Fantasy character creation is a delicate balance between reality and unreality. Too few fantasy aspects in a portrait can result in a drab, mundane creation, whereas too few familiar traits can render the work unapproachable and abstract. Olivier Ponsonnet exhibits masterful skill in avoiding these pitfalls while continuously exploring the interplay between imagination and realism.

His mysterious, introspective creations run the gamut from slightly askew to excitingly exotic, yet are always lavished with the intricate details required to imbue even the most extraordinarily implausible vision with weight and authenticity. Olivier’s seemingly ordinary character portraits are subtly otherworldly, while his fairies and spellcasters are as real as ourselves.

Mr. Ponsonnet provides no easy answers with his works, only beautiful questions.

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Creating hyper-realistic, lethal ladies is a creative habit that Rebeca Puebla seems unable to break. She’s rendered women from past and future, but Mr. Puebla has outdone herself — and earned extra fanboy points –for her stunning Famke Janssen incarnation of Jean Gray, in classic Dark Phoenix form. If only the X-Men movies were so faithful to the source material.

Rebeca’s other standout characters include woman in feudal Japanese armor and body art, and some strange kid with funny round glasses and a bump on his head. Mr. Potter aside, her feminine fighters are a beauty to behold.

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Anime has been steadily evolving and growing as an art form and cultural phenomenon since it’s birth in the 1960′s. While it has influenced a generation of artists the world over, the forces that shape it’s styles — and ultimately it’s destiny — are still firmly rooted in Japan. Once such force in Anime’s future is surely the talented Mr. Kobayashi, and his compelling 3D characters. His sci-fi action heroes and fantasy maidens breathe new life into the anime form, while preserving it’s charm and spirit.

Kobayashi-san’s high-tech warriors and spellcasters are created and animated using the latest modeling techniques, but they’ve a logical progression from the genre heroes of more established anime franchises. He’s also provided his take on a lovely selection of a few of these legends: Rei and Asuka from Evangelion are the most notable examples, as well as more than a few lovely videogame fighters from Dead or Alive and Street Fighter.

A little bit of hunting at NAhopa will uncover tons of cute, bouncy animation clips, as well as additional views of his captivating cartoon subjects. All in all, NAhopa! is a sneak-peek at the future of Anime.

Anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of Kobayashi or his fine artwork should please contact the front desk

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The loftiest goal in portraiture is to successfully capture the spirit of the character — that elusive spark of life. This is especially difficult in 3D modeling, as countless lifeless posing mannequins found in online galleries will readily attest. Eun Hee Choi — using the cryptic moniker 97bzo — proves a stunning exception as she achieves this most difficult miracle time and time again.

Having trained with (and married) gifted3D artist Hyun Jun Kim, she has quickly mastered the art of epic fantasy character design. Her hauntingly beautiful women radiate not only the essence of life, but innocence and inner strength as well. Ms Choi also excels in the strengths of her medium, and lavishes her digital figures with delicate jewelry and intricate costumes.

Korean computer gamers have the benefit of seeing Eun Hee’s work in the wild, but the online world can catch a fleeting glimpse of her work, as well as earlier creations of Hyun Jun’s, on their shared site.

Digital life has never looked so good!

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It takes a peculiar type of person to nurture a story from creative spark to finished presentation. Many try, but precious few succeed in showing us their inner dreams and nightmares. Fragile Machine represents one such triumph of vision, realized by Ben Steele, and his co-creators through their award-winning studio Aoineko.

Somewhere between indie feature animation, and extended music video, the 34 minuteanimation documents the tragedy and redemption of Leda Nea’s experience with an experimental artificial life project. Her emotional and physical transformations are both personal, and indicative of our society’s dilemma as a whole: the spiritual damage caused by rapid technological advances with no regard to the human cost.

Leda’s journey is told through a chaotic mix of candid scenes, captured surveillance footage, and surreal cyber/spiritual experiences. Each of these sources has its own visual flavor, ranging from realistic anime sensibilities to digital psychotic hallucinations. Mr. Steele created not only the characters, but the environments as well — including a complex laboratory, an expansive forest, and even a complete city — each with a particular mood and texture.

While there are brief bits of dialogue throughout the film, Leda’s story is largely driven forward by haunting music and chilling vocals, also created by the Aoineko team. The vocalist, known only as ‘X’, alternately underscores and propels the action mercilessly forward, providing constant insight into Leda Nea’s turbulent emotional progression.

Whatever else you may take away from Fragile Machine, the primary moral is unmistakable: scientific advances applied without a keen understanding of human nature can only result in misery and destruction. Technology may seem a tempting object of worship, but our salvation will not be found in any computer system or digital network. We each need to discover the path to paradise within our own hearts, and then let nothing stand in our way in our efforts to achieve it.

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