We need more kids apps like 'The Monsters'

My five-year-old niece, Kirsten, is hooked on the iPad. She plays with it constantly. She wants to use it in the car. She brings it to bed. Kids and iPads are inseparable. But, rather than let them play with ridiculous and stupid mobile applications, it's probably best to load your device with some cool apps that are not only entertaining, but will also unleash their creativity.

Here's a good one, and it's called The Monsters by Tinybop. The app, which is available at the iTunes App Store for $0.99 (for a limited time), lets kids ages 6 and up create all the monsters they can imagine. Monsters with gloomy eyes that gleam. Belching beasts with lots of teeth. Crying ogres with grotesque feet. The choice is yours, and it's as easy as dragging and dropping.

The interface is pretty simple. Every monster begins as a shadow on the wall, and there are different shadows available that you can use as a base for your creature. Next you start mixing and matching arms, legs, heads, eyes, mouth, horns, and noses… as well as sounds that you can record, fur textures and colors. Each completed monster is hung in the portrait gallery where you can feed it, play, dance, and even take a selfie with it. To get the bigger picture, check out the video below.

Comments

Enigmatic Shapes and Psychedelic Patterns

To say that I love Sanagi 's work is an understatement. Looking at her art feels sort of therapeutic, and I find her drawings refreshingly intricate. They're trippy, psychedelic, and resemble something that you might see under a microscope. Not much is Googleable about Sanagi, but that's fine. There aren't many artists these days that still pull off the whole mysterious vibe, so I commend her for that. By the way... they're all hand-drawn with pen and ink.

James DeRosso's ceramic monsters

I really like these whimsical ceramic creatures by James DeRosso. Yes, they have bulging eyes and toothy grins, but they're not scary at all. The Portland-based artist started making cute monsters while he was a student to jokingly create gargoyle-like guardians for the kiln. After other students kept taking his quirky little figures, he realized there was a market for them. "I'm enjoying the whole monster making niche," James says. "It's amazingly gratifying to be doing ceramics full time and especially to be a teacher introducing kids to the joy of clay." Be sure to visit his website and like his Facebook page for the latest monster news.

Here's a trippy reimagining of the zodiac animals.

These are the animals from the zodiac calendar as created by Japanese artist feebee . I can't even begin to imagine how long painting these hybrid creatures on wood panel must take, but the results are pretty amazing. Some of them look terrifying, some aren't scary at all, and one looks like the Pokemon Meowth. They're all eye-catching, but none of them mean as much to me as the one representing my own sign, the Sheep (also known as the Goat or Ram). The twelve animal signs represent twelve different types of personalities. It is said that people born in the Year of the Sheep can be very indecisive and lazy. Hmmm, I guess Chinese zodiac is pretty much legit.

finding cain

Search This Blog