Castle Crashers Vinyl Toys? Yes, Please.

Castle Crashers is one of XBox Live’s newest runaway hits. It brings back the side-scrolling video game action that those of us who grew up on Nintendo and Super Nintendo know so well. It’s about time someone made a game that scrolled sideways and was attractive to the new generation.

With kickass animated graphics, cuddly cuddly characters, a remarkably disgusting yet hilarious sense of humor, and one of the most epic soundtracks ever to grace the XBox Live Arcade, Castle Crashers is building up momentum through word of mouth, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

This weekend, an ultimate nerd-fest, PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) came to Seattle and artists from Castle Crashers holed up in a booth. They brought with them glorious glorious vinyl toys of the game’s knights and one of its barbarian. Two life-sized foam characters were also present. At “Buy 3, Get 1 Free,” the vinyls of the knights probably sold much, much better than anyone with Castle Crashers could have ever anticipated. They sold out far before the event was over.

Here are two of the characters — the Green Poison Knight and the Barbarian:

But for those of you who are still interested, the vinyl’s will be available on their website, and it is a great bridge between the videogame world and the urban street art world.

6emeia’s SÃO and Delafuente Beautify Urban Sprawl

For those of you who have been paying attention lately, some of the latest greatest accomplishments in the street art world seem to be originating from South America. What better place for 6emeia to be than in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo?

6emeia (which loosely means “six and a half” in Portuguese) is comprised of Anderson Augusto, also known as SÃO, and Leonardo Delafuente, also known as Delafuente. What they’re doing is beautifying urban sprawl and decay. Manhole covers, electrical boxes, and storm drains are all fair game for being painted with sickingly cute animals or homages to past artistic innovators like Jackson Pollock and Vincent Van Gogh.

Batman and Robin!

Mouse and cheese!

Vincent Van Gogh and ear!

Lighter and… light!

Many more examples of these works and full-fledged murals can be found on their website, at 6emeia.com!

Free Sheep Foundation Breathes Life Into Belltown

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a huge fan of Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. Sure, there are a few cool things like Shorty’s, Roq La Rue, and The Big Picture, and it was once (or perhaps soon again) the home of the legendary Crocodile Cafe. Sure, sure. But for every one of those cool things comes one annoying, expensive, hoity-toity club or restaurant. It’s probably one of the places in Seattle I’d least like to spend my time in.

Nonetheless, Free Sheep Foundation has opened up a new gallery in the husk of an abandoned building in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. The location is just a couple blocks from the Roq La Rue / BLVD Gallery section of Belltown, and they are [temporarily?] doing some pretty amazing things in this stripped down space.

I’ve been sitting on these pictures forever and this opening was earlier this month, but I hope you enjoy them, weeks later.

Static Invasion / Scntfc installation, commenting on the ‘progress’ of Seattle’s new crazy building expansion projects. Static Invasion is a group of artists that use vinyl clings to promote street art as opposed to permanent methods. Pretty amazing.

No Touching Ground installation.

D.K. Pan installation.

Experimental music takes the stage in one of the back rooms.

Click here to view more about the gallery. Hollar.