Hi everyone,

I’ve added a new section to my site. Entitled “Showcase”. It features the many talented and diverse Aboriginals artists from around the world. This will be a monthly piece that will promote the likes of photographers, illustrators, painters and designers. For the inaugural edition, I am pleased to present the very talented:

Nadya Kwandibens

Photographer/Designer

Nadya Kwandibens is of Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) / French heritage from the Northwest Angle #37 First Nation in Ontario, Canada. She is a self-taught, dynamic photographer specializing in artistic natural light portraiture, fashion, promotional sessions, and event photography. Identifying mainly with her Ojibwe roots, she is also known as Makoons and is from the Loon Clan.

In 2000, Nadya began exploring photography and for several years, while working professionally in numerous forms of media including video production, and radio, has gathered the experiences necessary to easily connect one-on-one with people and groups. July of 2006 marked the beginning of her portraiture work; and since then, she has been travelling extensively, photographing people and events throughout Canada and the United States.

LINKS

Nadya:
http://nadyakwandibens.net
http://twitter.com/_nadya
http://myspace.com/_nadya
http://facebook.com/pages/Nadya-Kwandibens/6425849794

Red Works:
http://redworks.ca
http://twitter.com/RedWorksStudio
http://myspace.com/_redworks
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1518804575

Concrete Indians:
http://concreteindians.ning.com
http://twitter.com/ConcreteIndians
http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=1646554646
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20491132843

Ok ok.. so this post was to only feature Ray guns. But how could a Robot invasion ever take place without flying saucers. Robots, Ray guns and Flying saucers.

The Saucer Bots by Andy Hill were prominently featured around the net. All models have a pilot inside and ready to fly off at the first notice, his “Big Bots” are also enticing and sell very quickly. Faster than you can say “Leviton Vaporizer”… you will be dispatched in style

Time to cover some ray guns.  Andy Hill was on a ray gun kick recently. Like with his Andybots and Saucerbots, retro-future was again his inspiration (along with recycling and reusing). His “Leviton Vaporizer” seem to have some steampunk influence, too. His site has a disclaimer: “All ray guns for sale here have been deactivated and the power cells drained….” Good! No unnecessary casualties! Brotron weighs in with their own entry: heavy, the 1940s radio-styled “Electrolux Death Ray”:

Go Hero site links to another prime example of “Man of Tomorrow” weaponry: The Tesla Directed Energy Weapon by Russell Williams.

I found a very nice collection of robots and ray-guns. I will showcase the “Robots” section first. These artists are legendary and have an attention to detail that is uncanny. Some of these creations remind me of the characters in the animated movie “Robots”. Yes, I must admit I’m a huge nerd who loves science fiction books and movies.

Most of these robot figures (often called “nerdbots”) are made from found objects, purely for your esthetic appreciation – and yet one can’t shake the feeling that they might one day come to life (as if in some Stephen King story) and invade your cubicle, making shrill R2D2 sounds and mounting attacks on, say, a hated monstrous copy machine in the corner.

Mike Rivamonte’s metal sculptures are “interpretation of robots and spacemen capable of flight and mischief. Rare and collectible objects from all over are transformed to create expressive unique characters”. Recent updates from Nemo Gould are quite surreal.

Nicholas and Angela from “Nerdbots” site build the said “bots” out of scraps of… pretty much anything vintage and cool.

Check out the whole army of them in this Flickr set. Being small, these adorable items are really quite affordable. Lipson Robotics joins the show with his mini-robot set. Little metal buddies of all sorts inhabit a gallery page of Guy Robot, Rich Muller, a robot-maker extraordinaire.

Canadian Health & Lifestyle magazine provides valuable topics on health to contribute to a healthy lifestyle that busy Canadians are seeking. Canadian Health & Lifestyle is published 4 times a year with a total distribution of 1,600,000 nationally. Working with the Creative Director I was responsible for the layout and production of this issue.

This work was completed while at Maximum 60 Design Communications.