Muddy Mountain Pottery creates all kinds of ceramic products, but most quirky of all are these antique-style retro ray guns.

Well, why not? They look great, and encourage creative thoughts that hark back to (my) childhoods of retro sci-fi movies and space age technology!

This here is the Harrisaurian. It features glass elements as part of the gun barrel and the sighting scope.

Each Raku Ray Gun comes with a ceramic moon crater plaque wall mount.

Check out more on Muddy Mountain Pottery’s website

Via RetroThing

Technorati Tags: design, film, models, ray guns, sci-fi, TV

I’m not the kind that lusts after and buys alot of shoes. I’m not even that much of a sneaker freak either. But to me, shoes can have an elegant shape to them, and the fantastic designs on The Virtual Shoe Museum are testament to this.

The Virtual Shoe Museum was initiated by Liza Snook in 2004. Once the idea was born, a long search began for designers, photographers and publishers connected to shoes.

Not all the shoes are practical, which is even better since it gives room for the imagination to create all manner of weird and wonderful designs.

Some of the shoe designs  I noticed are posted here, but the collection seems vast and you can browse through them all using criteria such as colour, the designer, the material, style etc. All very useful, if you do lust after shoes.

Check out fantastic shoe designs on The Virtual Shoe Museum

Technorati Tags: fashion, footwear, ideas, shoe design

I love this simple idea for chocolate where different sized chunks are marked by how many calories they contain.

From Elmanco via NotCot

Technorati Tags: chocolate design, design, ideas, products

Joining the previously posted Bennett Robot Works sculptures are these fine creations from Guys Robots.

Guy Robots are unique pieces of handcrafted art, meant to be enjoyed visually and displayed prominently.

The piece parts that go into each Guy Robot come from a range of industrial segments, including aerospace and avionics surplus suppliers, automotive salvage yards, long-haul microwave equipment recyclers, decommissioned plumbing and refrigeration remnants, vintage hand-tool swap-meet winnings.

Many processes like slide rule calculations to metallurgical alloying transform the pieces of industrial junk to these absolutely wild and wacky living room adornments.

Read more on BornRich

Technorati Tags: art, Bennett Robot Works sculptures, Guy Robots, industrial junk, models, robots, sculpture

Lev Dolgachov has a nice slick Flash photo portfolio. Quite straightforward to use, but its a nice contrast of a dark grey blue colour theme with mainly bright photos.

His subjects are sexy, seductive and quite generic actually so you can easily imagine them within the covers of Vogue, Playboy, Men’s Health and Maxim.

Most of all, if you ever fancied (phar) incorporating these kinds of models in your illustrations, he offers many of them on iStockPhoto, Fotolia, Dreamstime and Shutterstock. Check out the link “Buy Pictures”.

Dolgachov.com

Via Sexinart

Technorati Tags: fashion, Lev Dolgachov, photography

We know that nature has a habit of creating the most extraordinary designs (understatement) with colour being one of the aspects involved.

Nudibranchs are the shell-less relatives of the snail and are no exception.

They are known for their garish colors, are usually only 2cm - 6cm in length and can be found worldwide.

The creatures soft-body and short life span of 1 year make it possible for many of them to live undetected and vanish from the earth without a trace.

To us (or me even) its ironic that regardless of their colour, Nudibranchs are blind.

More on ColourLovers

Technorati Tags: nature, Nudibranchs, shell-less snails

Volkswagen created a mini-site devoted to new car concepts for the year 2028.

Set in the future, the eerie video introduces three new riffs on the brand’s forthcoming Up! minicar: the One, a single-seater; the Ego (pictured), a sports car; and the family-sized Room.

Its a good little site - even the loading percentage sequence at the start is a nice touch. The initial video of a father-son conversation in a park sets the scene with a historic reflection of todays current realities of congestion and the rising cost of petrol, before they’re reminded by a digital assistant to select the car they want to come and pick them up.

Check the Volkswagen’s future car concepts

Via Men.Style.com

Technorati Tags: design, futuristic vehicles, ideas, Volksvagen

This is a pretty funky looking vehicle called the Innerspace Sea Breacher. It’s inspired by dolphins and looks alot of fun to drive!

The current race-ready Seabreacher is powered by a 250hp supercharged Atkins Marine rotary engine, and can achieve speeds of up to 50mph on the surface and a staggering 20mph while fully submerged! Vehicles can dive to a maximum depth of five feet and can jump out of the water as high as ten feet.

More on Core77.com

Technorati Tags: design, dolphin, products, Innerspace Sea Breacher

Desktopography have a new collection of gorgeous desktop wallpapers for 2008.

The desktopography project arrived in 2005 as a place to download nature / topological themed wallpapers with edits from selected designers.

Designers spend about 90% of their waking life in front of a computer so the most appealing genre for a wallpaper would be one that has beautiful design mixed with the all important aspect of being outdoors.

Browse and download wallpapers at Desktopography.net

Technorati Tags: design, desktop wallpaper, illustration, PhotoShop, wallpaper

Animals on the underground is an excellent collection of illustrations of animals created out of the London Underground map.

The horizontal, vertical and forty-five degree angle lines create the three basic building blocks (lines) for this simple style which still allows recognisable portraits to be made.

Excellent inspiration and creative technique. What better distraction do you need from the mundane daily trek on the tube?

See more on the AnimalsontheUnderground website

Via blackeiffel

Technorati Tags: animals on the underground, ideas, illustration