One-of-a-kind Fantasy Mermaids Reloaded

Just a quick addendum to the previous Who Said Mermaids Don't Exist?;

When looking for more Mermaids swimming around in the world wide wocean, I came across the Flickr profile of Nenúfar Blanco, where she features many interesting photos of ethereal and fantastic Merpeople.

It took me quite a few pictures before I realised that the featured Mermaids and Mermen are one-of-a-kind fantasy dolls, which are made by Nenúfar herself.

Photo by Nenúfar Blanco, Lucretia, 2008

I was quite impressed by the high level of detail and the unique look she creates. Despite I am not a particular fan of small figures or puppets, I really like them.

In case you would like to buy one, you can go to her website, where you can get your unique model for (at the time I write this) $350.-, which is not too bad considering those dolls are unique and handmade.

Most people might think: "What a strange hobby!" As far as I'm concerned this just adds to my amazement. In case you want to read more, you can also visit her blog.

Who Said Mermaids Don't Exist?

I was recently searching for underwater photographs on the web. Admittedly, I was flicking relatively quickly through a set of images on Flickr, when I was flabbergasted by this one:

Photo by mambolou, November 2008

My mind kind of registered the following things within the same fraction of a second when the picture came up:

1. The technical quality of the photo is not as great as, for instance, and airbrush work would be.
2. The technical quality of the photo is not so bad to be one of these rainbow press alien photos.
3. From this angle there is a kind of human like shaped creature peeking out of the water.
4. What is always on stand-by on a man's mind?

Is this a bloody mermaid *slam the back button of the poor laptop as quick as possible* ?!?

Next fraction of the second, the anti-climax of the story: unfortunately, it's not a mermaid.

Third fraction of the second: but it sure looks interesting, what is it?

The answer is given right below the photo by mambolou himself: "It is a Beluga whale. She was peeking above the water's surface as I snapped the shot. Ahhh, the song of the sirens!" This is another great example of how amazing our world is and how things appear totally different from different angles and in different circumstances. When specifically looking for pictures of Beluga whales on the web, I found hundreds but not a single one looked anything close to a human or had the appearance of this great picture.

All those of you who might think, is this guy blind? Please look straight into my eyes and tell me this picture of Stephen does not look similar!

By the way, this is the picture that I recently took of a lovely mermaid ;-):

Photo of Daryl Hannah from the movie Splash.

For those who don't know, Splash is a great movie that was produced when Tom Hanks was still cool.

Too Much for Jabba!

I hope the second thought after thinking Jabba is Leia! For the record: the amazing Carrie Fisher played Princess Leia in the real Star Wars movies back in 1977. At some point, a bad guy called Jabba the Hutt enslaves the lovely Leia and makes her wear the famous Slave Leia Costume. Much to the delight of one half (am I optimistic here?) of the Star Wars fans.

Those of you who remember the days when Star Wars featured real actors, rather than animated armies and space ships were made of steel, nuts and bolts, rather than (again) some undefined animated textures (and are slightly geeky males) will be delighted to hear that Princess Leia is alive! As the picture proves she is not only very much alive, but also brings along her numerous sisters to parties!

Photo by Kelldar on Flickr.

Who doesn't want to be Han Solo now? I was quite amazed when I learned that there is even a Slave Leia Appreciation Society on Flickr. It would be really interesting to know how many of those girls are 'professional' Slave Leias, who are supposed to fuel the dreams of comic, fantasy, roleplay etc. conventions.

On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of girls taking their alter egos quite seriously and look great in their outfits. The most impressive example for me is actually Kelldar. She fabricates her own costumes, which look really cool and does a lot of fictional characters. The thing that I like about her is that she also puts decent quality photos of her costumes on her site, rather than using a quick snap with a nuke flash that produces 400x300 pixel images.

It really amazes me how Star Wars achieved its cult status. I can only recommend watching episodes IV-VI, namely A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

For those of you who want to look at more pretty Leias, you can start here and here.

In case you were a lucky bastard when picking your wife or partner, or you are just a kinky geek, you might want to check out Costumecrazy of Exoticwearexpress. Incredible that there is almost nothing that you cannot get somewhere ;-).

I only wish the latermoviesearlierepisodes of Star Wars had the same real and charming appearance as the earliermovieslaterepisodestherealthing *sigh* ...