SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Fancy a purr-fect replica of your very own feline friend? This Japanese needle-felting artist recreates kitties in stunning, realistic detail to order.

Japan
(artist • cats • craft • cute • Kawaii • needle felting)

See America through the eyes of Chiura Obata, a Japanese artist from the early 1900s

Scott Wilson
Nov 20, 2015

Chances are you’ve never heard of Chiura Obata. Well, all that changes now.

Japan, USA
(art • artist • California • paintings • sumi-e • ukiyo-e • WWII)

Combine your love of Godzilla, ukiyo-e and fashion with these fresh kicks from TeeFury

Evie Nyan
May 13, 2015

Recently, we brought you the news that you can now view an online animated sketchbook version of works by famous Japanese Ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. But what if you’re not content just looking at beautiful art online? What if you could see it every time you look down at your feet? Well, with these awesome printed sneakers from TeeFury.com, you can get some culture into your wardrobe while still looking cool!

Oh, and as an added bonus, they’ve stuck Godzilla’s ugly monster mush into the design, too!

Global, Internet, Japan
(art • artist • culture • fashion • Godzilla • hokusai • shoes • sneakers • ukiyo-e • woodblock)

Espresso Patronum! Artist creates awesome artwork on Starbucks’ cardboard cup sleeves

Evie Nyan
Jan 29, 2015

The iconic Starbucks mermaid is an instantly recognisable commercial symbol, up there with McDonald’s golden arches or Nike’s tick. But don’t you get a little bored sometimes with the same old face peering back at your from the cardboard sleeve lovingly hugging your steamy cup of joe? One artist decided to jazz up the old mermaid design using black pen, featuring everyone from Dragon Ball‘s Goku to The Legend of Zelda‘s Link, and the results are kind of awesome!

Global, Internet
(anime • art • artist • coffee • frozen • Harry Potter • Starbucks)

Did samurai use armoured cats and mice in battle?

Cara Clegg
Jan 5, 2015

The beautiful and imposing samurai armour from the Warring States period (sengoku jidai) still fascinates people today, and there are historians who have dedicated their lives to finding out as much about ancient warfare as possible. We know that warriors often rode horseback, but did samurai also use armoured cats and mice in their epic battles?!

Canada, Japan
(armor • art • artist • cats • mice • samurai armor)

Dirty Car Art is the perfect excuse not to wash your car ever again

Cara Clegg
Dec 31, 2014

Have you ever doodled in the dirt on your car before you finally got around to washing it? Or perhaps when you were younger you wrote something rude in the dust on the neighbour’s rear window? American artist Scott Wade took his doodling many steps further and now creates this stunning Dirty Car Art that you’d never want to wash off.

USA
(art • artist • cars)

Artist magically transforms Sailor Moon characters into black women

Cara Clegg
Dec 17, 2014

As a huge fan of Sailor Moon, one artist decided to reimagine the characters in a fresh new way that resonated with them. In the resulting fanart the Sailor Senshi have undergone a magical transformation into black African women – check out these amazing illustrations below.

Africa, Japan
(African art • art • artist • fanart • Sailor Moon)

Artist creates stunning Chinese-style paintings using cosmetics

Michelle Lynn Dinh
Dec 16, 2014

“Red” Hong Yi is a Malaysian artist-architect who creates brilliant and unconventional works of art. Known as “the artist who loves to paint, but not with a paintbrush,” she uses mascara, foundation, and other cosmetics to give rise to misty mountainsides, vibrant fire crackers, and shimmering ponds.

Internet
(art • artist • cosmetics • painting)

2-D anime characters so cute, you just gotta pinch their cheeks

Michelle Lynn Dinh
Oct 24, 2014

Anime fans in Japan have been trying to bring 2-D characters to our world, most notably with the help of virtual reality headset Oculus Rift. But now a recent meme brings a more wholesome and easily-attainable approach. All you have to do is draw your favorite anime or manga character on your hand and give it a tug. If you’ve ever encountered a fictional character that was so cute you were overcome with the uncontrollable urge to pinch its cheeks, this is the meme for you!

Internet, Japan
(anime • artist • drawing • meme)

This new kabuki face pack design will add a little color to your beauty routine

Michelle Lynn Dinh
Sep 11, 2014

Face packs haven’t quite caught on in the global market, but those moist face-shaped towelettes packed with vitamins and other skin-enhancing goodies are particularly popular in Japan. The most standard versions come in plain white, making you look like something out of The Grudge, but beauty product makers have recently been getting creative, bringing us face packs that turn its user into a cat, a panda, or a kabuki actor.

The newest fancy face pack is another one for kabuki fans, but this time it adds an extra splash of color and was created by international makeup artist and leader of Japanese contemporary fashion, Kansai Yamamoto.

Japan
(artist • beauty • face pack • kabuki • makeup)

19 pencil drawings that trick your mind into thinking they’re 3-D

BUSINESS INSIDER
Jul 8, 2014

Anamorphic drawings are two-dimensional drawings that, when viewed from a single point of view, seem to leap off the page. Graphic artist Alessandro Diddi has mastered them.

Diddi is an Italian designer who began working on the 3D-looking art in 2013. “The first drawings helped me to learn the basics of the technique and, once I got assimilated, I began to catch a glimpse of the expressive possibilities that this could offer,” Diddi told Business Insider via email.

To create the 3-D illusions with just graphite and paper, Diddi says he has to consider practical aspects (design, photography, and lighting) and psychological aspects (what the observer thinks he or she is seeing). His photos of the art often includes a pencil in them to immediately remind viewers that the items are 2-D.

Diddi’s drawings will be shown on July 19 at Santa Monica’s “Masters of Illusion” exhibit. Here are some of his mind-blowing works of art.

Internet
(3-D • art • artist • Pull Partners)

Famous websites like you’ve never seen them before… as fashionable dresses!

Joan Coello
Jun 1, 2014

Creators can be inspired by anything and everything around them. It could be a sight, a sound, a person, or even a website. Italy-based artist and design student Victor Faretina created a series of dresses inspired by some famous websites, titled Web in Vogue.

As people working on and for the Internet, we spend an awful lot of time surfing websites, but the idea of wearing a website certainly hasn’t crossed our minds. However, these amazing gowns designed by Victor are definitely making us look at the websites we visit daily in a different light!

Europe, Internet
(artist • design • fashion • website)

20 Tokyo GIFs from around the world

Michelle Lynn Dinh
May 1, 2014

Tokyo is filled with enough lights, sounds, and odd sights to inspire any artist to create something interesting – and that’s exactly what we found over at Show us your type, an online gallery that showcases GIFs created by artists using the names of cities across the globe. The artists draw inspiration from the famous sites, food, and culture of a particular area and incorporate that area’s name into an animated GIF. In other words, it’s a “creative platform for designers to share their talents and explore cities from a different perspective.” Let’s take a look at 20 different perspectives of Tokyo as seen by artists from around the world.

Japan
(art • artist • GIF • Tokyo)

Haters gonna hate! Writer conducts experiment, discovers that responding to internet dissing is futile

Rona Moon
Oct 22, 2013

Maybe you wrote an article, a story or a novel. Perhaps you created a website, blogged, put a video up on YouTube, or you’re an actor, fashion designer, musician, film maker… Whatever you’re doing, you’re putting yourself out there creatively and daring to make something new and explore. And then your work is uploaded onto the internet and exposed to the merciless gaze of millions of potential viewers…

If your work attracts any interest at all, next thing you know, the haters are all over you, getting up in your face. “I can’t BELIEVE you killed off Mr Darcy, what were you thinking?!” “Your eyes are too far apart,” “Why don’t you eat makeup, so you can be beautiful on the inside,” Or even, “Drink petrol and die.”

Japanese writer Sebuyama from comedy news site Omocoro recently carried out a social experiment aiming to demonstrate just how useless it is to respond to haters on the internet and use reason. He tried to find out why they were hating, and discovered three different flavors of hater!

Japan
(artist • haters • twitter)

Weekly Shonen Sunday’s newest manga artist is a 16-year-old high school student

Michelle Lynn Dinh
Oct 11, 2013

Said to be like “spending a pleasant Sunday,” Weekly Shonen Sunday is one of the top three manga publications in Japan. With a weekly circulation of one million copies, Weekly Shonen Sunday has featured many noted manga artists. But their newest contributor is relatively unknown in the manga community and surprisingly young.

Sabanoneko is in her first year of high school in Hiroshima Prefecture. Deemed a manga prodigy, she won Shonen Weekly Sunday’s Rookie of the Year award for the powerful expression of emotion in her work, Oni-Hime.