This guys goes into a crazy amount of detail in designing these alternate Earths, and other fertile planets:

http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

(ignore the fact that when he gets to the "biology" section, these planets always seem to be inhabited by furries.)

A lot of it reminds me of my days playing SimEarth in high school. I also liked to draw imaginary land masses and coastlines and stuff, and loved the made-up maps that come with fantasy novels and console RPGs.

And since I'm working on an MMORPG, i actually got to imagine and draw maps during the early pre-production phase of the game.

Maps are cool. 

postin' in a legendary thread

FOR EVIL >:{} 

EVIL++ 

http://www.flickr.com/groups/demolitionart/pool/

i hate flikr, but oh well 

http://www.sfarmory.com/index.php 

http://www.sfarmory.com/about.php

So apparently it was bought by a porn company, no doubt because it's full of dungeons and stuff.

If they open it up for tours, maybe I'll go there sometime. 

http://sleepycity.net/view.php?image=732&tag=surreal

thanks for the link, blackdog. this site is amazing 

http://textures.vertx.ca/

A few hundred pretty decent refs. 

http://www.confluence.org/

Pictures taken from literally every corner of the earth - the idea is to have photos from every point where longitude and latitude degree lines meet (that is on land).

Who the hell comes up with this stuff? 

I know I'm a one-trick pony in here, but this is some cool panoramic stuff I've never seen before: http://www.artfutura.org/02/moebius.html 

are there any good moebius art books? I've looked on Amazon etc. and they seem only to have comic books... I was hoping for a large coffee-table style art book... or even something smaller, if it has enough art in it. 

I've got one of them, entitled CHAOS -- it is really nice, covering a lot of his early output and two of his more recent series: Wonders of the Universe and Stories Inside Something -- the latter which led to his more abstract art. What's more, its got a look inside of some of his sketchbooks, which I really dig.

I'm sure there are more, but God knows where... 

I'll check out Chaos. 

There are some other unofficial artbooks lying around I think, but best solution is still to buy all his comics weee! 

ee 

http://questier.com/Photos/

Lots, and of cool places. Check out Syria 05 for some amazing ruins. 

Ooh, really nice stuff -- I can't resist hi-def pics of desert ruins =D 

http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/09/13/frederic-chaubin-soviet-sf-style/

These are awesome; I wish there were more/bigger pictures. 

So, 1960s futiristic architecture... I want to find more real-life examples. What I have so far:

The Space Needle in Seattle:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/commodores/NCC/NCAAWomen1st/images/The%20Space%20Needle.jpg

Pacific Science Center in Seattle:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/PACSCI6.jpg

Space Mountain in Disneyland:
http://disney.rocket9.net/images/DL_SpaceMountain.1280.jpg

BONUS LINK: Space Mountain concept art:
http://stetson.edu/library/SpecialCollections/images/img005.jpg

Habitat 67 in Montreal:
http://expo67.ncf.ca/expo_habitat_structure.jpg

More pictures from Expo 67:
http://www.space1999.net/~sorellarium13/expo67greatbritainandfrance.jpg
http://www.space1999.net/~sorellarium13/expo67israelpavilionatnight.jpg

That's all for now. 

If you like modern architecture, have a look at this building, a new sience museum in wolfsburg (home of volkswagen), by the great architect Zaha Hadid.
http://www.hiepler-brunier.de/phaeno/ 

Why are crazy designs like that usually reserved for museums and art galleries? 

Because it's too expensive for common mortal we are, and also because such architecture is not good for real life all days usage... 

http://pruned.blogspot.com
Haven't really understood the purpose yet. But there are interesting things (some rather NWS). Inspiring? For sure! 

sometimes it's a blessing:
http://www.hohpe.com/Gregor/Travel/2002/Seattle/emp.jpg 

This one is confusing. I have a photo if this in a book I have at home and it looks really cool with a huge suspension roof and everything sort of curved and stuff. But all my google searches turned up a boring open air soccer stadium.

Turns out they must have removed the roof, though I've seen no mention of it anywhere. The wikipedia entry is notable silent on the fact that there used to be a roof, and that the roof was the fucking NOTABLE part of the building.

Anyway, here's a page with photos of the original structures:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/DOMES/TIMELN/tkyo_gym/tkyo_gym.html

And here's a google maps image of the same site -- notice the roof is missing on the big one, and all new on the small one:
http://maps.google.com/maps?om=1&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=35.678834,139.713746&spn=0.005055,0.008669&t=k

And here are some typical photos: (where's the roof???)
http://www.fussballtempel.net/afc/JPN/Tokyo_Olympic.html

Wikipedia page: (not very informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Tokyo)

----
Totally unrelated, here's a cool stadium in montreal built for the 76 olympics:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/gsapp/BT/DOMES/TIMELN/montreal/montreal.html