it just because Black Phillip told you to?

Image: l00ping and TreyM

LED-Lined Fake Eyelashes Turn You Into a Fashion Cyborg

Cosmetics have come pretty far; They can do just about anything from hide a small blemish to transform you entirely (anybody who’s watched RuPaul’s Drag Race knows what I’m talking about). Now, thanks in part to open-source electronics board Arduino, humanity has come one step closer to evolving into beings made entirely of light. We now have LED fake eyelashes, and they’re fabulous (via Fast Company).

The video above is creator Tien Pham showing off F.lashes at this year’s Maker Faire, and they look pretty darn cool. They come in pink, red, blue, light blue, white, yellow, and green, and each eyelash is connected to a battery on the back of the user’s head via thin, translucent wires.

“I made this for myself for Halloween one year,” Pham writes on Facebook. “After that, my awesome maker friends helped me to make it even cooler.”

A concern we had initially about F.lashes is what having tiny lights just millimeters away from your eyes would do to them, but Pham told a Facebook commenter that that’s really not an issue: “You actually can’t see much of the light because it’s pointing outward. In fact, I can’t usually tell. I have to cup my hand to see the light bounce off of it.”

If you want some F.lashes for yourself, a Kickstarter campaign is set to start in July, so follow the F.lashes Facebook page for updates on that. If you just can’t wait, you can make some yourself with help from this Instructables guide. What other LED facial accessories would go great with F.lashes? Perhaps some eyebrows, or a mustache? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Featured image: Arduino/Facebook

Go Behind the Scenes of AMERICAN GODS’ Stunning Animation Sequence (Exclusive)

Remember last week when American Gods opened with a gorgeously animated story about the very first settlers in America? Wanna know how it was made? Good, because the studio that made the dang thing has given Nerdist an exclusive behind the scenes look at how this story was brought to life, and today we’re sharing it all with you.

Inspired by a similar passage in the book, this particular “Coming To America” scene recounts the journey of America’s oldest ancestors, who crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia. Over the course of the short five minute sequence, Atsula leads her people to America and communes with their god, Nunyunnini, to aid them in staving off starvation. He shows her a glimpse of the future, where she is mauled by a white bison (the same one Shadow sees in his dreams in the first episode) and her people are taken in by another tribe who appears to worship the beast; in the process, their god is forgotten.

It’s radically different than the way Atsula’s story plays out in Neil Gaiman’s original text (in the book, Nunyunnini warns them not to go to America and she defies his wishes, causing her tribe to be cursed), but this scene serves an important purpose nonetheless; it demonstrates the intensely co-dependent relationship between people and their Gods, who depend on them for survival. As Mr. Ibis explains in his voiceover, “The Gods are great, but people are greater, for it is in their hearts that Gods are born, and to their hearts that they return.”

The short five minute sequence was created by Tendril, a design and animation studio which happens to be close by to where American Gods‘ production studios were located while filming in Toronto, Canada — yep, turns out the show isn’t so American after all. Anyway, the team immediately offered the production their services (because who wouldn’t), and was tasked with creating concept art for the characters and environments that would eventually appear at the beginning of director Vincenco Natali’s episode, which landed them the gig.

Looking at the final product, it’s easy to see why Tendril was the right team for the job; despite the obviously stylized frames, Atsula’s tribe feel oddly grounded in reality.

“We wanted it to feel very tangible and real, like a stop motion film that could have been made by these ancient people, using whatever materials and tools they would have had access to,” Tendril director Chris Bahry said; for this reason, their bodies and clothes incorporate raw textures of twigs, clay, bone, and shells. Cloth, fur, and hair simulations were also added to make the characters seem more alive and real.

While Atsula’s people do not belong to any identifiable ancient culture, the design team was loosely inspired by imagery and archeological artifacts associated with Paleo-Indian explorers (like the Clovis tribe), as well as fine art sculptures that featured raw clay materials. Nunyunnini’s look also changed during the development process; originally his totem was conceived of as a baby mammoth skull adorned with jewels and ornamental engravings, but over time the design was changed to look more low-tech and organic, just like the people who worship him.

According to Bahry, the film ended up being the most challenging project Tendril’s ever faced, and took six months to complete from start to finish (although most of that was in concept and design — the actual production process took about twelve weeks).

In addition to animating the bodies of each tribe member and God, the team also had to create snow and atmosphere layers for the storm that opens the sequence, as well as hallucinogenic smoke, fire, ember, and other background effects that add texture to the world. For much of the FX rendering they used software called Houdini, which is used all across the film, television, and gaming industries in projects like Zootopia, Ant-Man, and Horizon Zero Dawn.

Most importantly, however, was finding a way to capture the central conceit of American Gods in such a short space of time. “The challenge was in finding the most powerful way to communicate the central theme of the sequence: faith vs survival and adaptation,” Bahry said.

Although this version of Atsula’s version is a fresh, new story, the sequence still connects to the rest of the show. For example, in the original script the tribe was meant to encounter “Raven People,” which was changed to a bison-worshipping  so that the White Bison from Shadow’s dreams would be featured. The close-up of Atsula’s pierced heart also foreshadows a similar event happening to Laura’s heart in the same episode, after she kisses Shadow. And, of course, Neil Gaiman definitely approves of the changes — he’s the one who wrote the voiceover that appears in the final product. “That was a wonderful surprise for us,” Bahry admitted.

Below, check out the rest of our gallery full of other BTS images and concept art of the sequence. Now that you’ve seen how much work went into building Nunyunnini’s people, what do you think of the end result? Let us know about all your American Gods thoughts and opinions in the comments below.

Images: Courtesy of Tendril

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Deleted Scenes Reveal Le Fou and Belle Lost Moments

Earlier this year, Beauty and the Beast proved that Disney’s live-action take on a “tale as old as time” still has an amazing ability to draw in moviegoers. Next week, Beauty and the Beast is heading to Blu-ray and DVD, where it will feature a few deleted scenes that didn’t quite make it into the final cut. But now, two of those scenes have popped up online.

Yahoo! Movies has debuted a clip that features Emma Watson’s Belle showing some kindness to Agathe (Hattie Morahan). If you’ve seen the film, then you know why it’s probably a fortunate thing that Belle has such a good heart, even though Agathe is a bit demanding.

Meanwhile, Entertainment Weekly debuted a deleted scene of its own from late in the film, just as Josh Gad’s Le Fou discovers that there was no safe haven from the final battle. But as you’ll see in the clip, Le Fou doesn’t exactly get a friendly welcome from the castle’s most infamous resident: Monsieur Toilette.

Wow. That really does make us wonder about what type of man that Monsieur Toilette was back when he was still human. That is literally the worst job in the castle, and we can only assume that the enchantress felt that he deserved that fate. EW also notes that Monsieur Toilette actually had a speaking role in the film, with Logan co-star Stephen Merchant playing the part. However, Merchant’s character was apparently flushed during the editing of the film.

Beauty and the Beast will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, June 6.

What did you think about the deleted scenes from Beauty and the Beast? Use a magic mirror to project your thoughts to us! Or just use the comment section below. That could work too.

Image: Disney

Talking STRANGER THINGS Season 2, WONDER WOMAN Sequels, and Donut Day

The real world is getting tougher and tougher to live in, so why not take a quick trip to Themyscira? (Or, hell, we’d even settle for the Upside Down at this point!) On today’s Nerdist News Talks Back, we’ll be exploring the bounties of otherworldly locales like Wonder Woman’s home island, the Demagorgon’s stomping ground on Stranger Things, and that mystical black hole that exists in the middle of every one of God’s most heavenly creatures: the donut.

First up on today’s episode, host The Dan Cave spelunker Dan Casey, along with Nerdist Editor-in-Chief Rachel Heine and Because Science‘s chief lab technician Kyle Hill, will tackle news on the upcoming second season of Stranger Things. As Gaten Matarazzo told HuffPo, season two should drive us deeper into the Upside Down, introduce even more terrifying monsters, and ultimately end on a cliffhanger that bleeds into season three.

Next, we veer back to Wonder Woman, which has set up to do absolute gangbusters in its opening weekend. With a sequel now ringing as just shy of a certainty, but conflicting reports about when it’d take place, the Nerdist News Talks Back gang weighs in on Wonder Woman storylines they’d like to see adapted to the big screen.

It makes sense that so many people are opting to spend their weekends in the fantastical realm of the Amazon, considering such harsh revelations here in the real world as America’s disbandment from the Paris Agreement. To be sure, global warming is something to be quite terrified about. Science expert Kyle Hill weighs in on just how big a toll climate change takes on Earth–and even on the likes of Themyscira.

Leaping from DC to Marvel, we contend with a particularly gasp-worthy turn of events to grace the comic pages of late. If you haven’t heard (and spoilers if you haven’t!), our old pal Deadpool recently lay waste to another Marvel favorite, Agent Coulson. Comic book deaths don’t always last forever, but Deadpool’s expiration still has us asking a lot of big questions. And we’ll have Gerry Dugan on hand to answer some of them next week!

And before we leave you, we have Nerdist Social Media Editor Michelle Buchman handy to celebrate National Donut Day with a run-down of some of our and our fans’ favorite donuts in all of pop culture! Let us know yours!

Featured Image: Netflix

HBO Clarifies GAME OF THRONES Spin-Offs, Final Season May Air in 2019

Like A Song of Ice and Fire before it, the future of George R.R. Martin‘s televised universe could go in many different directions, and it will take a long time to get there. But isn’t that what we want, ultimately, from Game of Thrones? Well, it certainly is for HBO, whose ownership over The Known Realm and its on-screen adaptations is all-important to them, not only now as GoT ends, but as a hope for one of the four or five prequel/spin-off series reportedly in development. So we’re not really surprised at the news that they are taking everything so seriously, and want to do it so right, that the final season of Thrones may not even air until 2019.

I know.

According to Casey Bloys, who spoke about the matter with Entertainment Weekly, it’s a matter of not only ensuring showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss have the time they need to see the series through in the way they envision it, but also because, “by the time the final season airs, Dan and David will have been at this for 12 years. … They didn’t go and do movies in between seasons, they didn’t set anything else up, they put everything — and are putting everything — into this show.”

To be sure, that’s A VERY LONG TIME to be working on a single project. No one keeps the same job for that length of time anymore! So it makes sense that the network would want to give them as much time as possible to do what they need to do to honor the story.

How long that will be, it seems, is anyone’s guess, because the final scripts are still being written. Which means: we may not get the final season of Thrones until as late as 2019.

Per the EW conversation:

So as of now, the final season could air in 2018 and/or in 2019 depending on their needs?

“Yeah. They have to write the episodes and figure out the production schedule. We’ll have a better sense of that once they get further into the writing.”

So does that mean the prequel could come first? Not at all. Bloys made a point to address the multiple projects in development and Martin’s writing role in each (in short: it varies based on what the writers want), adding that the first priority is Thrones coming together in a way that honors everyone involved. “The bar is so high,” explained Bloys. “If you only developed one, everything would rest on that one shot. It’s such a special show. I want to make sure that [any prequel] feels worthy. We have some amazing writers who want to take a shot at this. They’re also looking at different times in the universe and all will have different feels. This increases our odds of finding one that’s unique.”

And even though Dave and Dan will not be involved in any of the prequels and their development in order to keep the expectation game low (plus, y’know, they’re probably ready to do something new), Bloys posited that the number of spin-off series in development isn’t a guarantee they’re all going forward, but rather that they can hopefully find one that feels as different, unique, and worthy of following up the original. “I wanted to make sure fans know this is a really embryonic process. … The idea is not to do four shows. The bar set by [Benioff and Weiss] is so high that my hope is to get one show that lives up to it. Also, this is a long-term plan. Our No. 1 goal is the seventh season this summer and getting the eighth season written and aired.” You can read the whole interview by heading over to EW.

What do you think about the development? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: HBO

Alicia Lutes is the Managing Editor of Nerdist, Maester-in-residence for all things GoT, creator/host of Fangirling!, and frequent Twitter user.

Still hungry for more Thrones? Check out our speculation on the new images:

Iconic THE THING Scene as a LucasArts-Style Video Game is Bloody Brilliant

The film The Thing, much like its eponymous antagonist from outer space, is able to take on different forms—and not just as a Blu-ray Disc. In fact, John Carpenter’s 1982 film was a cinematic take on Who Goes There?, a science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. Freelance video game artist Paul Conway’s 8-bit take on Carpenter’s classic film, below, is then not only some sweet LucasArts-style artwork, but also an excellent way to serve the film’s tradition of taking on new forms.

Here’s the final version of my LucasArts style #TheThing #adventuregame mockup. This was a lot of fun to work on. #pixelart #gamedev. pic.twitter.com/XuehQNZH2w

— Paul Conway (@DoomCube) May 30, 2017

Conway’s mash-up of Carpenter’s classic film with the iconic LucasArts video-game style was posted to Twitter, as well as Reddit, and quickly spread like some kind of… thing. On Reddit Conway noted that “[He] had a lot of fun imagining The Thing as an adventure game,” and that he mainly uses Photoshop for all of his work. And in one of his tweets, he revealed the process of developing the artwork, from initial sketch to final design.

Here’s the work in progress animation of my LucasArts style #TheThing mock up. #pixelart #gameart #wipwednesday pic.twitter.com/Fi7ZHUSKuX

— Paul Conway (@DoomCube) May 31, 2017

The scene he’s duplicated in LucasArts pixelation (which refers to LucasArts video games like Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade from 1989) is one of the most memorable from the film, in which MacReady, played by Kurt Russel, and the others trapped in Outpost 31, have their blood tested with a hot wire to see who’s been assimilated by the Thing. The suspense in that scene is palpable, and unless you’re as cold as a dead body buried in the Antarctic snow, it probably makes you want to GET UP OFF YOUR FREAKIN’ COUCH.

Image: Universal Pictures

It seems that Conway hasn’t considered the idea of a full-blown video game version of The Thing, but if you’re in love with the style, and need to up the video game creep factor in your life, you can check out The Darkside Detective; it’s a darkly comedic video game Conway’s made with the same aesthetics, and also some excellent Stranger Things-style music.

What do you think about this artistic take on The Thing? Let yourself loose in the comments below!

Images: Twitter / Paul Conway

Puck Soup #53: Bob McKenzie

Greg and Dave talk about the Stanley Cup Final, Jake Guentzel and the Conn Smythe, the Predators fan who used a catfish as an “instrument of crime,” Doc and Pierre eat sandwiches, trading Alex Ovechkin, the Olympics and a mailbag that features the Penguins vs. Cavaliers playing hockey and basketball. Plus, TSN Insider Bob McKenzie talks about breaking news, keeping sources, how journalism’s change since he started, the NHL playoffs, his love of canoes and his even bigger love of hip-hop. Sponsored by SEAT GEEK!

Follow @wyshynski, @davelozo and @PuckSoupPodcast on Twitter!

The PREACHER Season 2 Trailer is Full of Easter Eggs

Get ready for some serious bar brawling, gunplay, and supernatural action, because AMC’s full trailer for Preacher Season Two has arrived–packed full of treats from the original comic by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.

From momentary hints to major character introductions and lots in between, there’s loads here to get fans of the source material wondering if their favorite villains/storylines/plot twists/hilariously ultraviolent panels have made it into the show.

First, let’s look at the trailer:

Pretty great, right? Now let’s dissect the heck out of it, and we’ll start with this guy:

He showed up briefly in Season One, mostly in shadow and wearing a hat at the snuff film screening, but here he is in all his scary glory. A bald man with an appetite for gore and white suits who has a huge painting of Jesus in his office? It can only be Herr Starr, leader of the religious paramilitary organization The Grail. Based on his line delivery in the trailer, it’s not clear whether the show will stick with his German background. All we can say for sure is that Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy should watch their backs.

Speaking of which, their journey to find God has led them to New Orleans, which is where the cracks in their bond start to show. During this story arc in the comic, Jesse undergoes a transcendental voodoo journey into the depths of his psyche, we discover what kind of person Cassidy really is, and Tulip tries to keep everyone from getting killed.

New Orleans is also where Cassidy meets Eccarius, a fellow vampire who’s basically stepped out of a knockoff Anne Rice novel. Although Eccarius isn’t in the trailer, there’s every chance he could show up this season, since the contrast between his Gothy angst and Cassidy’s DGAF attitude is right up Rogen and Goldberg’s street.

But the road to call out God is paved with angry law enforcement, so Jesse and Tulip also have to square off against state troopers. The most effective method, obviously, is to coerce them via the power of Genesis to hold hands, because nothing is funnier than two men engaging in non-hostile physical contact, or something.

This could be a TV-friendly nod to Jesse’s much more graphic use of Genesis early in the comic, when he tells Sheriff Root to “Go f*** yourself.” Root follows these orders to the letter by inserting a key part of his anatomy into another key part of his anatomy (a scene mercifully played out off-panel). Such is the power of Genesis.

And now, as per the advice of Vanessa Williams, we’ve saved the best for last. It’s the Saint of Killers, coming to a preacher’s road trip near you!

The Saint crosses paths with Jesse throughout the comic, perhaps as a sort of warning: live by the cowboy code, risk dying by the cowboy code. It’s not all bloody bullet-riddled encounters–conversations with the Saint impart a few hard lessons about revenge and masculinity–but the ongoing battles of Jesse vs. the Saint do provide some of the comic’s most jaw-dropping moments. This season is going to get raw. I for one cannot wait.

Which moments from the Preacher comic are you looking forward to seeing in Season Two? Sound off in the comments!

Images: AMC, DC Comics/Vertigo