Retro Computer Game Art

So it's a Tuesday night and I'm doing everything I can to divert thoughts away from the daily grind currently being experienced over at the Big British Castle (it's a long and very mundane story, suffice to say I have some good jobs on at the moment but also a few rubbish ones); anyways, I decided to revisit my geek riddled youth and wasted days in front of television, tape player, 48k Sinclair Spectrum and what I perceived at the time to be state of the art cutting edge game play.

Obviously you can find pretty much anything online now so my train of thought turned sharply towards the game companies of the time and all the free stuff I used to get from them just by writing to them (letter of course), saying I was a fan of game X or game Y. Two weeks later I'd get a package in the post containing all sort of lovely poster art for new or existing games to put on my bedroom wall. A company called Ocean Software used to be one of the better companies to do this, as were US Gold.

My search for such poster art drew a blank, even on the mighty Google however I did stumble across a site called Bear Graphics and in particular this homage to an Atari 2600 cartridge box art (complete with hand written 'Instructions Missing' note found on all second hand packaging). This iteration though features the relatively modern movie title 'Cloverfield'.

Kaneda's Akira Ride

Found this on Deviant Art by an artist called Diablo2003 and it's his interpretation of one of the all time great vehicles ever animated.

"You ever do a sketch that you plan on doing as a doodle and it ends up taking on it's own personality and causing you to spend WAY more time on it than you planned? This is one of those times. I love Akira and decided to try and draw Kaneda's bike just for the hell of it. Next thing you know I'd draw Kenada as well and colored it complete with digitally painted background. Guess that'll teach me to draw something I'm really into.

I should note that I drew Kaneda in a different style than in the cartoon on purpose. I wanted to go a bit more realistic and the cartoon version was very...well...cartoony. I know he doesn't look exactly 'asian' but then again, neither does the cartoon version."

Collage Injection

Spotted this on Abduzeedo and being a lifelong collage fanatic thought I'd post to the blog. It's some wonderful work by an artist called Derek Gores who hails from the also wonderful NYC.

Very conveniently there is also a link to his portfolio here so go check out some more of his 'cut up and stuck' works of art if you get the chance.

Time to break out those old mags under the coffee table and start cutting.

Boat Still on a House

Decided to try out my new Wacom Bamboo tablet and pen with my tsunami scene drawing. Tricky on my 13" Macbook Pro but better than I thought it would turn out. Need to seriously practice with the brush types and pressure flows though.

Boat on a House

Second drawing I've created based on the images coming out of northern Japan. This time a boat resting on top of a house from today's press. Plan to finish this as a half collage to add colour and the surrounding scene.

Japanese Tsunami

Woke up to the news this morning that 20 minutes before my alarm went off in London, on the other side of the world there occurred a massive earthquake off the Japanese eastern seaboard. When I was there in Tokyo August 2008 I witnessed first hand a short lived 6.8 and that was pretty scary, but this 8.8 is apparently the 6th or 7th most powerful in recorded history.

This has subsequently resulted in a rapidly moving tsunami, and being the technological country it is, for the past 12 hours the rest of the world has been witness to scenes of chaos and destruction as the water moves its way inland and the aftershocks continue.

I can honestly say it's some of the most devastating and helpless imagery I have ever seen. With world leaders pledging support and rescue assistance, the full impact isn't yet evident but it's not going to be good and I'm sure there is more eyewitness footage to come.

Amongst the video footage reported on here in the UK, one image that had most impact on me was the swirling seas just outside what I presume to be Sendai. Like some weird sci-fi event it almost seemed too setup; with it's contained, lone, trapped fishing boat slowly circling and trying to break free. I've created this piece based on that footage of the seawater vortex. Truly astounding scenes.

Hints of Roger Dean

One for the thirty somethings here and reminiscent of the great Roger Dean; introducing sci-fi illustrator Dan McPharlin. You can see more at his Flickrfolio which features new album art for various bands, created in that very recognisible 1960 and 70s Ace/Berkeley science fiction book covers style.

Hey Mickey

Steamboat Willie Poster by Tom Whalan. 18" x 24" screenprint with metallic inks and limited to 200 signed copies.

Unfortunately for me [yet again] these were all sold out on the Mondo website within minutes of going up.

Highly recommend checking out Tom's site, Strong Stuff too.

Guy Allen • Motoring Illustrator

As a gift promised to myself back in early December, I've finally got around to buying myself a Guy Allen print.

Limited edition and one of 100, it's gorgeous in the flesh and I can't wait to find the perfect frame to house it's A3 sized dimensions.

Decided to go for the Octane Magazine character Felix, driving a safari rally in an Mk1 Ford Escort Mexico. Should make a fine addition to the home collection.

Sketchy Times

Trying to mess around in my sketchbook during the weekday evenings. The below was completed pretty fast, then photographed on the iPhone before emailing to my MacBook and adding colour/background via Photoshop.

Have been working on a series of similar style transistor radio illustrations too, so I'll try and upload those too soon.

Porsche 917K, Shelby GT 350 & Corvair Monza SS

Lessons in vehicle rendering and layout from Steve Goodrich of GoodrichDesigns.

More Olly Moss

From his website...

Olly Moss

Spent all day yesterday waiting for these to become available to buy at MondoTees.com ('random sales time' was specified), only to leave my desk for 10 minutes and find them all sodding sold out! Ce la vie I guess.

Wanted to get the set of three for $150 but obviously not going to happen now so I'll seek solace through posting an image here on my blog.

Created by artist Olly Moss, these clever posters (love the twin sun/eyes on the Star Wars one) are/were screen printed by hand and 24"x36", limited to just 400.

Worth checking out Olly's site too as there are more lovely examples of design and illustration on there.

And Olly, if for some extremely high odds reason you're reading this....any chance of creating 401 Star Wars sets?!

Guy Allen • Motoring Illustrator

It's been a while since my last post. Recovery from the broken/dislocated shoulder is just about finished now save for a little physio to do for the next month. So, time to update my blog and what better to do that with than some vanden plas illustration.

Guy Allen's stuff is right up my cul-de-sac and I plan to buy something from him in the new year. He does commissions and you may have seen his work in Octane magazine too. Check out his website here and for an instant aesthetic hit, here is a gorgeous Ferrari 512 S.

Abduzeedo Posters

More inspirational stuff from art website Abduzeedo; this time [my favourite subject] posters.
Check the selection out here.

Ultra Realistic Illustrations

These illustrations are stunning. No photography, just a Mac, good hand-eye coordination, bus loads of talent and a few hundred spare hours.

Below is an illustration of Megan Fox (can't understand quite why I gravitated towards her), by an artist called Jordi Joruji.

Click here for more examples and click through to check out each artists portfolio.

Abduzeedo.com

Thanks to Stephen at work for passing me on this link for all things art and design at website Abduzeedo. And what a great source of shiny aesthetics it is. Below features an image taken from the 'daily inspiration' section.

Plus, there's a while host of tutorials on there to sharpen up your skills [that pay the bills].

Joe Black

'Eat My Lies'. Sublime mixed media from NYC artist Joe Black.

Archival Giclee 308grm print with 2 colour silk screen and hand finished with oil paint, stencil and Karisma pencil detailing. Limited to just 12 signed and numbered prints.

And I want one.

LA Wind - Hollywood or Hell Tour

From a more innocent time.

Tony Meeuwissen - Illustrator

Found this work today whilst flicking through an illustration agency website called Folio Boutique.

I love projects and approaches like this. So much so in fact, that I am considering a purchase. 

'Working as an illustrator since the 1960s, Tony Meeuwissen remains the only illustrator to win the prestigious Gold D&AD award, which he has won twice.

On the second occasion, Meeuwissen was given the award was for his playing card set, 'The Key of the Kingdom', which he began in the 1980s. 

This epic project was inspired by traditional, so-called 'transformation' decks of cards. In these sets, each card would be transformed into an image, and Meeuwissen spent three years working on his own visually playful illustrations in order to produce this celebrated deck'

Go check it out...