July 27th, 2010 by Sydney

Here are a couple shots from artist Tereza Anton’s series The Low-Rez Life.

(Via Who Killed Bambi?)

January 19th, 2010 by Senna

So friend of Fantasy IRL Alex Paxton from AXPX showed me an interesting spoof video the other day. As part of the Fantasy IRL project exhibition, I am making a video that will take on the format and model of an old-school turn based RPG. Although mine will not be as goofy, it’s worth watching for the epic, nearly ten-minute long boss battle. Ha. Enjoy.

September 4th, 2009 by Senna

Soooooo…

As some of you may know, the newest World of Warcraft patch has given Druids the rightful choice of altering the appearance of their animal forms.  Living as a druid in the realm of Akama, I have become a white bear and panther with purple markings, just like my night elf form.  It is truly refreshing to see all the aesthetic changes that have been made, as well as the new BG’s and what not.  Wintergrasp here I come!

P.S. Does anyone love Ashenvale as much as I do?  I think it’s the most beautiful land in the whole game…It’s the only place that really feels like home for me.  Amanda!!  Play with me!!!

August 31st, 2009 by Amanda

This is pretty ridiculous and I feel requires little to no explanation.

Unfortunately, this hits very close to home with me. I was harassed quite a bit from people wanting to do naughty things to my Night Elf when I played World of Warcraft. Ah sweet memories…

Thanks Cosplay in America for this gem.

August 31st, 2009 by Amanda

There Will Be Brawl Episode 7: Pandora’s Box is now up and running, finally! There are only two episodes left, what will I do when it’s over?! There also might be a possible appearance at MAGFEST.

They say “TWBB have been contacted by and have been pondering the idea of presenting at the upcoming Music And Gaming Festival (http://magfest.org/) just outside of Washington D.C.

It’s four days of non stop video gaming and live video game cover bands, which is kinda up our alley, and wanted to see how much interest there would be from our viewers to see us in attendance!

If you could, hop on over and check out what MAGFEST is all about, and drop them a line if you would be interested in seeing us there!”

August 8th, 2009 by Amanda

I went on a hunt today for the best real life Pokemon I could find. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch them all, but luckily I caught ten of them.

Cubone.

Pikachu.

Read More »

July 20th, 2009 by Amanda

I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Greg De Stefano, photographer of the Super Smash Bros. portraits entitled BRAWL. You can check out all of the brawlers here. Also view the previous post about it.

FantasyIRL: First, I just I want to say again just how amazing these pictures are. I felt you really captured the personalities of each character so well. Looking at them I found myself thinking, ‘yeah, I could totally see (insert character here) doing that’ or ‘they would definitely lose and be confined to a wheel chair’ or ‘they WOULD be a total badass.’

Thank you again for letting us do an interview with you.

Greg De Stefano: Thank you for your compliments, it is really encouraging to hear from so many people and I am quite flattered. BTW I love the Fantasy IRL name as well, so much of my new work now has been incorporating fantasy into real life and I’m glad we are getting the chance to talk.

FantasyIRL: What initially influenced or motivated you to take these pictures?

Greg De Stefano: It was actually the result of something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, some kind of creepy Mario and Luigi pics, like them taking mushrooms and a slutty Peach.  And I was trying to put together my own shoot when my roommate (Daitenshi / Sheik) was like, “Why don’t you just ask Matt and shoot the There Will Be Brawl guys?”  That kind of cinched it, and this has grown into something I never could have expected.

I got my degree at CalArts in Photography and Integrated Media, so video game and conceptual art has been a passion of mine for awhile.  Especially the work in I AM 8 BIT.  But I never really found the right segway to combine it all until BRAWL.

Read More »

July 19th, 2009 by Sydney

“Sneaker freaker” Daniel Reese, also known as Brass Monki, designs custom shoes featuring characters from of your favorite games and films.  While he’ll definately make you a pair with any of his featured designs, he’s open to custom jobs at his clients’ requests.  Here are a few of my favorites.

(Via Kotaku)

July 16th, 2009 by Senna

This weekend, the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas will host its annual fighting video game tournament extravaganza, The Evolution Championship Series. 6 tournaments, 50,000 matches and big money for the players. Competitive players from across the globe make their way out to duke it out on screen. The games this year include: Street Fighter IV, Soul Calibur IV, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and a special BlazBlue edition. This is the first time Super Smash Bros. Brawl is being hosted (with normal tournament rules and no items), so the smash community will be a strong presence this year. Good luck to all the entrees, and make sure to check out the live stream (which will be up when the tournament starts tomorrow).

Here’s the schedule for the tournament events.  Enjoy!

Also, check out this highlight from the Evo 2004 Street Fighter semi finals between Justing Wong (Ken) and Daigo Umehara (Chun-li).  Watch the incredible parry after parry at the end!

July 15th, 2009 by Amanda

Photographer Greg De Stefano did a series of portraits inspired by the popular Wii game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It is actually very clever and well executed. I just love how some of them are injured or are sporting bloody boxing gloves, it definitely shows how the Smashers would be in real life. Visit Greg’s website for the rest of the Brawlers and more of his work. Also check out There Will Be Brawl to see them in action.

Here are some of my personal favorites.

Thanks Greg and sunnyheadcase for submitting this link.

July 13th, 2009 by Senna

The bloggers at AX watched some pretty good AMV’s (anime music videos) along with a Monty Oum series of some of the Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive babes fighting epic battles in the aesthetic of their natural video game habitat.  I haven’t even played Final Fantasy (minus a couple hours of VII) but was still very impressed at the calibur of the work.  See for yourself, Dead Fantasy I and II.

Also, the bloggers recently saw the trailer and some of the Japanese demo for the new Final Fantasy XIII game on the PS3. It looks absolutely incredible! We can’t wait to play it!
Here’s the trailer when it aired at E3 2009.

July 13th, 2009 by Senna

First a quick tour of the start of Genesis as filmed by player CGC Grayfox. A little shaky, but check out the venue and crowds of people there.

The results for D.B.R.’s Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl 500+ man tournament are in!
Melee Doubles
1. M2K + Jman
2. Scar Hates Jigglypuff
3. 4 Leaf Mango, the Thunder Down Under Edition
4. cactuar + darkrain

Melee Singles
1. Mango
2. Armada
3. Hungrybox
4. Zhu

Brawl Doubles
1. I bet that’s scary
2. AiB Ladder Champs
3. Captain Sex-E
4. Prison Break and Chris Farley

Brawl Singles
1. Ally
2. M2K
3. Tyrant
4. Dojo

Here are the links to the Brawl Singles Bracket and Melee Singles Bracket if interested.
Congrats to the winners and props to all who entered. The matches between Armada and Mango were so epic! It was great to meet all the international and out of state players and spend time with friends. I hope I’ll be able to enter my first tournament soon! Pictures will be up on the website this week.

July 12th, 2009 by Amanda

Rock Band is holding a contest right now where you can win a VMA. I know right? All you have to do is make a Rock Band music video and you and your band could win an MTV Video Music Award for “Best Performance in a Pepsi Rock Band Video.” That’s right! Your very own Moon Man. Contest ends July 28th so I would get on this now.

Click here for more information.

July 6th, 2009 by Senna

This coming weekend, Friday July 10th-Sunday July 12th, Antioch will host the biggest video game tournament to date.  Genesis is the name and Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Melee are the games.  An expected 1000+ attendees, including players from Europe and Australia and $10,000 pot will ensue.  The princes of Super Smash Bros. Melee, Nor Cal based crew D.B.R. (Death by Rape) will be hosting the event, which guarantees a smooth tournament and a wild time.  I am excited to be attending and covering the event for FantasyIRL and will be posting updates as the tournament unfolds.

Here is the info for Genesis on AllisBrawl and SmashBoards.

Check out D.B.R.’s SSBM combo video.  It’s probably one of the best I’ve ever seen ;)

June 25th, 2009 by Senna

I guess Amanda’s right, WoW really is taking over the world…

Nordiah - Blood Elf Paladin

I found Figure Prints on Offworld this morning, a magical website that takes your fully epic-geared (or not) characters and produces little statues of them for you to keep and proudly display with your figurines of superheroes (or villans), gundams, and the like.  The production process is quite interesting-its called rapid prototyping, where hundreds of little pieces of paper the make up thin slices of your character are glued together to form the overall shape.  They are then heated up and polished individually.  Pretty neat, huh!  Once I hit 80, I think I might just have to indulge.  They seem like they would make great gifts for your wowhead friends, too.  Oh!  And you can even purchase little pet models so that they’ll never be lonely.  If interested, make sure you check out the video on how they are made-some pretty precise manufacturing.

Atar - Orc Hunter

Kelem - Night Elf Rogue