According to the show guide book, “Fantastic art can be a slightly skewed, off-kilter view of reality or a full-blown creation of imaginary lands and the people–and creatures–that live there.”  Given that definition, the art fair definitely provided examples of the fantastic – from fairies to the macabre, there was a little something for everyone.

Click on any of the images to go to the artist’s site.

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live show poster outside exhibit hall

Tom Bishop's booth

Andrew Martin, working on sculpture pieces

Baby Chewy by Bobby Chiu

"Imagine" by Karen Hollingworth

"The Search Begins" by Edward Howard

"Joan of Arc" by Donato Giancola

"The Haunting" by Brian Despain

Finally, we were also lucky enough to see some friends from college there. One of my good friends from the dorm was there with her artist husband, Jeff Miracola, who is of course (shall I say it?) fantastically talented. He has done a lot of art for Magic: The Gathering cards, and is focusing now more on digital art. Check out the gorilla and owl faces in the background of this photo.

Artist Jeff Miracola, my husband David, and my friend Silvia

Pretty fantastic, huh? Which artist(s) would you like to see at a fantastic art show?

Links of Interest:

• Spectrum Fantastic Art Live
• Tom Bishop‘s page on Texas Society of Sculptors
• Andrew Martin
• Bobby Chiu‘s deviantart gallery
• Karen Hollingworth‘s work
• Edward Howard‘s work
• “Joan of Arc” by Donato Giancola
• “The Haunting” by Brian Despain
• Jeff Miracola‘s site

Allow me to introduce you to Noel Cruz, re-painter of dolls. He takes dolls that are mass-produced to look like celebrities/characters and refashions them to look more realistic and lifelike.

While he has (re)created literally hundreds of dolls, from Bette Davis to Robert Pattinson, of particular interest to us geeks is his work on J.R.R. Tolkien‘s characters from Lord of the Rings. Behold Aragorn and Arwen, as recreated by his very precise brushstrokes.

The Before and After shots are very impressive – the Before’s look so flat, and the After’s look like they belong in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

Which beloved characters would you pay big money to have recreated in doll-form like this?

Links of Interest:

• Noel Cruz’s homepage
• Aragorn doll on DeviantArt
• Arwen doll on DeviantArt
• More Lord of the Rings crafts on GeekCrafts
• More Tolkien crafts on GeekCrafts

Crocheted using yarn of the 3 and 4 weight categories, you could adjust the size using different weight yarn and needles.  Crocheted Smaug is indeed a faithful rendition of the depiction found in Tolkein’s watercolor entitled Conversations with Smaug.

• Smaug, the Golden, the Dragon of Erebor on Instructables

Hm. I quite like the art of Booknick—lots of great sci-fi–themed art printed on salvaged book pages. I love the delightful C3PO in Lolita glasses and the charming TARDIS. Super reasonable prices, too.

• Booknick’s Etsy Shop

A Star Trek Quiet Book!  I am in AWE! Julie has created an amazing quiet book complete with a full set of the Next Gen characters in finger puppet form, transporter, a Vulcan salute and Geordie’s glasses.

Heck, I think I’d have to buy two of these books. One for my kids and one for ME!

Check out Julie’s etsy for even more of her geeky, creative genius!

julies blog: My Star Trek Quiet Book.

• Ursula and Olive on Flickr
• Geek Crafts Flickr Group
• More Sherlock Holmes on Geek Crafts

Vikwick is an early version 1.2 dodo, without wings – but since they are flightless that doesn’t seem to make any difference to her quality of life. Vikwick has recently been involved in the SpecOps 27 investigation into Adrian Lush, since the TV host recently opened a chain of bath & beauty product stores and is under suspicion of using the strong smell emanating from the shops to disguise a cheese smuggling operation….

Vikwick was made from socks, following the tutorial on my blog (tutorial includes wings, if you want the)  – the Sockie Dodo’s are 100% Jasper Fforde approved (his little daughter has one) and are really easy to make… but be warned, if you make one, they will steal all your marshmallows

Clone Your Own Dodo Tutorial

Now, I’m not going to claim that this is the world’s warmest scarf—and I know from personal experience, thanks to my lovely knitter friend Katie, who made me one—but the Marley’s Ghost scarf is definitely a statement piece. I get compliments every time I wear mine; sometimes I just wear it like a giant, slightly fuzzy necklace so that I don’t have to remove it indoors. It’s that cool.

• Marley’s Ghost scarf

Now, my personal favourite are the Potter ones, but that’s Not to say I don’t have a soft spot for a bit of Battle Royale USA too. Both Heidi and Marissa (the blogger behind Rae Gun Ramblings) are both massive book nerds, so it’s well worth digging through their sites to find some of the brilliance on offer.

• Heidi’s Etsy – Digknity
• Resin bottle tops tutorial & printables on Rae Gun Ramblings

Cameos may be purchased with or without pin backing or as a cameo ribbon choker.

Qui also has plans in the works for creating a Doctor Watson cameo as well.

• Death Eaters Delights
• Sherlock cameos