emoji-painted billiard balls take on playful personalities in the ‘poolmoji’ set 

 

 

 

when he found a new pool table at work, digital artist jean-baptiste le divelec and a group of his creative friends decided to create some custom billiard balls for the game. drawing from popular culture and the ubiquity of emoticon figures and faces, the team hand-painted fifteen emoji expressions on the pool set. 

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the pool balls look on in horror at the incoming ‘attack’ 

 

 

 

for ‘poolmoji’, jean-baptiste le divelec — together with winigreenijoseph daviessonali ranjit, and xuan pham — painted each ball with a different facial expression, forming a cast of characters that seemingly interact with each other as they roll across the table. personalities like ‘crying with laughter’, ‘face with head-bandage’, ‘flushed face’ and ‘sunglasses’ have been rendered on the surface of the billiard balls, creating quirky identities for otherwise inanimate objects. in the project’s realization, le divelec created a series of photos and a humorous collection of gifs that animate each of the playful expressions. 

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a collection of gifs animate the expressions 

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the arrangement of the billiard balls forms humorous and quirky scenes 

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the emoji-painted billiard balls take on playful personalities

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the project began when the creative found a new pool table at work

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‘poolmoji’ draws from popular culture and the ubiquity of emoticon figures and faces

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the cast of characters seemingly interact with each other as they roll across the table

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each ball has been painted with a different facial expression

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quirky identities are created for otherwise inanimate objects

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personalities like ‘crying with laughter’ and ‘flushed face’ are rendered on the surface of the billiard balls

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painting work on the project begins with simple illustrations