Airbrush art of the 80s (2015)(coolandcollected.com)
coolandcollected.com
Airbrush art of the 80s (2015)
https://www.coolandcollected.com/airbrush-art-of-the-80s-was-chrome-tastic/
66 comments
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.
> Ironic, because we didn't know the art was improved by the subtle texture of imperfections
I might be talking out of my ass, but I'm pretty sure we've "known" for centuries that imperfection has an enormous place in art. Before computers, before photography.
I might be talking out of my ass, but I'm pretty sure we've "known" for centuries that imperfection has an enormous place in art. Before computers, before photography.
> 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=34488958
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=34488958
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.
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.
I think autotune is the poster child for this.
Popsongs today sound so nice but also so forgetable.
I think this is why 80s and 90s pop is still so popular.
Popsongs today sound so nice but also so forgetable.
I think this is why 80s and 90s pop is still so popular.
Ironically, T-Pain, arguably the poster child of using auto-tune, has a great singing voice[0]. Apparently he used it on purpose to stand out.
Probably explains why it works much better for him than for others: he used it as an instrument, not as a crutch to hide a lack of singing skills.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ck0vJBygo
Probably explains why it works much better for him than for others: he used it as an instrument, not as a crutch to hide a lack of singing skills.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ck0vJBygo
I think 80s music is still popular because it is good. Many artists of that era like Elton John, Paul McCartney and specially Stevie Wonder had a very good musical background and the advances in electronic music tech gave them tools to explode their talent to new levels.
This is probably survivorship bias or familiarity bias more than anything.
Music from the 80s/90s that is popular today has stood the test of time; there's a lot more music from these decades that we don't hear today & is not popular. We've also heard those songs a lot more times than contemporary music.
Music from the 80s/90s that is popular today has stood the test of time; there's a lot more music from these decades that we don't hear today & is not popular. We've also heard those songs a lot more times than contemporary music.
The happy accidents in this case aren't even directly discernable either. It's not like you say "oh that little random smudge is interesting." It's just an impression you get.
Old school animation has the same quality. It's all hand drawn so not quite as exact. It looks fantastic. You wouldn't really even call it flawed, just less formulaic.
I guess that makes me think "how could we model that with computers?" I mean we could make a gradient less smooth. We could add different sorts of noise. It sounds quite complicated but in theory a computer could do this. Practically speaking it may never be worth trying to implement. Kind of a 80/20 issue. That is, you could do a ton of extra work to bump the quality a bit but people are already pretty happy with it so why bother?
Old school animation has the same quality. It's all hand drawn so not quite as exact. It looks fantastic. You wouldn't really even call it flawed, just less formulaic.
I guess that makes me think "how could we model that with computers?" I mean we could make a gradient less smooth. We could add different sorts of noise. It sounds quite complicated but in theory a computer could do this. Practically speaking it may never be worth trying to implement. Kind of a 80/20 issue. That is, you could do a ton of extra work to bump the quality a bit but people are already pretty happy with it so why bother?
Exactly both of these sentiments are what, to me, make photography and film (movies in general) so much more interesting, both visually and emotionally more textured from a couple decades ago, compared to the forced perfection of both today as practiced by so many creators.
I practice black and white photography, for example. So much of what I see of it now looks like the overdone, over-edited forced perfection of style derived from the gritty beauty of much more crudely interesting monochromes of decades past.
I practice black and white photography, for example. So much of what I see of it now looks like the overdone, over-edited forced perfection of style derived from the gritty beauty of much more crudely interesting monochromes of decades past.
Similar to CGI in movies. Yeah it's better in some ways ... but feels like they are often missing character.
The old films with model special effects they have a ton of life to them, more natural camera angles.
The old films with model special effects they have a ton of life to them, more natural camera angles.
There are some cases where CG in old movies looks better than the average CG in new movies, too, probably because the FX team responsible put a lot more work into getting to look right, despite the technological limitations of the era. No matter the medium, care and attention are felt.
I agree. I think when something is at the cutting edge, and you're creating effects no-one has ever seen before - (the first Jurassic Park, say) - people really go the extra mile to make it look as great as possible. Fast forward to today, when CG is pretty much a commodity - and it's often a lot more about getting it done on time and within budget.
True but it is also like saying that some office building came out better than other because the workers put more effort into it. There is skill to to the craft but also it’s a game of constraints and how the project is planned and budgeted is large part of how it will look in the end. I believe what has changed is that producers know that cg looking cg is just a stylistic choice among many others and doesn’t hurt the box office in some genres almost at all.
That's a complaint I have about 80s music. So perfectly synthesized, it's fake. That's why I like 70s guitar and drums over 80s. Humans make artistic mistakes; it adds character.
No, I think the happy accidents happen faster with digital tools, and it is also less costly to make accidents so you will have more of them.
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
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
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R19oA1m8w
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1dYFGkPUE
TIL about the Scanimate [1] [2].
--
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs
--
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVNO#Music_video
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aT_CqhyQs
Wow, a masterclass in design.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Rio cover model, Marcie Hunt, originally appeared in Vogue Paris, February 1981: https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-...
> 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-...
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-...
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jars of Magic Color were adorable objects, though, all saturated and shiny with their little rubber nipples on top.
I always wanted one as a kid! The very name "air brush" sounded cool.
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.
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.
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://metalmaga...
https://web.archive.org/web/20230530003133/https://metalmaga...
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.)
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?
[deleted]
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
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Play_the_Game
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.
Outside of the occasional software pirate, nobody in the US heard of them until they'd become Rare and been eaten by Nintendo.
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!
What an incredibly talented family!
Surely you can't mention airbrushing without mentioning sci-illustration supremo Chris Foss. Feast your eyes on these:
https://chrisfossart.com/
I read many a crappy sci-fi novel because of his amazing cover art!
https://chrisfossart.com/
I read many a crappy sci-fi novel because of his amazing cover art!
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-Fo... ,I don't see it mentioned on the web site, so just in case.
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.
Thats disappointing, mines hard cover with cloth binding (I think its called) its going fine. take it back (if its not too late)
>Chris Foss
>Artwork costs money
>Artwork costs money
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.
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.
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-fro...
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-fro...
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.
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.
>Photography isn't art, all you're doing is pointing a box someone else made and clicking a button and capturing ambient light.
First, fair counterpoint to my dismissive comment. I was referring more to an aesthetic notion of digital art creating a cheapening effect by being too perfect compared to things like the manually air brushed works in the original link. That's just an aesthetic preference though. You making the effort at creating your digital works shouldn't be dismissed as cheap or as not being art though. It's an effort of its own, but through a different medium, so, sorry if it came across wrong.
With that said, in case you were being serious in what you said about photography,
I invite you to go look a the photography of recognized masters of its practice, and consider the effort many of them have made to perfect their compositions, their eye for an interesting shot, capturing those shots (often at considerable personal risk of harm) and the patience they needed for both, and then compare that to the vast reams of photos by most people, and then tell me again that there's no art to it. If you claim it requires no effort, then you haven't done it to any worthwhile degree and hae no clue about what you're saying.
First, fair counterpoint to my dismissive comment. I was referring more to an aesthetic notion of digital art creating a cheapening effect by being too perfect compared to things like the manually air brushed works in the original link. That's just an aesthetic preference though. You making the effort at creating your digital works shouldn't be dismissed as cheap or as not being art though. It's an effort of its own, but through a different medium, so, sorry if it came across wrong.
With that said, in case you were being serious in what you said about photography,
I invite you to go look a the photography of recognized masters of its practice, and consider the effort many of them have made to perfect their compositions, their eye for an interesting shot, capturing those shots (often at considerable personal risk of harm) and the patience they needed for both, and then compare that to the vast reams of photos by most people, and then tell me again that there's no art to it. If you claim it requires no effort, then you haven't done it to any worthwhile degree and hae no clue about what you're saying.
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
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
I like how it foreshadowed the overuse of chrome finish at the advent of CGI which probably culminated with the Terminator movie.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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/Moto...
https://www.leemorganartworx.co.uk/Images/Custom%20Work/Moto...
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
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.
Anyone remember the airbrushed vans of the 70s with complex scenes painted on the sides?
People still airbrush some trucks
https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7
https://youtu.be/elkYTDkFQzo?si=PE3ZzoASZUqCrda7
I really wish this glossy/chrome aesthetic had a comeback.
Desert Chrome lettering is the true gift from the 80s
I hope that this aesthetic has a revival.
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.