Indie Squid Kid

My wife makes her Indie Squid Kid debut!

Back in the end of December when I did my Xmas Roundup, I left out one important gift—Ryn’s nautilus necklace!

Ryn loves her nautilus!

You might recognize this necklace if you are familiar with the work of Sheryl Westleigh (aka Noadi) or if you saw my 2009 Holiday Shopping guide. While I was composing that post, Ryn saw the photo of the nautilus pendant and let out an excited SQUEEE! I knew then and there, that I couldn’t let anyone else buy it.

Brown Nautilus by Noadi

Speaking of Noadi’s fabulous cephalopod creations, check out this video showcasing her new line of steampunk-themed jewelery!

Back at the beginning of November, Cephalopod Tea Party held a contest to celebrate reaching 100 followers. To enter the contest, you needed to tell them your favorite cephalopod and why, send them a drawing of a cephalopod, and let them know your favorite CTP post. There were three separate prizes awarded, two twisty tentacle pins and a “pirate and tentacles” mini-print, and, long story short, I WON!!! (Via random selection, I’m pretty sure, but I think my entries were pretty good…) They plan to post the winning entries eventually, so my submission will remain shrouded in mystery for now.

My prize was one of the pins, and I opted for the tie tack option. The pin is made of cold cast bronze and is cast from an original sculpture by CTP contributor Sarah Dungan. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because I featured Sarah’s Industrial Fairytale Etsy shop in last week’s Holiday Shopping Guide.

You can see more of Sarah’s work at sarahdungan.blogspot.com.

Once again we turn our sights on Etsy.com, the nexus of all things creative and crafty on the Internet. A search for “squid jewelry” (for example) currently returns over 400 results, but I’ve isolated three sellers that epitomize the kind of awesome cephalopod jewelry that abounds on Etsy.

Noadi’s Art (www.etsy.com/shop/noadi)

Sheryl Westleigh creates amazing polymer clay and mixed media jewelry and sculptures, and I think she loves cephalopods almost as much as do. (OK, probably more!) Her shop has tons of great items in multiple styles and color variations, so if any of these pieces have sold, I’m sure you will be able to find something every bit as good. Not every thing in Noadi’s shop is cephalopod-related—look for trilobites, horseshoe crabs, and even a festive holiday platypus!

www.noadi.net

Deep Purple Squid necklace ($30)

Brown Nautilus necklace ($30)

Brass Steampunk Octopus necklace ($35)

Cuttlefish Specimen Jar necklace ($30)

Industrial Fairytale (www.etsy.com/shop/industrialfairytale)

Sarah Dungan is an illustrator, animator, and creator of some fabulous steampunk jewelery.

http://industrialfairytale.com

http://sarahdungan.blogspot.com

http://industrialfairytale.blogspot.com

She is also one of the contributors to Cephalopod Tea Party!

A Victorian Octopus ($45)

Cinnabar Octopus and Jade ($35)

The Nautilus and the Deep Blue Sea earrings ($15)

Octopus Me (www.etsy.com/shop/OctopusMe)

If you are looking for something a little more high-end, how about sterling sliver (and sometimes gold) jewelry made from real octopus tentacles? Here are a couple of examples, but there are many, many more in the shop!

Free shipping on all items until Sunday, December 7th.

Size 4-7 Tentacle Ring ($160.00)

Unmatched Octopus Tentacle earrings ($85)

This one-of-a-kind simulated Sperm Whale tooth is 4.5″ long and made of resin. The base is black walnut, and the Egyptian-styled stand is cold cast bronze. On its reverse side there is depicted a mermaid decked out in steampunk gear. Available at Tom Banwell’s Etsy shop for $79.00.

Also available at Tom Banwell Leather is a wide assortment of hand-made leather Halloween masks, and visit his blog for a look at his many other fantastic steampunk projects—masks, helmets and ray guns, oh my!

Lynne Rutter, of The Ornamentalist blog, recently shared how she transformed a detached garage into this fabulous steampunk aquarium scene!

(Via The Steampunk Home)

The world of squid art just got gianter.

www.giantthinkwell.com

Giant Thinkwell, which debuted today, is an international illustrator’s collective currently composed of nine artists. Their kick-off project is called Rise of the Squid.

Here are my three favorite pieces…

Kyle Kesterson

Ryan Tatum

Mark Malazarte

Visit GiantThinkwell.com to see these and the other five awesome pieces in the project. All of the illustrations are available as 8×10 prints, limited edition of 42.

$10 + $3 sh ($5 int’l) – Full artist series $60

This cake by MeMe’s Treat Boutique is made of pure awesome. There might also be some cake in there somewhere…

Sighted by Noadi (who knows her steampunk cephalopods) via Cake Wrecks

Leviathan is a young adult steampunk alternate history novel by Scott Westerfield. If the book trailer can be believed, it will feature a plethora of awesome things, such as war squids and zeppelin whales. It is being published by Simon & Schuster and comes out on October 6th.

Preorder Leviathan from Amazon.com.

Dragon*Con begins this weekend in Atlanta, GA, and for the first time in almost 10 years I will not be attending. That’s tragic for a number of reasons, including the fact that I will miss my chance to score the limited edition “Stephen Le Podd” figure from MINDstyle. Designed by Doktor A, “De-Commissioned” is limited to 100 pieces, and they will be available, first-come first-serve, on Friday, September 4 (tomorrow!) at 8:30 PM. (As for exactly where to get them and how much they cost…I’m not actually sure.)

I love this dapper steampunk cephalopod, with his jaunty pith helmet, tentacle moustache, and dilating aperture eyes. If this edition is anything like the 2009 San Diego Comic Con exclusive (“The Entertainer”), it comes with a few alternate hats—ready for any occasion!

I’ll admit that, for a geek, I know very little about video and computer games, and I know even less about the world of independent game design. However, what kind of Indie Squid Kid would I be if I didn’t acknowledge indie game designer Miguel Sternberg of Spooky Squid Games Inc.? Miguel is the creator of two cephalopod themed games—both were made in conjunction with Artsy Game Incubator, an event that encourages the Canadian indie game community (of Toronto and Montreal, at least) to develop and hone their gamemaking chops.

Night of the Cephalopods! is a “survival horror game with old school pixel art graphics and an innovative fully voiced dynamic narrative system.” Having mistranslated the sinister Octinomicon, you must survive until dawn, fighting tentacled horrors armed with only a shotgun. (Um, you are armed with a shot gun, the cephalopods are armed with, well, their arms.) All the while, your every move is narrated in grand Lovcraftian fashion. Here’s some sample game play…

Cephalopods Co-Op Cottage Defence is Miguel’s follow-up-in-progress to Night of the Cephalopods! It is a two-player, cooperative game “featuring a lady scientist, her clockwork valet and hundreds of squidy things.” Surviving the night is again the goal, but this time it seems you must also defend your laboratory form eldrich invasion.

Both games can be downloaded at AGI.

All this came to my attention by way of Rock, Paper, Shotgun.