5 ms·

Airbrush art of the 80s (2015)

130 points by Michelangelo11 1y ago

PlunderBunny 1y ago
Which nerdy teenager in the 80s with a computer (or a lust for one) could forget the "Ultimate - Play the Game" logo? [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game
- egypturnash 1y ago
  Anyone in the US really, they were mostly a Spectrum shop and that machine absolutely bombed in the US. C64 ports of their games exist, and some c64 exclusives, but I never saw ads for them in the three or four US c64 magazines I subscribed to. Outside of the occasional software pirate, nobody in the US heard of them until they'd become Rare and been eaten by Nintendo.
- Supernaut 1y ago
  What I've read is that Tim Stamper painted the beautiful box artwork and was also responsible for the games' graphics, while Chris Stamper handled the bulk of the coding. What an incredibly talented family!
esafak 1y ago
The Rio cover model, Marcie Hunt, originally appeared in Vogue Paris, February 1981: https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-identified/ https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-...
egypturnash 1y ago
I have explored many looks in my time as a digital artist specializing as Illustrator but the most delightful moments were when I looked at what I was doing and felt like I'd worked out how to quickly and effortlessly get a look that had everything I loved about the airbrush art of my youth, while sitting quietly under a tree in the park with my laptop and drawing tablet.
- southernplaces7 1y ago
  To me, there's a cheapening effect to this.. If you're doing it as an artistic effort. It's a process of having the effort, and its creative spirit, taken out of your hands, done by something else, while you can still pretend at being an artist who made an effort.
  - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    I don't think it's a cheapening effect, but I do think there's been a lack of boldness and originality compared to handmade graphic design. I'm a big fan of 60s-to-80s graphic design, including posters, album covers, and game art. Some of it is kitschy and terrible, but the best has a dynamism and enthusiasm that is missing today. It captures and fires up the imagination and literally colours outside the lines. As a metaphor using a device with hard edges and a limited toolset discourages you from doing that. https://indieground.net/blog/the-20-best-videogame-cover-from-the-80s/ https://indieground.net/blog/the-20-best-videogame-cover-fro...
  - egypturnash 1y ago
    Photography isn't art, all you're doing is pointing a box someone else made and clicking a button and capturing ambient light. You're not making an effort. You're just pretending you did. And now I bet you're immediately thinking of arguments about all the time you've invested in developing an eye for composition and a sense of when that precise interesting moment is about to happen and all the darkroom techniques and film speeds and ISOs and and and... now you know how I feel about what you just said. ---- This argument against digital work was old back in 2003 when I was having it on Deviantart's forums. I've been drawing regularly for a half a century; it's been my day job for half that and I have many clients who are absolutely delighted to pay me to use my skills to interpret their ideas in my own unique way. They'll have an idea and come to me in particular because they think I will knock it out of the park, and usually their responses to the final work indicates I did. I get similar sentiments from my fans on my personal work. But hey, think whatever makes you feel good about where your own craft is going, sweetheart.
    - 1y ago
jaysonelliot 1y ago
"Today, you still find airbrush-inspired art in advertising that’s done digitally rather than with ink on paper. The digital art is a little too perfect though — the gradient blends are flawless, while an airbrush would give you the slightest inconsistencies that made it look more genuine." I feel that way about so much digital painting and illustration now. Artists can work faster than they can with physical media, but the end result is always missing something when there are no happy accidents.
- card_zero 1y ago
  Ironic, because we didn't know the art was improved by the subtle texture of imperfections. We were totally going for maximum hyperrealism and clean precision. I had the same experience of craving an airbrush, obtaining an airbrush, then within a year seeing a demo of 32-bit color graphics editing (a museum had a computer set up for the public to try it out) and feeling silly.
  - justsomehnguy 1y ago
    > because we didn't know the art was improved by the subtle texture of imperfections This is quite amusing, because I always could tell the CGI [in the films] off the real deal because it was or too perfect or too imperfect, along with a shitload of a motion blur. It was so until Chappie when I couldn't distinguish between the green screen and Rogue One when I couldn't distinguish a fully rendered scene. Also a conterfeit VHS along with a DivX compressed copies (hey, 4700:700 !) always looked... more immersive than the 'real deal' in a theater, heh. Some anecdata: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30911383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30911383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34488958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34488958
    - Retric 1y ago
      There’s a lot of CGI that blends in invisibly in most movies made in the last 20 years. Sure we notice the bottom 20% of terrible CGI + stuff that’s blatantly unrealistic, but all the stuff you miss is just quietly worked. Poor makeup, anachronistic aircraft contrails, unsightly construction cranes, etc get quietly adjusted to make everything look clean in ways that don’t stand out until you start analyzing individual frames. On top of this some kinds of CGI have gotten so common that it’s less obvious how few physical cars are used in car commercials.
sxp 1y ago
The picture of the gynoid is by Hajime Sorayama. He has a very distinct (and slightly NSFW) art style. I'm a computer graphics nerd and I've always been amazed by the curved chrome in his paintings. A lot of my hacky attempts at art tried to replicate that chrome style in Photoshop.
- DoneWithAllThat 1y ago
  It frustrates me that the article doesn’t credit him by name. His art was absolutely iconic, even in a sea of other “chrome-tastic” illustrations. Dude was an absolute master of airbrushed chrome aesthetic.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Yeah, trying to think of the origin of the style... Sorayama was the king but perhaps he owes a little to Richard Corben. And perhaps Richard owes something to the guys in So-Cal like Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and his "Weirdo" t-shirts. (Ha ha, notorious enough at the time to inspire a Leave it to Beaver episode.)
- kristianp 1y ago
  Here's some examples of his sexy robots. I don't find them very enjoyable as art, perhaps because they seem to be a human shape wrapped in reflective material, rather than what I'd believe as made of rigid parts. https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003133/https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/article/hajime-sorayama-machines-with-sex-appeal https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003133/https://metalmaga...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- cwmoore 1y ago
  Oh, wow, new word to me. Like “android”, but gendered. As art, those poses are so strange and familiar. What is the model thinking or feeling?
  - kridsdale1 1y ago
weinzierl 1y ago
I like how it foreshadowed the overuse of chrome finish at the advent of CGI which probably culminated with the Terminator movie.
Mountain_Skies 1y ago
A third option, used by HBO's famous Feature Presentation intro, was to construct a physical chrome object and film it, as happens with the flying HBO logo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
> It’s unfortunate that the airbrush has been cast aside by many artists in favor of Photoshop or Illustrator. I don't think so. I used to do a lot of airbrushing, in the 1980s. I even had one of these[0]. I don't miss them at all. They were a huge pain in the ass. [0] https://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/Airbrushing/paasche-ab.html https://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/Airbrushing/paasche-...
- card_zero 1y ago
  Ooh you had the Paasche Turbo. I nearly went for that one but decided to be sensible and got a Badger. Floating dual-action though, of course, and a stupidly overpowered reservoir compressor. Lots of stripdowns and cleaning fluid and cutting out frisk film with a scalpel. It was terrible. I should take it up again, it's probably a more artistic thing to do now it's not popular.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    I had a couple of regular Badgers, and a couple of regular Paasches. I almost never used the Turbo, as cleaning it was a nightmare, and I could get really fine with the regular brushes, with certain tips. I also probably inhaled a lot of toxic paint. The respirators never seemed to work that well, as I would pick some really cool-looking boogers from my nose.
    - card_zero 1y ago
      I wore a face mask (eventually, when I got tired of the paint-up-nose feeling). Jars of Magic Color were adorable objects, though, all saturated and shiny with their little rubber nipples on top.
- esafak 1y ago
  I always wanted one as a kid! The very name "air brush" sounded cool.
- pjbk 1y ago
  Things have improved. Modern water-based acrylic paints and sealers are much easier to deal with and give you similar if not better results than enamels. There are finally now some decent compact and quiet tank-less electric pump compressors. Cleaning solutions and cheap airbrushes are much better too. Some cheap airbrushes these days have improved designs and materials that make them superior to expensive 80s airbrushes. For example, I just got a Gaahleri Mobius airbrush and it is almost as good as my far more expensive Iwata airbrush, and far better than my old Paasche which cost me a fortune back then. The future looks bright!
pimlottc 1y ago
If you enjoy these kinds of shiny 80s style text logos, you will probably enjoy the video for the song "DVNO" by Justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsLRQg_g4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsLRQg_g4
- Jyaif 1y ago
  Wow, a masterclass in design.
- vanderZwan 1y ago
  And if you like that you can move on to "Stop" for your 80s neon-glow needs, and maybe finish with "D.A.N.C.E." if haven't seen it yet (even though the designs in it are not 80s specific any more). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R19oA1m8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R19oA1m8w [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE
- emmanueloga_ 1y ago
  TIL about the Scanimate [1] [2]. -- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs
paradox460 1y ago
Get into hobbies that can't be replaced by a computer, only augmented by one. Model rail is choc-a-bloc with airbrushing, as are miniatures. I got my Iwata airbrushes specifically for painting HO scale buildings, backdrops, and for weathering rolling stock
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  Can confirm - I bought an airbrush for painting miniatures back in the day and it was great. Even if you don't use it for anything else, being able to get a smooth base coat of pain in the ass colors (e.g. white, yellow) is well worth it.
lemonberry 1y ago
In the 80's I'd see people airbrushing t-shirts in the mall and at the beach. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I never did any myself, but I loved watching the artists work. The chrome effect was just awesome. I'm sure a lot of it would be considered campy or tacky today, but age does that. There's nothing like the awe and wonder of being a kid. Aside: I was more into painting AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) miniatures. I still have most of my books and dice. My miniatures may be around here somewhere too, but I have 3 generations of stuff to go through to find it. I want less screen time though and plan to pick up some paints and miniatures soon.
crq-yml 1y ago
Marshall Vandruff, one of the teachers on the popular art education channel "Proko", spoke at length about working with airbrush in discussing his illustration career: https://youtu.be/8qDI8NfCyeg https://youtu.be/8qDI8NfCyeg To hear him tell it, it was not particularly glamorous, and hours of fastidious airbrushing to get huge, smooth gradient backgrounds was an RSI-inducer. I'm pretty sure we can do a better digital emulation of an airbrush than what's currently in paint programs, it just needs more of the actual physics and pigments to be modelled. We've gotten a bit stuck on the RGB raster graphics paradigm and only a few programs are really doing the work to break away from it.
- egypturnash 1y ago
  Honestly you can get like 80% of the way there by just doing a lot of smooth gradients and putting a little noise over it, it's trivial once you stop thinking in terms of "manipulating a virtual paint-depositing tool" and start thinking about what it looks like on the illustration board. Turning a gradient into an emulation of a more deliberately-uneven, splattery, and possibly drippy application of paint is a bit more complex though.
vFunct 1y ago
I really wish this glossy/chrome aesthetic had a comeback.
kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
Also worth seeing the chrome video effects from the Scanimate analog computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WYf2RxUJE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WYf2RxUJE
- quag 1y ago
  Thanks for that! Here is a longer video about the scanimate, including demos of a currently working machine and an interview with an operator and an engineer. https://youtu.be/i1aT_CqhyQs https://youtu.be/i1aT_CqhyQs
kens 1y ago
Anyone remember the airbrushed vans of the 70s with complex scenes painted on the sides?
- happosai 1y ago
  People still airbrush some trucks https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7 https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7
alpha_trion 1y ago
I hope that this aesthetic has a revival.
snozolli 1y ago
In the 90s, there was an airbrushed style that used layered effects, drop shadows (which I assume were at least partly an influence from early computer GUIs), and "peeling" effects. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any good examples online. Something like this, but the really complex ones would incorporate tricky designs (e.g. checkerboard) that were difficult to show in a distorted/peeling manner: https://www.leemorganartworx.co.uk/Images/Custom%20Work/Motorbikes/Kawasaki%20Tank%20-%20Eddie/Eddie%202.jpg https://www.leemorganartworx.co.uk/Images/Custom%20Work/Moto...
Marazan 1y ago
Desert Chrome lettering is the true gift from the 80s
hermitcrab 1y ago
Surely you can't mention airbrushing without mentioning sci-illustration supremo Chris Foss. Feast your eyes on these: https://chrisfossart.com/ https://chrisfossart.com/ I read many a crappy sci-fi novel because of his amazing cover art!
- chadcmulligan 1y ago
  It was relatively recently I found out he was responsible for much of the paperback cover art I loved when I was young, I purchased this book of his artwork https://www.amazon.com.au/Hardware-Definitive-Works-Chris-Foss/dp/1848566980 https://www.amazon.com.au/Hardware-Definitive-Works-Chris-Fo... ,I don't see it mentioned on the web site, so just in case.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    I also bought that book. The pictures are amazing. Unfortunately, my copy is not very well bound and started to fall apart after minimal handling.
    - chadcmulligan 1y ago
      Thats disappointing, mines hard cover with cloth binding (I think its called) its going fine. take it back (if its not too late)
- vinnski 1y ago
  >Chris Foss >Artwork costs money
dfxm12 1y ago
It’s great to see homages to the 80’s such as this design by James White of Signalnoise for the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon video game — chrome, check; grid, check; lightning, check. Yep, that’s the 80’s. Does anyone else (maybe over 40 yo) see the FarCry 3 logo and not recognize it as an homage to the 80s, but as a clear example of the synthwave style, which was popular when the game came out? The pink, blue, purple color scheme emblematic of synthwave. From the 80s examples given, we don't see any combination of "chrome" + grid. There's an added scanline effect that isn't visible in the period examples (why would we think of scanlines in the 80s?), and the background lacks the gradients we especially see in the Heavy Metal and Yars' Revenge examples.
- MattSayar 1y ago
  I think I struggle to see much difference between 80s and synthwave? It wasn't until you pointed it out that I noticed any real differences. It might be like musical genres where the deeper you explore a genre, the more you can bifurcate the genre.

Which nerdy teenager in the 80s with a computer (or a lust for one) could forget the "Ultimate - Play the Game" logo? [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game

egypturnash 1y ago
Anyone in the US really, they were mostly a Spectrum shop and that machine absolutely bombed in the US. C64 ports of their games exist, and some c64 exclusives, but I never saw ads for them in the three or four US c64 magazines I subscribed to. Outside of the occasional software pirate, nobody in the US heard of them until they'd become Rare and been eaten by Nintendo.
Supernaut 1y ago
What I've read is that Tim Stamper painted the beautiful box artwork and was also responsible for the games' graphics, while Chris Stamper handled the bulk of the coding. What an incredibly talented family!

esafak 1y ago

The Rio cover model, Marcie Hunt, originally appeared in Vogue Paris, February 1981: https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-identified/ https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-...

egypturnash 1y ago

I have explored many looks in my time as a digital artist specializing as Illustrator but the most delightful moments were when I looked at what I was doing and felt like I'd worked out how to quickly and effortlessly get a look that had everything I loved about the airbrush art of my youth, while sitting quietly under a tree in the park with my laptop and drawing tablet.

southernplaces7 1y ago
To me, there's a cheapening effect to this.. If you're doing it as an artistic effort. It's a process of having the effort, and its creative spirit, taken out of your hands, done by something else, while you can still pretend at being an artist who made an effort.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  I don't think it's a cheapening effect, but I do think there's been a lack of boldness and originality compared to handmade graphic design. I'm a big fan of 60s-to-80s graphic design, including posters, album covers, and game art. Some of it is kitschy and terrible, but the best has a dynamism and enthusiasm that is missing today. It captures and fires up the imagination and literally colours outside the lines. As a metaphor using a device with hard edges and a limited toolset discourages you from doing that. https://indieground.net/blog/the-20-best-videogame-cover-from-the-80s/ https://indieground.net/blog/the-20-best-videogame-cover-fro...
- egypturnash 1y ago
  Photography isn't art, all you're doing is pointing a box someone else made and clicking a button and capturing ambient light. You're not making an effort. You're just pretending you did. And now I bet you're immediately thinking of arguments about all the time you've invested in developing an eye for composition and a sense of when that precise interesting moment is about to happen and all the darkroom techniques and film speeds and ISOs and and and... now you know how I feel about what you just said. ---- This argument against digital work was old back in 2003 when I was having it on Deviantart's forums. I've been drawing regularly for a half a century; it's been my day job for half that and I have many clients who are absolutely delighted to pay me to use my skills to interpret their ideas in my own unique way. They'll have an idea and come to me in particular because they think I will knock it out of the park, and usually their responses to the final work indicates I did. I get similar sentiments from my fans on my personal work. But hey, think whatever makes you feel good about where your own craft is going, sweetheart.
  - 1y ago

jaysonelliot 1y ago

"Today, you still find airbrush-inspired art in advertising that’s done digitally rather than with ink on paper. The digital art is a little too perfect though — the gradient blends are flawless, while an airbrush would give you the slightest inconsistencies that made it look more genuine." I feel that way about so much digital painting and illustration now. Artists can work faster than they can with physical media, but the end result is always missing something when there are no happy accidents.

card_zero 1y ago
Ironic, because we didn't know the art was improved by the subtle texture of imperfections. We were totally going for maximum hyperrealism and clean precision. I had the same experience of craving an airbrush, obtaining an airbrush, then within a year seeing a demo of 32-bit color graphics editing (a museum had a computer set up for the public to try it out) and feeling silly.
- justsomehnguy 1y ago
  > because we didn't know the art was improved by the subtle texture of imperfections This is quite amusing, because I always could tell the CGI [in the films] off the real deal because it was or too perfect or too imperfect, along with a shitload of a motion blur. It was so until Chappie when I couldn't distinguish between the green screen and Rogue One when I couldn't distinguish a fully rendered scene. Also a conterfeit VHS along with a DivX compressed copies (hey, 4700:700 !) always looked... more immersive than the 'real deal' in a theater, heh. Some anecdata: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30911383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30911383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34488958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34488958
  - Retric 1y ago
    There’s a lot of CGI that blends in invisibly in most movies made in the last 20 years. Sure we notice the bottom 20% of terrible CGI + stuff that’s blatantly unrealistic, but all the stuff you miss is just quietly worked. Poor makeup, anachronistic aircraft contrails, unsightly construction cranes, etc get quietly adjusted to make everything look clean in ways that don’t stand out until you start analyzing individual frames. On top of this some kinds of CGI have gotten so common that it’s less obvious how few physical cars are used in car commercials.

sxp 1y ago

The picture of the gynoid is by Hajime Sorayama. He has a very distinct (and slightly NSFW) art style. I'm a computer graphics nerd and I've always been amazed by the curved chrome in his paintings. A lot of my hacky attempts at art tried to replicate that chrome style in Photoshop.

DoneWithAllThat 1y ago
It frustrates me that the article doesn’t credit him by name. His art was absolutely iconic, even in a sea of other “chrome-tastic” illustrations. Dude was an absolute master of airbrushed chrome aesthetic.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Yeah, trying to think of the origin of the style... Sorayama was the king but perhaps he owes a little to Richard Corben. And perhaps Richard owes something to the guys in So-Cal like Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and his "Weirdo" t-shirts. (Ha ha, notorious enough at the time to inspire a Leave it to Beaver episode.)
kristianp 1y ago
Here's some examples of his sexy robots. I don't find them very enjoyable as art, perhaps because they seem to be a human shape wrapped in reflective material, rather than what I'd believe as made of rigid parts. https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003133/https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/article/hajime-sorayama-machines-with-sex-appeal https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003133/https://metalmaga...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
cwmoore 1y ago
Oh, wow, new word to me. Like “android”, but gendered. As art, those poses are so strange and familiar. What is the model thinking or feeling?
- kridsdale1 1y ago

weinzierl 1y ago

I like how it foreshadowed the overuse of chrome finish at the advent of CGI which probably culminated with the Terminator movie.

Mountain_Skies 1y ago

A third option, used by HBO's famous Feature Presentation intro, was to construct a physical chrome object and film it, as happens with the flying HBO logo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago

> It’s unfortunate that the airbrush has been cast aside by many artists in favor of Photoshop or Illustrator. I don't think so. I used to do a lot of airbrushing, in the 1980s. I even had one of these[0]. I don't miss them at all. They were a huge pain in the ass. [0] https://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/Airbrushing/paasche-ab.html https://paulbudzik.com/tools-techniques/Airbrushing/paasche-...

card_zero 1y ago
Ooh you had the Paasche Turbo. I nearly went for that one but decided to be sensible and got a Badger. Floating dual-action though, of course, and a stupidly overpowered reservoir compressor. Lots of stripdowns and cleaning fluid and cutting out frisk film with a scalpel. It was terrible. I should take it up again, it's probably a more artistic thing to do now it's not popular.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  I had a couple of regular Badgers, and a couple of regular Paasches. I almost never used the Turbo, as cleaning it was a nightmare, and I could get really fine with the regular brushes, with certain tips. I also probably inhaled a lot of toxic paint. The respirators never seemed to work that well, as I would pick some really cool-looking boogers from my nose.
  - card_zero 1y ago
    I wore a face mask (eventually, when I got tired of the paint-up-nose feeling). Jars of Magic Color were adorable objects, though, all saturated and shiny with their little rubber nipples on top.
esafak 1y ago
I always wanted one as a kid! The very name "air brush" sounded cool.
pjbk 1y ago
Things have improved. Modern water-based acrylic paints and sealers are much easier to deal with and give you similar if not better results than enamels. There are finally now some decent compact and quiet tank-less electric pump compressors. Cleaning solutions and cheap airbrushes are much better too. Some cheap airbrushes these days have improved designs and materials that make them superior to expensive 80s airbrushes. For example, I just got a Gaahleri Mobius airbrush and it is almost as good as my far more expensive Iwata airbrush, and far better than my old Paasche which cost me a fortune back then. The future looks bright!

pimlottc 1y ago

If you enjoy these kinds of shiny 80s style text logos, you will probably enjoy the video for the song "DVNO" by Justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsLRQg_g4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiDsLRQg_g4

Jyaif 1y ago
Wow, a masterclass in design.
vanderZwan 1y ago
And if you like that you can move on to "Stop" for your 80s neon-glow needs, and maybe finish with "D.A.N.C.E." if haven't seen it yet (even though the designs in it are not 80s specific any more). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R19oA1m8w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R19oA1m8w [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE
emmanueloga_ 1y ago
TIL about the Scanimate [1] [2]. -- 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs

paradox460 1y ago

Get into hobbies that can't be replaced by a computer, only augmented by one. Model rail is choc-a-bloc with airbrushing, as are miniatures. I got my Iwata airbrushes specifically for painting HO scale buildings, backdrops, and for weathering rolling stock

bigstrat2003 1y ago
Can confirm - I bought an airbrush for painting miniatures back in the day and it was great. Even if you don't use it for anything else, being able to get a smooth base coat of pain in the ass colors (e.g. white, yellow) is well worth it.

lemonberry 1y ago

In the 80's I'd see people airbrushing t-shirts in the mall and at the beach. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I never did any myself, but I loved watching the artists work. The chrome effect was just awesome. I'm sure a lot of it would be considered campy or tacky today, but age does that. There's nothing like the awe and wonder of being a kid. Aside: I was more into painting AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) miniatures. I still have most of my books and dice. My miniatures may be around here somewhere too, but I have 3 generations of stuff to go through to find it. I want less screen time though and plan to pick up some paints and miniatures soon.

crq-yml 1y ago

Marshall Vandruff, one of the teachers on the popular art education channel "Proko", spoke at length about working with airbrush in discussing his illustration career: https://youtu.be/8qDI8NfCyeg https://youtu.be/8qDI8NfCyeg To hear him tell it, it was not particularly glamorous, and hours of fastidious airbrushing to get huge, smooth gradient backgrounds was an RSI-inducer. I'm pretty sure we can do a better digital emulation of an airbrush than what's currently in paint programs, it just needs more of the actual physics and pigments to be modelled. We've gotten a bit stuck on the RGB raster graphics paradigm and only a few programs are really doing the work to break away from it.

egypturnash 1y ago
Honestly you can get like 80% of the way there by just doing a lot of smooth gradients and putting a little noise over it, it's trivial once you stop thinking in terms of "manipulating a virtual paint-depositing tool" and start thinking about what it looks like on the illustration board. Turning a gradient into an emulation of a more deliberately-uneven, splattery, and possibly drippy application of paint is a bit more complex though.

vFunct 1y ago

I really wish this glossy/chrome aesthetic had a comeback.

kevin_thibedeau 1y ago

Also worth seeing the chrome video effects from the Scanimate analog computer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WYf2RxUJE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4WYf2RxUJE

quag 1y ago
Thanks for that! Here is a longer video about the scanimate, including demos of a currently working machine and an interview with an operator and an engineer. https://youtu.be/i1aT_CqhyQs https://youtu.be/i1aT_CqhyQs

kens 1y ago

Anyone remember the airbrushed vans of the 70s with complex scenes painted on the sides?

happosai 1y ago
People still airbrush some trucks https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7 https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7

alpha_trion 1y ago

I hope that this aesthetic has a revival.

snozolli 1y ago

In the 90s, there was an airbrushed style that used layered effects, drop shadows (which I assume were at least partly an influence from early computer GUIs), and "peeling" effects. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any good examples online. Something like this, but the really complex ones would incorporate tricky designs (e.g. checkerboard) that were difficult to show in a distorted/peeling manner: https://www.leemorganartworx.co.uk/Images/Custom%20Work/Motorbikes/Kawasaki%20Tank%20-%20Eddie/Eddie%202.jpg https://www.leemorganartworx.co.uk/Images/Custom%20Work/Moto...

Marazan 1y ago

Desert Chrome lettering is the true gift from the 80s

hermitcrab 1y ago

Surely you can't mention airbrushing without mentioning sci-illustration supremo Chris Foss. Feast your eyes on these: https://chrisfossart.com/ https://chrisfossart.com/ I read many a crappy sci-fi novel because of his amazing cover art!

chadcmulligan 1y ago
It was relatively recently I found out he was responsible for much of the paperback cover art I loved when I was young, I purchased this book of his artwork https://www.amazon.com.au/Hardware-Definitive-Works-Chris-Foss/dp/1848566980 https://www.amazon.com.au/Hardware-Definitive-Works-Chris-Fo... ,I don't see it mentioned on the web site, so just in case.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  I also bought that book. The pictures are amazing. Unfortunately, my copy is not very well bound and started to fall apart after minimal handling.
  - chadcmulligan 1y ago
    Thats disappointing, mines hard cover with cloth binding (I think its called) its going fine. take it back (if its not too late)
vinnski 1y ago
>Chris Foss >Artwork costs money

dfxm12 1y ago

It’s great to see homages to the 80’s such as this design by James White of Signalnoise for the Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon video game — chrome, check; grid, check; lightning, check. Yep, that’s the 80’s. Does anyone else (maybe over 40 yo) see the FarCry 3 logo and not recognize it as an homage to the 80s, but as a clear example of the synthwave style, which was popular when the game came out? The pink, blue, purple color scheme emblematic of synthwave. From the 80s examples given, we don't see any combination of "chrome" + grid. There's an added scanline effect that isn't visible in the period examples (why would we think of scanlines in the 80s?), and the background lacks the gradients we especially see in the Heavy Metal and Yars' Revenge examples.

MattSayar 1y ago
I think I struggle to see much difference between 80s and synthwave? It wasn't until you pointed it out that I noticed any real differences. It might be like musical genres where the deeper you explore a genre, the more you can bifurcate the genre.