Ride the Vaporwave: delving into pixel art!

Rebecca Madriz
Apr 22, 2015
1 min read

So I have no idea how I missed this aesthetic, but aparently there's a subgenre of art and music dedicated to the cheesy but great stylings of 80s/90s glitch and 16 bit art. It's called Vaporwave, and it includes everything I could love in an aesthetic: japanese characters and anime, rendered in low res or pixelated SNES fashion, pastel pinks, aquas, and lavenders, inverted chiptronica beats and poorly done on purpose photoshop of 90s AOL icons. I' in love.

A perfect example of this look is found in Young Lean's music video "Hurt" (youtube it, it's beautiful) and poster boys for the genre is Macross, Local Forecast, and Saint Pepsi.

I'm looking to incorperate vaporwave in my art, so I'm scouring the net for inspo and tutorials to vaporize my art! Currently I'm interested in learning the fine art of pixelating my pieces, particularly transforming my drawn characters into pixel sprites. This I'll do through digital mediums since the whole look bases itself in glitchy, digital aesthetic. But I am interested in translating vaporwave into my traditional artwork through color pallete, design elements, and themes.

A pastel pink and aqua dreamscape with Japanese hiragana strewn across the sky while a 90's anime heroine reclines on a Miami Vice inspired beach scene? Perhaps! I'll keep you all posted.