We looked hither, we looked yonder, and all we saw was more than we could take in with our eyes. Light whipping from their fur, jowls blazing and toothless gums gumming their way toward our legs. We had to get out of the rising tide, and all we had were five wasp heads and a…
A loud noise and thin sheets of metal fell. Though it had peeled off its thin cosmetic lid, the thick frame revealed how many porcupine quills it took to construct such a creature. Bare like their creation, they gnawed bark pails, dipping their paws into these links. Matt Tkocz – Matt does it all and…
Crinkled skin and bloodshot eyes filled the light as it passed by. Once we had thought there would be plenty of dark to hide such a hideous sight, but whatever it was doing with its fleshy skin-cicles in the core chamber was changing things, and most likely, it had something to do with a moisturizer…
They burnt on days we didn’t have the light. Risking our hairs and skins, we gathered close. The candles were all we had, and the nimphs, oh how they liked to blow them out. That was until the CandleMan came to visit. Large, made mostly of wax and wick, they feared him, as did we,…
Built on their foreheads, we travelled far and the days we’re indistinguishable. A golem? Yes. A rabbit? Of course. You couldn’t expect such a creature to stay dormant forever. Their size and a step will keep them moving for years, always, endlessly, in search of these links. Markus Lenz – Markus has a particular style…
The orange popped. Not the color. The fruit. We thought we were the last on the platform, but something down the tunnel let us know otherwise. Its squeal burst the last of our food, then there they appeared, lapping up the juice and garbed in these links. Isaac Hannaford – There’s just something about good…
The papers clanged. But how? It was normal paper after all–white, some edges creased, even a coffee cup stain here and there. But they were different in the light. Silver they shown, and around their edges the glow of an aged cosmos burnt by the vacuum-cracking blast of a thousand bursting moons. No, this wasn’t…
The chamber door sent impact shudders through the last nerves of the last inhabitants of the last inhabitable cave of the last inhabitable planet. How? Out in the darkness? The outer reaches of the outer reaches of the known beyond the known universe. One thousand years from then it would be obvious. It was they…
An eye, no three, past in front of the crack made by its last wood-splitting hit. There hadn’t been any of their kind pass through here in months, so it was about due. All we had to do now is wait. You usually don’t attack someone when their back is turned–it’s proper killing etiquette–but with…
It was a party of pigeons and pygmy goats. One against the other? No, they were in cahoots. The pigeons, responsible for logistics. The goats responsible for ballistics. Together they were a team, nay, a force, that could only be described at lethal. And in the midst of all of them, their leader– hairless, war-torn,…
The cones cracked beneath our feet, and the air was putrid, but we were able to finally find how the rasp moths had burrowed through. Though they were large, their main bodies were more like lubricated jelly sacks, able to squeeze through the tightest spaces, most likely moistened from the glandular excretions of these links.…
The rice grains pelted our faces–our faces shielded by pan-seared tortillas, haha! The joke was on them. Not even the soggy, beef soaked jabs of their tendrils could turn us away. However, we knew the corn-based shielding wouldn’t survive the night, forcing us to sizzle up some charred rabbit fur to weave into the protective…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist pops you in the jump sockets with head-boppin’ tunage to help propel you through those mind-numbing design tasks for the next few days. So whether you find yourself inking markers until they’re dry, grinding material through a bandsaw or flying through a CAD model, consider these tracks as a…
Four pinstripes and a melon. That’s all the payment we could gather. Down among the shantie with tattered cloth and mud holding make-shift walls to the ground, droids would peek from the blinds, unsure if they would be extracted or provided parts. Why we were able to get a melon in these parts, we’ll never…
Sauntering she stepped. The steel toed shift of air against steal echoed up through its structure. Side-stepping something that had tried before, she climbed, slow at first, then with speed, to kick through the membrane protecting these links. Pablo Carpio – What starts as really loose sketches, ends up as floating vehicle concepts, beautiful mountainscapes…
A fine mist settled, thin against the green bladed spears that jutted above. With an icy silence we stepped slowly, wanting to run, to duck and cover ourselves with the mist, to escape the rabbit banshees on the hunt for these links. Thibault Girard – Gritty scenes, ships and characters with an interesting method of…
They spread from the ground like black ink from a swollen tear duct. How would ink come to be in a tear duct? Well, when the virus takes hold, you never know how it will manifests itself. Sometimes, the sky goes sparkly, sometimes your skin bubbles, sometimes birds shoot out of the ground. One thing…
We flew around the peak. The moss fires put us in a orange haze and gave the air a sappy taste. We wouldn’t be able to set down anywhere nearby, so we hung the drag lines out the side, hoping that whatever was down there shrieking wasn’t large enough to pull us down with it.…
And so it went, on and on, the taps against the wood, the cracks along the grain. It went dark, and the sound all but stop. A long breath out to test the air, I peeled back the skin of the unearthed larvae casing, and push the squirming cychlid into these links. Nima Sprout -…
The bubbles rose in front of our faces, nearly lifting us off the plateau along with the wee furry beasts from whence the bubbles exploded out of their neck hairs, which we quickly learned were not hairs at all, but hydrogen absorbing tubulars generating power through the digestion of these links. Tomas Honz – Beautiful…
We threw it hard, like we had five arms each and the strength of a cattle-prodded meglephant. It was only a small asteroid, mostly ore, filled with holes growing the orange fungii we could no longer harvest. With the atmosphere decaying and a lack of constant moisture, it had completely succumbed to these links. Kelly…
The stage went black. More screams were the least of what we wanted to hear, but that’s what happens in the dark, just before thousands of people start throwing snowcones and muffin pans at each other. Fortunately, we had a secret weapon, wrapped tightly in a bubblegum wrapper, ready to be deployed with these links.…
The dust settled, then floated. The air grew thick, rabbit fur and gopher whiskers everywhere. Where did it come from? When had there been such an excess of gophers? We pondered long, but not too long, for they were on our heels, ready to attack, ready to devour, ready to gnaw the eyelids off anyone…
The sea was it. Salty air, stormy waters and if you hung your jowls above the surface as the sun was setting, the tentacles of speckle-throated Cuttlefish gently slap your check as they breached the watery sheath. We thought they were attracted to the smell of our stew. Turns out it was the peculiar sap…
Catch them, the wiles, the frozen pots of two. Wrapped and bent around the child, as he bid them to, lift him him up and throw his arrows made of dust and rusty nails, skin cracked, glowing, dark as ink, battling the splendor of these links. Rostislav Zagornov – Chunky speed paintings and concepts with light and shadow that…
Brick by brick they climbed, chiseling chunks of the chocolate vines until their packs were full. Yet, the didn’t expect it to transform, forming that hard brown shell around, impenetrably infused with these raspberry chip links. Gabriel Silveira – Illustration from the São Paulo based artist that slaps you with rich color, awesome detail and…
Blocks were stacked pyramidically across the barren landscape, dust wafting off the rusted surface. Their eastern edges moss-stained, both reaching and stayed by the sun, were the fence we peered past, checking for any opportunity to escape, to sneak away the soft, raw happy strands, extracted from these links. Jessica Rossier – Ahhh. Some of…
The porcelain structure beneath its transparent, multi-faceted skin flaps, glowed like the oil-laden breast of the fire swallow. We had our brushes with them in the past, usually hiding just before we were seen. This time, we were not so fortunate. Its attention had been completely drawn by our cheese sandwiches, drenched with these saucy…
A large crease appeared. Metal stretching along its head, down the neck, seams splitting, pins snapping. The cold kept the air still, sound pounding from the cavern through the chest, when the fur inside opened the machines hollow cavities and engulfed these links. Pat Presley – Beautiful environments with everything from concept ships and vehicles…
It was a long corridor woven with vines and beast furs, damp yet glittered with the lightening all around. Who would they find? The one they sought. Dry, old, stacked between the vines and threads of times feeding on the sap of these links. Tianhua Xu – Odd creatures and trees, but mostly the trees…
They rose from the deep, tentacles swollen with bladdered ink fistulas bursting against the rays of a morning sun. What brought them forth was exactly what you might think. Angry gurgles from the lower nostrils of a struggling Serpent Sea baby, caught in the tendrils of these links. Yuri Shwedoff – Trying to take in the awesome…
It rains, and the thunder collapses. Wiry threads of grass, crumple across its back, small actuators and the glow from multiple lenses glistening with the light of dawn. They use to be covered in fur, whiskers twitching, but… well, they learned, adapted, changed their paws, their bodies, their eyes, waiting for something to pass by,…
A wind blew that hadn’t since the days we bore through the outer hull. Long before it was but metal clanks, a photo and endless picking at the wall with frozen roaches that fell from the ceiling. The years were long, but a friend to the rust. And the day we broke free, we were…
He was a wee titmouse with an apple and a bag of cracked corn. A long journey lay ahead, fortunate to have a new mechanical leg to replace the squirrel-bone stump he recovered from a skin after the great battle. He was more robot than mouse, he thought as the sun gleamed off his forearm,…
A small plan hatched from beneath an elderberry tree. The five had their suits, goggles, razor loaded pulse rifles and a penchant for adventure. Once aboard the carrier high overhead, their vein implants would take over. They would never look the same again, but neither would their attackers after a few blasts from these links.…
A little troll in green pajamas, ate a raisin biscuit. Atop a box in too big socks and sitting on mouse, he dreamed of jars, of capturing stars and mixing them with these links. Nicolas Bouvier – Could share every bit of his work in this one post. So much awesome with an incredibly diverse…
The Sugr Cube portable WiFi Speaker from Sugr can be a classic case for the scenario where a product becomes an extension of one’s reality. Devoid of inanimate and mechanical switches and dials, this portable speaker lets you interact with it in a very humanized way: it understands your touch, strokes and gentle nudges to…
The flares flew, hitting against the fiber shell of our helmets. Sparks fell like the bright casts of rake beetles after sipping warm lava from a rock mop bucket. The faces of the others were shaken by the continuous pelting. We were not sure if it would let up, but finally our face flabs forced…
‘Wow,’ it said in an electronic voice close to the noise one makes when burned with a hot flask of fermented herring. We were shocked. First, that it spoke, or seemed to. Then, that it picked up a flute and started playing these links. Col Price – So many wonderful concept ships, including drones and…
Once the cups had been organized by color, we were able to jump between them, hiding within their colored glass shells, looking over the edges to see if they were coming. Worn and weary, night fell, the light of the moon scattering through the walls. There inside, waiting, we realized they were surrounding us the…
Vacuum tubes are still an incredibly niche thing and are commonly associated with Grandmas, your friend Hipster Dan and Satellite communication. For most signal processing and amplification methods, the mighty transistor kills it; consuming less power, creating less heat and is able to be squeezed into the tightest of compartments. However, that doesn’t mean tubes…
The tickle came not from the left, but from the right, along the edge of the ear then into the canal. Once the tail disappeared, so did the tickles. All went quiet, then the ringing, then the bark of a garden eel discussing time-lapsed photography theory in his subconscious. It was all he could do…
The container was split. All but two poured out, staying inside to ingest the remains. Every jar in the warehouse was infected. More came falling from the rafters, their furry fingers caked in five kind of frosting furiously devoured. The children, shocked by the scene could only do one thing now–summon the blazing heat of…
When you’ve thrown all the plates and have begun tossing furballs laden with gum and colorful candies, you shouldn’t be surprised if they come flying back at you. For the beast, he does not like the candies, nor the gum. Why is this particularly upsetting to him? Why, for the simple reason they lack the…
We rode all day. The dust, the dirt, the smoke, the buzz–not the kind from drinking their fermented milk, the kind you hear even in your sleep. However, it was the best way to move about the treacherous landscape, for they were a native species, able to adapt to the elements, and take on predators,…
The chalk dust sank in the orbit of a damp atmosphere. No where had we been able to wet the ear furs so quickly, picking up sounds so subtle that a dead, floating insect would disintegrate against the vibrations. There was only one item that could cause this chaos, and we found it coated there…
Guitar players have all been there before: you’re laying-down some great riffs for a new song and then BAM!, the phone rings. After talking up a storm about the song you just wrote, you go back to play it again and your mind is blank and you can’t remember how to play it in that…
“Pops a’ribbon,” he says. That’s all the cantankerous old turtle could muster once squeezed from the hole by his tiny titmouse nemesis. They could both dance, but the agile legs of the mouse were too fast. Poor turtle would have to think fast, working in imaginative use of his ukulele and, yes, these links. Pascal…
Torn into a small notch, the ribs fell, knocking against other fragments, until the light and pellets of dust scattered thin. Noise drifted through the chamber, wide open now, except for the edges of feet in the shadows and the cracking of knuckles. The cracking of knuckles–it was that which finally led to the freakish…
Tilting, he was a wobbly chap! His ears flopping with each hop. Why I recall the time he uproots an entire crabapple grove with one paw and the twitch of his bushy tail. Some say it was the hugs from a radioactive girl, others say a carrot from the nether reaches. I? Well I say…