Stan Mott [via Dark Roasted Blend]

Holbo is a philosophy professor when he isn't concocting weird tales of squid, and it shows. The book starts with his whimsical musings on the scientific names for "owl" and "squid," and then abruptly becomes a meditation on why squid and owl are considered "binary." Why can't they change places? It's a little like reading a Victorian children's book and suddenly discovering that in fact you're buried knee-deep in an essay on language and deconstruction. Which isn't to say it isn't completely fun and silly. I've excerpted a few pages from his book, which you can see all of on his Flickr stream, and buy a copy of at Blurb.

These illustrations come from manga artist Shigeru Mizuki's book Yōkai Daizukai, which details the inner workings of 85 yōkai, the traditional demons and spirits from Japanese folklore. More illustrations are available at Pink Tentacle.

The Kuro-kamikiri ("black hair cutter") is a large, black-haired creature that sneaks up on women in the street at night and surreptitiously cuts off their hair. Anatomical features include a brain wired for stealth and trickery, razor-sharp claws, a long, coiling tongue covered in tiny hair-grabbing spines, and a sac for storing sleeping powder used to knock out victims. The digestive system includes an organ that produces a hair-dissolving fluid, as well as an organ with finger-like projections that thump the sides of the intestines to aid digestion.

The Makura-gaeshi ("pillow-mover") is a soul-stealing prankster known for moving pillows around while people sleep. The creature is invisible to adults and can only be seen by children. Anatomical features include an organ for storing souls stolen from children, another for converting the souls to energy and supplying it to the rest of the body, and a pouch containing magical sand that puts people to sleep when it gets in the eyes. In addition, the monster has two brains - one for devising pranks, and one for creating rainbow-colored light that it emits through its eyes.

Kasha, a messenger of hell, is a fiery monster known for causing typhoons at funerals. Anatomical features include powerful lungs for generating typhoon-force winds that can lift coffins and carry the deceased away, as well as a nose for sniffing out funerals, a tongue that can detect wind direction, and a pouch containing ice from hell. To create rain, the Kasha spits chunks of this ice through its curtain of perpetual fire.

The Bisha-ga-tsuku is a soul-stealing creature encountered on dark snowy nights in northern Japan. The monster - which maintains a body temperature of -150 degrees Celsius - is constantly hidden behind a fog of condensation, but its presence can be detected by the characteristic wet, slushy sound ("bisha-bisha") it makes. Anatomical features include feelers that inhale human souls and cold air, a sac for storing the sounds of beating human hearts, and a brain that emits a fear-inducing aura. The Bisha-ga-tsuku reproduces by combining the stolen human souls with the cold air it inhales.

The Mannen-dake ("10,000-year bamboo") is a bamboo-like monster that feeds on the souls of lost travelers camping in the woods. Anatomical features include a series of tubes that produce air that causes travelers to lose their way, syringe-like fingers the monster inserts into victims to suck out their souls, and a sac that holds the stolen souls.

The Kijimunaa is a playful forest sprite inhabiting the tops of Okinawan banyan trees. Anatomical features include eye sockets equipped with ball bearings that enable the eyeballs to spin freely, strong teeth for devouring crabs and ripping out the eyeballs of fish (a favorite snack), a coat of fur made from tree fibers, and a nervous system adapted for carrying out pranks. The Kijimunaa's brain contains vivid memories of being captured by an octopus - the only thing it fears and hates.

[Cornelia Hesse-Honegger via Neatorama]

Tree bug from Parvin Road near Hanford WA, USA
The right feeler lacks a section
Harlequin bug near Three Mile Island, USA
The Scutellum is curved and its yellow ornament is asymmetrical.
Soft Bug larva from Posonby, Sellafield, UK
Both of the left wing tips are damaged.
Tree bug, Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
Right tip of the neck plate is flattened
Housefly mutant ‘aristapedia'
Parts of legs are growing out of the feelers and the eyes are yellow
Squash bug from Rohr, Canton Aargau, Switzerland.
Left cover wing is a short stump.
Soft bug from Pripjat, Ukraine
Right side middle leg is short with no foot but two claws
Damsel bugs Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland
Wings of uneven length and disturbed neck plate
Scentless plant bug from Würenlingen, Canton Aargau, Switzerland
Left cover wing is blown up like a balloon
Tree bug from Slavoutich, Ukraine
Right feeler is disturbed.
Drosophila melanogaster
The left wing is a little clump
Ladybird beetle near Three Mile Island, USA
Dent and a black growth on wings.

We've profiled some of Wragg's sexier (read: NSFW) work before, and BrainBot has the all their whimsy, but is tinged with sadness as well. The BrainBot series was created as part of the "Mind Machines" show at San Diego's Distinctions Gallery. The illustrations are great on their own, but could we maybe someday see a Pixar-produced BrainBot short?

[Nate Wragg via lines and colors]

A Kiss Before Work
A Breath of Fresh Air
Computer Companion
The Brainbot is Alive and Dangerous
Brainbot Has Bad Days Too

[seek&speak via Super Punch]

Juan Molinet [Flickr via mashKULTURE]

War of the Worlds
Revista Colectiva - Supermarket Edition
Wintertime
Hidden Monster, Crouching Tiger
Candynaut
Golden Slumbers
Teen Wolf
Midnight Snack
Somewhere in Japan
First Day at Work
Robotono
Space Monkey
Harald the Viking

[Kristian Hammerstad via FFFFOUND!]

Gine, whose Chickenhare comic can be sampled here, has been creating three robots a week since last month, and by the time he's finished, I think we'll all know exactly who our personal robot avatars are. I'm personally waiting for "A robot with a blogging problem."

165 Bots With Stuff [Shoebox Blog]

Tanaka was one of the key animators on Akira and was responsible for, among other things, the animation of Testuo’s rapidly mutating arm. His still illustrations draw from similar imagery, telling stories of young people set in a crumbling future, and filled with grotesque experiments and bizarre creatures. The images below come from Tanaka’s art book Cannabis Works.

[Digik Gallery via FFFFOUND!]

Many of the images below are available for puchase from Adolfsson’s Etsy store, including a few items from his Star Wars, the Baroque version series.

[Matthias Inks via Design Sponge]

In addition to his illustrations, Ward has his short comic “The Perils of the Uncommon Skyway” available on his website. And his most recent book, Sixteen Miles to Merrick and Other Works features four of his short sequential art stories as well as more of his single illustrations.

[Somefield via Sci-Fi-O-Rama]

McPharlin is better known for his miniature models of analog sound equipment, but his digital drawings demonstrate his capacity for visual scene setting. Aside from birds and flowers, alien life is never encountered, but often hinted at in the unfamiliar architecture of the worlds, while suit-wearing explorers look on in wonderment.

[Dan McPharlin on Flickr via Design You Trust]

As you might expect, creating distinctive backdrops for TV is very different from art in other contexts. Jensen says:

Art directing evening news broadcasts in the 80's-90's made me focus on clean, readable, and stylish graphic design. Each [60 Minutes] story begins with a studio introduction in front of artwork—in a 'magazine'. The executive producer and director gave me incredible freedom. Time was the biggest challenge. Three illustrations a week, was quite a lot of work. In seven seasons I probably made about 650 to 700 illustrations. Another challenge is that unlike an illustration in a magazine, you couldn't linger on it. On average the work I did was gone in thirty to forty-five seconds. Perhaps that's not a constraint in execution, but in satisfaction it certainly is!

A number of classic SF artists have influenced Jensen, including Paul Lehr and Richard Powers, whose work, he says:

is fundamental to my appreciation of SF art. I respond to surrealism and ambiguity...Another artist from the same era I really liked is John Schoenherr. His compositions are masterful. Michael Whelan was the artist of another generation that next most influenced my work. He has an uncanny knack for composing an image that feels true to the book in a specifically narrative way. I remember seeing his "Foundation trilogy" paintings in a Boskone artshow, this is before the paintings were published, and I just knew that they were for those books.

(For more on Jensen's thoughts about book design, check out this cool MindMeld feature from the always lively SF Signal.)

From 1984 to around 2000, Jensen used acrylics on illustration board, with occasional forays into oils and mixed media. But Jensen’s work in television news eventually led him to computers:

Over time, I started using the computer for my book cover sketches. I worked with tight comps in acrylics but learned that digital sketches could be much more efficient for pre-visualization. On a few occasions, I used digital images in parts of my final work. The covers for Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snowcrash were both mixed media. Each had portions rendered digitally, which I photographed and collaged into the final illustration.

Jensen is still ambivalent about the use of computers for art:

There are some really wonderful aspects to digital media in making an image but, I still have a high regard for the 'object', the physicality of a painting. Hanging digital prints in an art show has always left me unsatisfied.

Despite, or perhaps because of, that ambivalence, Jensen has often been associated with cutting edge SF, especially as he does very little fantasy art:

Through the 90's I think my work was often associated with cyberpunk themes and I really enjoyed that. I've often found myself working with visual elements that touch on AI, virtual reality, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, technology of that sort.

That said, his latest project, which he calls “alien menagerie” (see the gallery) is often as fantastical as SF-nal. Interestingly, these paintings mark a “return to traditional media” for Jensen. A single painting from this series, displayed at the Microvisions 2 show at the Society of Illustrators, made it into the best-of art anthology Spectrum 15, to be published this fall.

Bruce Jensen [official website]

This is a picture from Artzybasheff's book Mechinalia, depicting a "modern executive."

Images via Been Publishing I'm Back and a Robotics and Animation summer course.