There's no shortage of uses for steel wool, but the majority of them tend to be on the pyromaniacal side, like DIY fireworks. This trick by Mike Mikkelson is no different—it uses a homemade reusable "wool cage" to create a spinning vortex of light, like in the photo below. You can do this with just a piece of steel wool on a cable, but Michael wanted something he could easily reuse no matter how many shots he took, so he built a small cage to house the steel wool out of chicken wire, a small ...
When it comes to the quality of a photo, lighting can make or break it. Too much light, and your subject looks washed out. Too little, and you can't even tell what your subject is.
Christmas sweaters are one of those anomalies that everyone complains about, yet so many are sold every year that someone has to like them (kind of like fruitcake). Whether you're keeping tradition for tradition's sake, or secretly you actually enjoy ugly sweaters (we won't tell anyone), why not at least make this year one to remember?
When you have a lot of equipment, dragging it everywhere with you can be a pain, especially when the weather's bad. Sure, you can put it in a camera bag, but a lot of them don't protect your stuff from water, and waterproof cases can get expensive.
As dedicated bicyclists are well aware, riding can be very dangerous. Now that daylights savings time has ended in the United States, darkness appears quicker, and the night is especially dangerous for cyclists because of the low visibility that drivers have. Not only is darkness a danger, but also fog, blizzards, and heavy rain—all wreaking havoc on the vision. To combat this, bikers attach reflectors: clear front reflectors, red rear reflectors, amber pedal reflectors, and clear side reflec...
You can create a lot of impressive effects by stacking or layering photos, whether you do it in a darkroom or with Photoshop. The Harris shutter effect makes your photos super colorful, and double exposing or stacking negatives makes for some crazy looking portraits.
Stormtroopers were once the elite soldiers of the unstoppable Galactic Empire that ruled the Universe. Then little ol' Luke Skywalker came along and destroyed the Death Star, ending the evil empire forever. Since then, poor Stormtroopers all over the world have been left without work (maybe it's the economy). Out of the entire year, Stormtroopers have only a few select days of recognition, such as Star Wars Day and Halloween, where they come out of the woodwork to celebrate their once beloved...
The iPhone is probably one of the best looking phones ever made, but that beauty comes with a price. If you have a 4S or previous version, all it takes is one drop and the back glass is shattered (unless you're incredibly lucky). Replacing it yourself is pretty simple and cheap, but if you're not into DIY repairs, here's an easy alternative solution, as long as you have a white device. Redditor skrillexisokay used highlighters to transform a broken back glass into a work of art. And the best ...
One of the most disappointing experiences ever is when you save all your money for a really expensive gadget—and then break it. Whether it happens the day you buy it, or years later, it's always frustrating.
Here's a way you can turn a mousetrap into a fun little handgun that shoots up to 40 feet! This is a great project because it can be made with simple materials, very basic tools, and in just a few minutes!
Earlier this week, we learned that you can get people to put more money in a tip jar simply by drawing eyes on it. But what if you want to keep them away from something? Eyes can do that, too, especially when they're Putin's.
Want to build your own life-sized, working replica of WALL-E? Be prepared to take on a second job! Mike Senna spent two years perfecting his own version, working 25 hours a week and totaling somewhere around 3,800 hours for the whole project. He had no blueprints to go by, so he spent a lot of time watching the movie over and over to get everything just right. The video below shows some of the construction; skip to about the one minute mark to see WALL-E in action.
Want to liven up your game of beer pong? You could always add more cups or play with paddles, or you could make your own custom table with 500 LED lights that flash in sync with your favorite tunes like Redditor did.
The streets of Tokyo are about to get a lot scarier (or more awesome), after Suidobashi Heavy Industries unveiled their latest project: a 13-foot tall, customizable, piloted robot. It's armed to the teeth with a water bottle rocket launcher and a BB Gatling gun capable of firing 6,000 rounds a minute; all for the very reasonable price tag of around 1.35 million dollars.
Stop me if you've heard this one before. A man walks into a bicycle shop, hears about a canoe made of cardboard and is inspired to make an awesome, fully-functional cardboard bicycle. Sound far-fetched? Wait until you hear how his guy actually did it. Israeli entrepreneur Izhar Gafni says that the idea for his method came from Japanese origami. Folding the cardboard increases its strength by 2-3 times, making the material much more durable. Essentially, he made the basic shape for each part w...
For anyone who lives in a space that may frown upon making holes in the walls, or for anyone who may not want to take on such a task, there's a simple alternative to hanging curtains or drapes. And the answer is brilliantly simple.
Show up the other kids at school and bring your teacher a super-sized apple, well, paper-bag apple that is. Great project to do with the family or in the classroom. Create a festive apple using just paper-bag and some newspaper.
You look up the screen and see those smiling faces, those excited fans and think, that should be me. Well, it can! Anyone can get a little camera time at football game. You can let it be up to fate or you can get proactive and improve your chances of the camera finding you.
In this video tutorial, viewers learn how to take a screen-shot on a laptop. Begin by finding the display image that you would like to take a screen-shot of. Then press the End and Insert key on the keyboard to take a screen-shot of the displaying image. Now open the Paint program. Click on Edit and select Paste. The screen-shot image will then be pasted into the Paint program. User are now able to edit or save the image. This video will benefit those viewers who use a laptop, and would like ...
Learn how to draw a Mickey mouse on your computer using MS Paint in simple steps. Use the oval tool and draw two medium size circles leaving some space between the other. Now draw a bigger circle by making its top ends meeting the other two circles. Draw two little circle inside the bigger circle for the eyes and draw another circle below the eyes for the nose. Make a curve joining the two eyes and draw its mouth below the nose as shown in the video. Finally draw some hair and give the colori...
IMVU is a 3D avatar chat, instant messenger, and dress up game. Get help with all of your IMVU avatar needs with these IMVU tips and tricks! Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make IMVU avatar eyes in Paint.
Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza demonstrate the way of making medieval candles using tissue paper transfer technique. Steve asks you to first take a piece of tissue paper and a square-shaped chunky stamp. Then you should load the stamp with black pigment. Once the loading is completed, you should cut the tissue paper in square shape and place the shining side on the stamp and give a nice light press with your fingers. Then once you get the stamp image on the tissue, gently take it out and pl...
During Diwali, when family and friends can't be together to celebrate the festival of lights, then it's courteous to send an appropriate Diwali greeting card. But you don't need to fork out money on store-bought versions. You can make your own! All you need is MS Paint. Watch this step-by-step tutorial to learn how to make your own Diwali card in Microsoft Paint, or any similar program.
Color wheels are fantastic little tools that tell you whether colors are complementary or not. If you're designing a room and want to make sure your walls and other decorations work together, check this video out and learn how a color wheel can help you design a harmonious room.
The video is an episode of Indy Mogul. It opens with a man who tells us the topic of this show is to help people make fake prosthetics for a fish-man costume for Halloween. After an intro showing us that the show is about making homemade special effects and props on a cheap budget and a disclaimer the show tells us the ingredients we'll need to make the prosthetics. They are: clay, sunglasses, latex sheet, quarter-inch foam, styrofoam head and bald cap, and liquid latex. The show then demonst...
Open the picture you wish to place a rainbow within. A good scene has clouds that are receding into the distance and the light angle coming in from the front of the scene. A rainbow effect appears when by the sun is shining from behind you into the mist-filled air where it is refracted by raindrops.
Create sexy leopard print eyes. Fresh Face: Start with what I call a fresh face, which is your clean slate for all of your looks. A fresh face is after you have put concealer and foundation all over the face or only where needed, which ever you prefer. Also groom the eyebrows at this point, if needed, to avoid smudging shadow or liner while trying to groom. Apply a generous amount of loose powder to the eye to catch little stray make-up pieces. Shadow base: Apply a shadow base to give a good ...
It can be intimidating to sculpt fantasy miniatures, even if you have some artistic experience. Working at that scale, every little mistake could be a disaster! But in this 15-part video tutorial, you'll learn how to make your mini figures turn out looking great, every time.
Pixel Perfect is the "perfect" show to help you with your Photoshop skills. Be amazed and learn as master digital artist Bert Monroy takes a stylus and a digital pad and treats it as Monet and Picasso do with oil and canvas. Learn the tips and tricks you need to whip those digital pictures into shape with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. In this episode, Ben shows you how to create a jellyfish environment in Photoshop.
This series of videos focuses on a typical UV workflow in Houdini 9. Learn how to create projections, edit UVs with a variety of tools, save out UV maps, and apply textures. Please download the project files below to follow along with these Houdini 9 texturing lessons.
This video tutorial demonstrates how to make realistic rock faces on hills and mountains using flexible rubber molds and plaster. The process is easy and hopefully inspires other toy model train layout.
This is a diet coke and mentos volcano. The challenge is to make it fast, easy, cleanable, and waterproof. This can be done easily and in ten minutes. You just need to let it dry and then paint it.
This project shows you how to make a great working volcano using posterboard rather than paper-mache or plaster. It's easier, faster, and perfect for younger children. The volcano takes a half hour and is ready to be decorated, painted, and then erupted!
Do you want to learn how to make a tribal design? Watch this video to learn techniques to paint tribals for beginners.
This Japanese brush painting demonstration shows the technique used to draw a suibokuga tiger in sumi-e ink.
This Japanese brush painting demonstration shows the technique used to draw small flowers using sumi-e ink and a brush. Pay careful attention to the line. Balance is important.
Watch this Japanese ink painting demonstration to learn the technique used to draw a rose with sumi-e ink.
Watch this Japanese ink painting demonstration to learn the technique used to draw bamboo with sumi-e ink. Create bamboo using straight strokes. Five leaves are drawn with one single brush of ink.
Watch this Japanese brush painting demonstration to learn the technique used to draw grapes. One brush of ink is used to draw one group of grapes. The leaf and branch displays a gradation that adds shade and light.
In perhaps 'the laziest tutorial ever' Jimmy R shows you how to filter a photograph with photoshop to make it look like a painting.
