Photo courtesy David Redding

(Private Illustrator)

We’re proud to be hosting the first London exhibit of works by acclaimed illustrator Antony Hare.

Antony specializes in mostly black & white line-based illustration. His portaits of actors, directors, and literary figures have been featured in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times.

Although his work looks like it was created using traditional pen and ink, Antony developed his own unique vector inking style in 1999 using his second-hand Wacom tablet and Adobe Illustrator. His signature teardrop process is the deceptively simple task of drawing dark and light vector brush strokes to sculpt infinitely-resizable graphic art. It more closely resembles ink than it does typical vector art.

The show runs until June 1st, and features rare and limited edition framed work, as well as prints from $20.

Here are some terrific options for a group of 6 or more that don’t take all night!

Bang!

Rightly known as a go-to card game for big groups, Bang is a spaghetti-western style shootout between a Sheriff, Deputies, Outlaws and Renegades. Each player tries to eliminate their opponents first, but there’s a catch. Everyone knows who the sheriff is, but each other player’s role is hidden. Are you shooting a deputy or an outlaw? Should you help your neighbour, or are they out to get you! Great old-west fun for 3-7 players aged 8+.

Wits & Wagers

This great game of guessing and betting has won dozens of awards. Each player writes a guess to a question such as “In what year did the bikini swimsuit makes its first appearance?” or “How many feet wide is an NFL football field?” and places it on the betting mat. Think you know the answer? Bet on your guess. Think you know who the experts are? Bet on their guess. The closest answer pays out. You can win by making educated guesses, by playing the odds, or by knowing the interests of your friends. It can be taught in 2 minutes, played in 25 minutes, and accommodates up to 20 people in teams. Suggested age is 10+, but we also have a family version that is more kid friendly (8+).

Shadow Hunters

Join the eternal struggle between good and evil in this anime-styled game featuring vampires, werewolves, and the righteous humans who hunt them! Like Bang, your identity remains secret until someone outs you through your actions or a special ability. The key to victory is to identify your allies and enemies early, and use powerful spells and weapons to vanquish them!  Shadow Hunters is for 4-8 players ages 10+ and takes about an hour to play.

Bohnanza

Don’t let the goofy art fool you – Bohnanza is a great card game for large groups. As a bean farmer, you try to collect and “harvest” sets of various beans (green, chile, coffee) to score points. The tough part is you can only collect two kinds of beans at a time, and you must play your cards in the order you draw them. So to get rid of the cards you don’t need, you must trade with other players. Bohnanza is simple to learn (I’ve played with 7-year olds) but all the trading makes for a lot of fun. “Who’s got stink beans for my cocoa beans?” Up to 7 players.

For Sale

Going once! Going twice! Sold to the highest bidder! Bid and bluff your way to purchase the most valuable properties for the lowest amount of money, then turn around and sell those properties for cold hard cash. Be the richest real estate mogul at the end of the game to win! For Sale is simple to learn and plays in as little as 20 minutes, which makes it a great “filler” game.  From the outhouse to the penthouse, the game art is a lot of fun as well. For 3-6 players, ages 8 and up.

Castle Panic

Can you work with your friends to defend your Castle against the horde, or will the Monsters tear down your Walls and destroy the precious Castle Towers? Castle Panic is a cooperative, light strategy game for up to 6 players ages 10 and up. Players must work together to defend their castle, in the center of the board, from monsters that attack out of the forest, at the edges of the board. Players trade cards, hit and slay monsters, and plan strategies together to keep their castle towers intact. Players must balance the survival of the group with their own desire to win.

Check out this video of Castle Panic on Tabletop:

Asoblock kits come with tons of little ball-and-socket joints that snap together in the most amazing combinations, and start at $17.00

“He’s all yours, bounty hunter.”

This solid metal bottle opener, depicting Han Solo frozen in Carbonite from ‘The Empire Strikes Back,’ measures 4 inches long and opens any bottle cap with ease.

It even has magnets on the back so you can mount it on your refrigerator… or in your trophy room!

Designed and Sculpted by Art Asylum.

UPDATE: We’re looking for donations of “little things”. Got a junk drawer or shoebox full of things like: Buttons, Paperclips, Stickers. lost lego bits…. If you have some stuff to spare, drop it off at the store!

On this special night of art, lights and music, Über Cool Stuff is hoping to do something awesomely ridiculous (or is that ridiculously awesome?) 

Do you want to help create something übercool?

We need some help planning and preparing  to make this night all it can be. We are looking for: artists & creative brains, woodworking skills & tools,  A/V techie people (and some gear), possibly volunteers for the night of, and (most of all), fans who know what this object is:

If you want to help out, give us a shout at uber@ubercoolstuff.com or on twitter @ubercoolstuff

Thanks!

Plumen is the first low-energy light bulb where design is the centrepiece, not afterthought. Make the bulb attractive and people will spend a bit more and enjoy a better quality of light and a design they appreciate every day. Glass tubes can be bent in many different shapes so why are there thousands of manufacturers but only three designs? Plumen aims to address the problem.

The Plumen 001 works like any other high-quality low-energy bulb – saving you 80% on your energy bills and lasting 8 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb.

The name Plumen comes from the “plume,” the decorative feathers of a bird and “lumen,” the unit of light.

The Plumen 001 is a Hulger product and was designed by Hulger & Samuel Wilkinson.

The good crew at Geek & Sundry promoted March 30th as International Tabletop Day – a celebration of gaming for everyone who’s into it and everyone who wants to be!

Tabletop After Hours!

Affter the doors closed for the day, we re-opened at 6:00 for an evening of after-hours gaming goodness!

35 people showed up, many of whom were new to the store. Lots of people got to try games they had never played before, and everyone had good time.  People enjoyed a Zombie Dice Roll-off for some freebies (Congrats to Chris who won with a streak of 11!)

We will definitely be doing this again (or something like it!)

PS. Thanks to Jamie and Kevin for helping out!

Stuck on Star Trek features 10 immediately recognizable settings, including the Enterprise’s transporter room, sick bay, bridge, cantina, private quarters and engine room, plus some alien environments. The book comes with a foldout stand for easy display (and play) in a cubicle or on any surface.

Those all provide the backdrops for 30-plus reusable “Kling-on” stickers featuring Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, Chekov, Nurse Chapel, their Klingon and Romulan enemies, and even the forever-doomed Red Shirt guy, not to mention speech bubbles, universal translators, phasers, communicators, ships, costumes, and – say it with us… — Tribbles.