Welcome back, Traveller,
You just bought a pack of your favourite trading cards, it’s sealed and oh-so-shiny. What’s in it? Please, be a rare thing…
Scroll to open our imaginary pack of cards and enjoy these lesser-known gems of the internet’s geeky side.
Here comes a collection based on our latest newsletter’s topic.
In that we explored
what drives our fascination with repulsive aesthetics and characters;
the rise of rawness, and disgusting cultural products like Dr. Pimple Popper;
why it’s crucial to get acquainted with this ambivalent feeling for artists and art lovers.
If you’re intrigued, there’s a link to our previous post at the end.
Don’t forget to subscribe for free to receive lists like this and short (mostly philosophical) essays about geek culture.
Let’s observe out of curiosity and the love to learn or even mimic like Omnimorphs.
🎨 Drawing: Dan Luvisi
“Dan LuVisi was one of the reasons I became interested in digital art when I was a teenager. His vibrant, crazy looking characters and world really dragged me in, and I still have his massive Last Man Standing book next to me which I open up sometimes. But when he started doing the Popped Culture series of famous characters with a twist, I was quite shocked. I just couldn’t stop staring at their messed up faces. It’s a strange feeling to be honest, that I still loved them, even though some were so disturbing.”
Dani
🎨 Drawing: Erik Ferguson
“Erik Ferguson’s name instantly came up when we discussed this topic. His sometimes phallic looking, fleshy creatures are really something else. There’s one character I found really cute and disgusting at the same time is Rasch, which he made a few short videos of. You can check them out on his website!”
Dani
❔ Your art: Leave a comment
This could be the part where we recommend your favourite artist, developer, or maybe even you FOR FREE. If you want to fill in this place with your suggestion, send a link in a reply to this email or comment below.
🎨 Drawing: Adam Priester
“Adam Priester who uses Houdini at a pretty advanced level, can elicit some very strange feeling with his art. The type of sensation when you need to scratch your skin, or feel a weird tension in your stomach. Especially when he does animations of skin morphs.”
Dani
🎨 Drawing: Monstergarden
This guy never ceases to amaze me. Many of his designs have horroristic elements, dark, grimy, World War I looks. The witch hunter designs (linked above) specifically fit the topic of this list. Yuck, and love!!
🎨 Drawing: Tom Grillo
I love the way Tom Grillo mixes ugly, funny and cool concepts. Grotesque creatures live on his Instagram mainly. If you look close enough, they are filled with pop culture references from all eras of our childhood. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been posting lately, but there are plenty of art to check out in his profile.
Revive the playful, creative side of humanity by promoting healthy escapism. Share this post with a geeky art enthusiast you know.
🎮 Gaming: Scorn
Scorn is clearly a Geiger inspired game, filled with odd, disgusting scenes. Although it is advertised as a first-person horror adventure game, it is way slower than other titles of the genre. It feels more like a point-and-click puzzle game, rather than the next Doom. So if you decide to torture yourself with Scorn, do it for the aesthetics and less for the experience.
🎥 Animation: Rodrigo Goulão de Sousa
Rodrigo is one of those artists that can masterfully combine feelings that seem far from each other. And that just hits my sweet spot. His creations are terrifying, ugly, cute, and funny at the same time. You’ve probably heard of his short Playground, which combine Ghibli-esque creatures with somewhat of an Adventure Time theme. Check out the trailer (above), it always gives me the chills.
🎥 Animation: The Head
‘90s MTV was another level… The creative freedom given to the animators for the adult cartoon section birthed classics like Beavis and Butt-head, Aeon Flux, Daria, and Celebrity Deathmatch. But I haven’t heard of The Head. I will dive right into this show just for the crazy plot and yucky aesthetics.
🎥 Animation: Felix Colgrave
I came across Felix Colgrave’s work in university in a music video. The creativity, the surprise, and the ew of puffy eyes instantly hooked me to his art. I’m not sure if he fits the lesser-known category any more as he’s worked with DJ Mustard, Nicki Minaj, and Jeremih on Don't Hurt Me, but I just couldn’t resist including him. Watch my favourite, Double King (above), to have one of the weirdest sober experiences of your life.
🎥 Animation: Uzumaki
What do you get when you combine anime, noir, and old silent movie horror? Uzumaki. I didn’t read the books, so I cannot react to the disappointment of true fans, but I will say, that I have never seen something like this before. If you taste with your eyes, the show will provide. Do not stress about understanding it though…
Which recommendation surprised you the most?
Tell us in a comment, so we can see what you consider lesser-known. This will help us dig deeper if needed.
Enjoy the playful creativity of kindred souls! Until next time,
Adrián
Scribe of the Omniscient
👁🗨
Random finds
Could have been a part of Yesterday, Reimagined Forever’s list:
Make sense of the writing in sci-fi games and movies (kind of):
As a sidenote for The Chinese List (10+1)
And this is just beautiful visually and mentally:
Previously…
Have a Disgusting New Year!
The holiday season often brings warmth, joy, and wonder in our lives. But this is not the only way to experience magic. What about the grotesque? Is there no place in our hearts for the ugly and the yucky?