Oddity Central |
- Mind-Boggling Hand-Painted Portraits Made of Hundreds of Smaller Portraits
- Yet Another Real-Life Batman – This One Brings Order to Slovakia
- The Creepy Walking Dead of Tana Toraja
- Introducing Mantyhose – The Stylish Pantyhose for Men
| Mind-Boggling Hand-Painted Portraits Made of Hundreds of Smaller Portraits Posted: 15 Mar 2012 04:27 AM PDT
Korean artist Kim Dong Yoo creates amazing portraits of various icons like Audrey Hepburn or Michael Jackson, made up of hundreds of smaller painted portraits that either support or contradict the main subject of the artwork. Over the years, we’ve featured some truly interesting celebrity portraits on Oddity Central, like Jason Mecier’s pill portraits, or Jason Kronenwald’s chewing gum creations, but we’ve never seen anything like Kim Dong Yoo’s works. This incredibly talented artist painstakingly paints hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miniature portraits by hand, using them as smaller piece of a much bigger, unbelievably detailed portrait. His portraits look a lot like the stamp paintings of Peter R. Mason, only instead of using recycled stamps to recreate the faces of many historical and Hollywood icons, the Korean painter actually paints every one of the little images that make up the big portraits. I can’t imagine how long it takes Kim Dong Yoo to complete one of his amazing works of art, but I have to say I admire his patience. It can’t be easy to repeatedly paint almost the same thing over and over again, thousands of times. Although, you have to admit, the end result is just fantastic. How he figures out what to change in every little image to form such a detailed portrait, is beyond me. I understand he sets a grid and uses a photograph as reference, but still… Kim Dong Yoo unique portrait portraits (I didn’t know what else to call them) are currently on display at the Hasted Kraeuleter Art Gallery, in New York City, where they will stay until March 24. If you’re not in the New York area, check out the video at the bottom to get a perspective of the exhibit at its opening reception.
via My Modern Met Mind-Boggling Hand-Painted Portraits Made of Hundreds of Smaller Portraits was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Yet Another Real-Life Batman – This One Brings Order to Slovakia Posted: 15 Mar 2012 03:37 AM PDT
Batman is in the news again, this time from Slovakia. Unlike his Brazilian counterpart, the Slovak Batman hasn't been hired by the police, he's self-appointed. 26-year-old Zoltan Kohari, from the southern Slovak town of Dunajska Streda, has donned a leather Batman suit that he's stitched together himself, in an attempt to help the people of the town. He goes around cleaning the streets, helping the old, and calling the police when he spots something suspicious. Incidentally, Kohari was a petty criminal prior to his superhero-avatar; he had spent eight months in jail last year and also attempted suicide just after his release. This was before he realized that he had a larger mission – to make life in his community better. "I have decided to do good for the people. I take care of order and help clean up the environment so we can keep living on this planet," he says. Since Kohari doesn't really have a full time job, he's moved into an abandoned apartment in a dilapidated building on the edge of town. He has no electricity or water supply, but the place serves the purpose of a Batcave perfectly, to conduct his town patrols from. Photo © REUTERS The unusual thing about Kohari is that he's a bit of a peace-loving Batman. He says that he never resorts to physical violence, he'd rather make peace between people. So apart from tiding up, he tries to make sure bouncers at local discos do not rough up visitors and intercedes when he can make out that people are about to have a fight, breaking them up before they start to get physical. According to the local police, Kohari is pretty harmless and his neighbors consider him to be an honest and good man. Jana Kocisova, who lives in the neighboring apartment block, says, "He's had a tough life but he is very dependable and we like him. He helps us out, keeps an eye on public order, and he is a hero for my son and his schoolmates." Looks like the world could use a lot more people like Kohari. Photo © REUTERS Photo © REUTERS
Yet Another Real-Life Batman – This One Brings Order to Slovakia was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| The Creepy Walking Dead of Tana Toraja Posted: 15 Mar 2012 03:16 AM PDT
If you thought that zombies were only a figment of the imagination of storytellers, well, prepare to have your mind blown. If the rituals of the villagers of Toraja, Indonesia, are to be believed, almost every person who dies can turn into a zombie. Apparently, certain people of the village had and still have the ability to make dead people walk. And I don’t mean that metaphorically. Reading about the funeral rituals of Toraja, I've come to realize that there are two separate theories on how the 'walking dead' evolved. According to one, in the ancient past, it was believed that a dead man must be buried in his village of origin, and not at the place of his death. Since villages then were far apart and extremely isolated, it was difficult for family members to carry the corpse through long distances. The help of people who could make the dead walk was sought, and the dead man would be able to walk back to the village where he was born. Kind of like a mobile service for the dead, I suppose. So in those days, it was not uncommon to find a stiff, expressionless corpse, walking straight ahead. And it is said that if anyone addressed the corpse directly, it would simply collapse, unable to continue the journey. Imagine the horror! The second theory about the Toraja zombies is equally creepy. According to this one, the villagers believe death is a long process, and that it takes many years for the deceased to work their way through it, finally reaching afterlife. So elaborate and expensive arrangements need to be made for the funeral, allowing the dead to make the transition smoothly. In the case of a family not being able to afford these arrangements, they could make use of a temporary coffin, until the funds have been collected. Once the permanent coffin has been made ready, the dead are actually raised and made to walk into it. Again, pretty unbelievable.
But then, how would you explain this picture that has been doing the rounds on the internet, of a zombie-like woman, standing with very little external support? While some have said it could be a morphed picture, others argue that it could be a diseased woman, suffering from something like leprosy. Whatever it is, she sure does look very much like a corpse. And the fact that she seems to be looking at and walking towards a coffin in the corner, makes it all the more scary. But that isn’t the only thing the myth of the walking dead id based on. Since the quality of roads around Toraja has greatly improved, most people now prefer to transport the deceased the old fashioned way, but to prove they still know the secret of the walking dead, they mostly perform their mysterious rituals on animals. At funerals, it’s common for the people of Toraja to sacrifice cattle, and after they separate the head from the body, reports say they can make the dead animal rise up and walk for as long as ten minutes…Pretty creepy stuff, but without any real video proof, I'm having a tough time believing it myself. In the past we’ve written an article on another bizarre burial ritual of Tana Toraja, practiced by a different tribe. The Creepy Walking Dead of Tana Toraja was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Introducing Mantyhose – The Stylish Pantyhose for Men Posted: 15 Mar 2012 02:47 AM PDT
So men have started to wear pantyhose now.They’re called Mantyhose, and there's even a whole website, e-mancipate, dedicated to them. There might be people who find this odd, but when you come to think of it, there's nothing particularly feminine about pantyhose, is there? They're just tights made of a diaphanous material. And men have been wearing them for centuries too, especially in Europe, like medieval court jesters, Henry VII and even Robin Hood. While several men in the UK and other parts of Europe have already started wearing the garment, the trend is now catching up in the US. Most men prefer to wear them as an extra layer under pants, but the more courageous tend to pair them up with shorts too. Who can deny the benefits of sporting tights? After all they do provide that smooth look to the legs, hiding any bumps and scars. They're pretty comfortable too. Chan Kramer, the founder of e-mancipate, writes, "We believe that pantyhose for men can be an everyday clothing item, and that it can be fashionable as well." And Francesco Cavallini, the vice-president of luxe hosiery company Emilio Cavallini, agrees, "The mantyhose are extremely elastic and stretchable and can fit men comfortably at the top. If it's fine for Italian guys, it's fine for the world." Pantyhose for men are being sold by other companies too, under different names. Spanx, the company that sells body-shaping undergarment solutions, have a line for men called Manx that helps hide those layers of belly fat from being seen through a shirt. According to e-mancipate, men have great legs too, and they can look fine if covered in mantyhose made of the right colors and material. They also go on to claim that these garments can have health benefits, saying that men who wear them can enjoy higher energy levels, refreshed muscles and greater athletic performance. The website provides a list of companies that make and sell mantyhose to choose from. So girls, now you know exactly what to get your man for his next birthday…
Photos by e-manicipate via Laughing Squid Introducing Mantyhose – The Stylish Pantyhose for Men was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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