2009 October | The Download Munkey

Archive for October, 2009

Art Friday : The Weird and Wonderful World of Afu Chan aka aznmextofu

October 30th, 2009

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Afu Chan or aznmextofu @ deviantART has a knack for conjuring up some of the most wildly fantastic artwork that I’ve ever laid my eyes on – quite reminds me of several of my dreams in the past, only much weirder, more violent and most definitely much more fascinating and intriguing

One of my favourites is Fishbones Attack – a tie wearing horseman lets loose a blast from his shotgun on the rolling gunmen-infested deck of a ship with giant fish (tuna?) leaping into the air in the background. Also notice the nice little detail where the rear hoof of our horseman’s black charger has stomped on the left hand of one of the fallen gunmen. And that unfortunate guy’s probably isn’t dead yet because his face has just turned very red All very odd which makes Afu’s stuff so interesting.

Something’s about to turn real ugly soon as these two girls stand by patiently with weapons loaded and ready to ROCK!

Street Fight 07 – a martial arts movie-like scene set in the streets with the ragdoll-like agility of Matrix.

A day out in Zombie City

Street Fighter II done in Afu’s distinctive style.

The Lugaidh Brothers and Sisters – a band of unconventional pugilists with totally unkungfu-ish sounding names From left to right : Frank, Stephanie, Cindy, Paul, Monica, David and the guy up front is Lugaidh himself. The word Nepenthes is also the genus name for the carnivorous pitcher plants.

Swordfights in the sky – City of Violence – ever seen a punch so powerful that it breaks a passing airliner into two – Bruce Lee’s famous one inch punch doesn’t even come close

More chaos in Fight Back to School,

… in a forest with Daruma dolls hanging from the trees (Heaven & Earth),

… and in a church with walls pockmarked with bullet holes (Battle Royal 08). The funny thing is no one seems to have managed to hit and shatter any of the stained glass windows yet

Check out more of Afu Chan’s fantastic artwork at deviantART.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:

Warrior Epic Concept Art and Wallpapers
Kai (Ukitakumuki) – Concept Art for Nuclear Dawn and More!
Zeno Clash Concepts & Screenshots
Kal Online Wallpapers
My Favourite Dominance War III Wallpapers

Wallpapers Wednesday : Dominance War IV

October 28th, 2009

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A small selection of my favourite wallpapers from this year’s Dominance War IV art competition. The general theme for most of the entries takes on a decidedly darker and more morbid feel than previous years’ works with a host of imaginative infernal or mechanical implements of death and destruction being entered for Dominance War IV.

There’s a total of 29 wallpapers in all but I’ll just feature my favourite five – you can check out the rest at the Dominance War website. The selection below also exhibits a personal bias towards 2D concept art – hence the total absence of any of the wallpapers featuring the 3D entries – they’re not bad of course, just that I prefer 2D

I’ve attempted to provide links to the Dominance War IV entry page and personal website for the artist of each of the featured wallpapers below for those interested in exploring further

Tu Bui @ 2buiart.com (DW IV page)

Fedor Losev @ feddark.deviantart.com (DW IV page)

Huang Guang Jian @ hgjart.com (DW IV page)

Chung Yee Ling @ syncmax.deviantart.com (DW IV page)

Simon Dominic @ www.painterly.co.uk (DW IV page)

Download these and other Dominance War IV wallpapers. The champions and other entries for Dominance War IV can also be viewed here.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
My Favourite Dominance War III Wallpapers
Project Coo! Wallpapers
LeoArtz.com – In Art We Trust
Artzmania – Free Arts E-Mag

Tags: Art Artists Recommended Wallpapers

Random Monday : Fight or Flight

October 26th, 2009

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Trailer for an award-winning documentary Fight or Flight tracing Irish filmmaker/producer Peter McCarthy’s journey to learn Muay Thai in the gyms and training camps of Thailand. Made over the period of five years, Fight or Flight is much more than just Muay Thai and the often fascinating Thai culture, it’s also an attempt to try and understand the issue of conflict and violence in the world today .

A flurry of fists and knees – the trailer definitely captures the intensity of Muay Thai action much better than this static shot

Freshmeat!

The collection of snippets from the film includes a particularly memorable scene where Peter passes by some of the queer stuff for sale at the many roadside stalls of Thailand, to glimpses of the Lanna Muay Thai boxing camp in Chiangmai and actual Muay Thai fights (legal of course) in Thai stadiums – one thing I noticed here and in a recent visit to Lumpinee Stadium (some photos at thoo2‘s blog) was how quickly the referees in grey-brown uniforms moved in to separate the fighters when required.

KOed.

Punishing knee strikes

Not much to comment about Fight or Flight since I haven’t actually watched the film yet – I’m keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that it will be screened at one of the film festivals here eventually

Check out the trailer at the official site for Fight or Flight. The film is available for sale on DVD from this official site only.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Muay Thai Wallpapers
Kungfu Action with Dragon Fist 3 : Age of the Warrior
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Tags: Movies Videos World

Games Thursday : Alien Assault

October 22nd, 2009

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Behold Alien Assault, a recently released freeware offering by Swedish development team TearDown, the rules of which will be instantly recognizable to players of Games Workshop’s Space Hulk.

Your team of soldiers in their green S.P.A.R.T.A.N battlesuits will take the fight to vicious aliens lurking behind heavy steel doors and prowling along dark claustrophobic corridors. But not to worry, a very intuitive mouse-driven interface and a comprehensive tutorial campaign makes learning the ropes of Alien Assault a breeze even if you’re no Space Hulk veteran.

Unfortunately, the close quarters combat in Alien Assault is brutally unforgiving and your troops rarely survive once those pesky aliens get to servo-gauntlet’s range to use their sharp claws Positioning your soldiers in areas with clear fields of fire, mutual support between soldiers (the standard issue Thunderbolt assault carbine can be frustratingly inaccurate at times) and the proper use of overwatch mode will hopefully retain enough survivors in your team to enable you to complete the mission objectives.

Uh-oh. Blips = BAD!

Sound effects are suitably atmospheric – from the crunch of your soldiers’ heavy armoured boots to the growl of hungry aliens attempting to tear your team into bite-sized pieces. I haven’t really got much other information to offer about Alien Assault apart from the rather obvious stuff stated above since I’ve been constantly sending soldiers to become alien snacks in Mission 7 : Onslaught

Don’t get too attached to your soldiers – the lifespan of each soldier is violently short

Download Alien Assault.

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Tags: Games Games Downloads Games Workshop

Military Tuesday : US Handbook of Artillery : Mobile, Anti-Aircraft and Trench Materiel (1920)

October 20th, 2009

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Fished out this old US handbook on WWI artillery from The Internet Archive while mucking around in the WWI towed artillery category of Wikimedia Commons, particularly on the French C17S howitzer (below). Always thought that Project Gutenberg was the only major source for public domain books but I guess I was wrong there

This book titled Handbook of Artillery : Including Mobile, Anti-Aircraft and Trench Matériel was published by the US Ordnance Department in 1920 and a digital copy scanned for the University of California was graciously uploaded to the Internet Archive in 2007.

The first section presents the workings of the firing and recoil mechanisms of modern artillery pieces as well as brief descriptions of the various vehicles that accompanied the guns in the era of towed artillery from carriage limbers to caissons for ammunition storage and battery, forge and store wagons.

What follows after is a whole load of technical details on the major artillery systems in service with the US armed forces during the Great War and the post-war years, presented with very thorough descriptions and specifications of each gun and their specialized support vehicles with a generous sprinkling of scale diagrams.

A 37mm infantry gun

A 7-inch naval rifle

A Vickers 9.2 inch heavy howitzer

Pieces ranging from the 37mm infantry gun, the 75mm light field gun to heavy artillery like the British 60 pounders and French 155mm howitzers e.g the C17S are covered together with monstrous 7-inch naval rifles and 9.2-inch Vickers heavy howitzers thrown in for good measure.

There’s a short section on anti aircraft guns still in their infancy with an interesting truck-mounted 75mm field gun (above), together with a brief coverage on trench mortars.

But the most interesting bit would be photos of probably the world’s first self propelled artillery, the Mark II (below) in which a 155mm gun was mated to a treaded chassis. Only 8 were delivered which suggested that it was probably constructed for evaluation trials but not adopted for front-line service.