This is a pin up I created a few years ago. Again, fitting in genres that I love, this one features a pinball machine that never existed, but that I feel should have. “Forbidden Planet” (1956) is one of my favorite films, and I love the art direction. Especially the alien interiors, the flying saucer and of course, Robbie the Robot. It’s a precursor to Star Trek in terms of tone, and takes plenty of inspiration of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. So yeah, worth a watch. And definitely worth a pinball machine.
As for my pin up girl, I styled her after Dan DeCarlo of Archie Comics fame.
This is one of my earliest pin ups. I recently looked at it with fresh eyes and realized it needed a few tweaks. So we’ll call this “Galaga Girl” Version 2.0. Its formal name is “Single Credit Galaga Queen”. This dark but colorful pin up art print was inspired by 1980s pop culture. My pin up subject is a wiz on Namco’s Galaga. She’s filled the high-score screen with her initials, but don’t bother asking her name. She’ll never tell you. This is a love letter to my favorite game, and my favorite place to be growing up.
This pin up is available as a printable digital download on Etsy.com. If you’re interested in framing it and hanging it on your wall somewhere, here’s where you can get it! It’s only $5 dollars, and you’ll receive access to five high resolution digital download sizes. You can print it yourself, or have it professionally printed and framed. You can even use it as a Windows wallpaper for your PC gaming rig, or your phone.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe there was a time when the Adobe Creative Suite didn’t exist. Prior to the late 1980s, if you were creating an advertisement or illustration for a magazine, cover art for a video game cartridge, a movie poster or a book cover, you did it the way it’s been done since the dawn of the retail age: ink, paint, X-Acto knives and airbrushing. This article deals with the airbrush, in particular, airbrushed video game art.
The early 1980s were the glory days of the airbrush in commercial video game art. This is partly because many of the games were so simplistic that just showing a screenshot of the game wasn’t going to turn many heads. Marketers needed a piece of art that would tell a story. A detailed piece of fantasy artwork could convince digital adventure seekers to shell out their hard earned cash or allowance. Using an airbrush enabled the artist to create art that was cutting edge, sharp, crisp and dare I say, like it came from a computer. Or whatever people imagined a art from a computer would look like. No other tool gave you the ability to quickly create sci-fi and fantasy settings with all the dimensionality, shadow, shine and glow that made it pop off the page.
Of course the airbrush wasn’t limited to paper media. The movie “Tron” took place almost entirely inside a computer video game and was limited by the same constraints as print media. Only a few seconds of actual computer animation made it into the film. The rest relied on analog technology and heavy use of airbrushed matte paintings. The airbrush made it seem otherworldly. Like it hadn’t been created by hand but had been imagined into existence by some artificial intelligence.
I may be overstating it. What you will see below is a mixed bag. There’s some excellent airbrushed art here, but some is downright amateurish. Given the limited budget some of these independent game publishers were dealing with, I imaging there were a lot of brother-in-laws, cousins and interns creating ad art when they weren’t quite up to the task.
By the way, click the images below to see the full pages they were taken from.
http://secureservercdn.net/50.62.175.49/l9o.c32.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/1983_Computer_and_Video_Games_21.jpg?time=15713635511075795Jason Snyderhttp://secureservercdn.net/50.62.175.49/l9o.c32.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/jetpack_jason_logo_2019_2.pngJason Snyder2016-11-06 04:32:282019-06-22 22:42:56Vintage Airbrushed Video Game Art
