Airbrush art of the 80s (2015)
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.
If you enjoy these kinds of shiny 80s style text logos, you will probably enjoy the video for the song "DVNO" by Justice:
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.
Surely you can't mention airbrushing without mentioning sci-illustration supremo Chris Foss. Feast your eyes on these:
I read many a crappy sci-fi novel because of his amazing cover art!
> 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-...
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.
The Rio cover model, Marcie Hunt, originally appeared in Vogue Paris, February 1981: https://consequence.net/2024/06/duran-duran-rio-cover-model-...
Which nerdy teenager in the 80s with a computer (or a lust for one) could forget the "Ultimate - Play the Game" logo? [0]
Also worth seeing the chrome video effects from the Scanimate analog computer:
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.
I like how it foreshadowed the overuse of chrome finish at the advent of CGI which probably culminated with the Terminator movie.
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:
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.
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
Anyone remember the airbrushed vans of the 70s with complex scenes painted on the sides?
I hope that this aesthetic has a revival.
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.
Desert Chrome lettering is the true gift from the 80s
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...
I really wish this glossy/chrome aesthetic had a comeback.
"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.