The Pop-Culture E-Zine
There is no shortage of awesome and talented artists in this world. The latest artist to capture our attention is Johan Karlgren, aka: Pappas Pärlor.
Johan’s creations are unique as they are refashioned framed art pieces injected with very clever pop culture themes and franchises, including popular Star Wars and video gaming characters.
Check out all Johan’s art works here. Here are our favourites:
source: Pappas Pärlor
Pixel artist, Gustavo Viselner has created video game scenes based on iconic TV series and movies, like Stranger Things, Game of Thrones, Married with Children, Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Star Wars and Seinfeld to name just a few. Oh no, we couldn’t find any based on The Mandalorian, but we’ll let it slip this time.
Check out our favourite 8-bit pixel art scenes and then hit up Gustavo’s Instagram to check out the rest of his creations!
image & story source: boredpanda.com
French Street artist, In The Woup have shared their awesome pixel art mosaics of Super Mario cosplaying as different characters as part of their MARIO WORLDZ project – how darn cute are they??!!
If you are lucky to be wandering around Lyon (France), Villeurbanne (France) or Korčula (Croatia), then be on the lookout for the Italian plumber cosplaying as your fave pop culture characters!
Just in case you aren’t in France or Croatia right now, here are a few of our favourites. Check out the rest here!
image source: In The Woup
The talented Bill Harbison, veteran Ocean/Imagine Software pixel artist, who worked on titles like, Chase HQ, Batman The Movie and Jurassic Park is doing something really cool for charity!
Bill is supporting the NHS Charities COVID-19 Urgent Appeal via his Fiverr page where you supply him an image of yourself that he then takes to create a mugshot to be added to his old ZX Spectrum game, Chase H.Q. How awesomely cool is that? If you are keen to be featured in the ZX Speccy Chase H.Q. game and also help out a great charity, then hit Bill’s Fiverr page now!
We’ll update this post and share our screenshot once Bill weaves his magic and sends through the finished image. We can’t wait!
UPDATE: Guess what peeps?! Bill was super quick with his pixel wizardry and delivered our screenshot waaaay ahead of the due date! So here it is, our Ed, Alex Boz, in full pixel art (Chase H.Q. mugshot) glory! 🙂
Clever pixel artist, Mauri Helme, has recreated the classic ‘King of the Hill’ intro in wonderful 8-bit style.
Mauri’s other work includes a beautiful pixel illustration of the NES:
And the last scene of ‘Back to the Future’:
Sources: Mauri Helme via Laughing Squid, and Mauri Helme’s blog
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter
Israeli artist Gustavo Viselner re-imagines your favourite films as 90’s video games in this series of absolutely gorgeous pixel art images.
Aliens
Star Wars
Dogma
The Princess Bride
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Inglourious Basterds
The NeverEnding Story
Source: Gustavo Viselner on Behance via A.V. Club
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter
Witness these super-cool 8-bit animations of the vehicles from Mad Max: Fury Road – illustration by Evgeniy Yudin (Mazok Pixels) and animation by Misha Petrick. OMG, I want to drive these cars in a game!
Source: Behance via Laughing Squid
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter
Stockholm’s Thorildsplan Tunnelbana (or ‘Tunnel Rail’) station is a thing of 8-bit beauty. The station is covered in mosaic pixel art by Swedish artist Lars Arrhenius featuring Mario Bros and Pac-Man, among others. If you’re ever in Sweden, be sure to stop by Thorildsplan a.k.a. ‘Retroville’!
Video source: MadCraft on YouTube
Source: Digital Versus and Laughing Squid
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter
Blur is back, a whole 16 years after their last record as a four-piece with a new album The Magic Whip (released 27 April 2015). The album’s eleventh track, Ong Ong, has an adorable music video featuring the band members as bosses in an old-school platformer where Mr OK fights his way past the band to rescue Ms OK.
Mr OK
Bosses: Damon Albarn as Mr Cream, Graham Coxon as Mr Brown, Alex James as Mr Red, Dave Rowntree as Mr Black
Video source: Blur on YouTube
But blur is not the only band getting nostalgic with their music videos – Afro/Euro music duo The Very Best‘s gorgeous video for Let Go portrays an old-school 8-bit game with the characters and landscape made out of pixel beads.
Video source: The Very Best Vevo on YouTube
Finally, enjoy Danish pop duo Junior Senior’s Move Your Feet from 2003.
Video source: Crunchy Frog Records on YouTube
8-bit style music videos… all we can say is ‘please keep them coming’!
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Co-founder, editor and writer at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter
French artist ‘Invader’ identifies himself as an ULA or an ‘unidentified living artist’ – he always uses his pseudonym and appears behind a mask. Invader has been working on an awesome, enormous, ongoing street art project, code named ‘Space Invaders‘, since 1998.
‘Space Invaders’ is about liberating art from museums and bringing our 8-bit friends into the real world. Invader creates 8-bit images with tiles and installs them on on walls in cities around the World (currently 3096 works in 64 cities)! In his own words: ‘Each of these unique pieces become the fragment of a monumental installation.’
The project is brilliantly chronicled on the fantastic interactive map on the ‘Space Invaders’ website.
As well as city walls and bridges, there are mosaics installed 2362 meters above ground in the village of Anzère in Switzerland, on a series of underwater sculptures in Cancun Bay in Mexico (installed with the help of sculptor Jason deCaires), and even on the International Space Station!
Anzère, Switzerland
Cancun Bay, Mexico
International Space Station, Space
Each piece is given a score of 10 to 100 and every city has an overall score which is the sum of all the Space Invaders on its walls.
Melbourne, Australia
(See this map for some of Melbourne’s Space Invader locations)
Vienna, Austria
Côte d’Azur, France
Miami, USA
Bangkok, Thailand
Tokyo, Japan
London, UK
NYC, USA
Paris, France
Take a look around your own city, you may find some unexpected friends!
Source: Space Invaders
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Ms. ausretrogamer
Editor and Researcher at ausretrogamer – The Australian Retro Gamer E-Zine. Lover of science fiction, fashion, books, movies and TV. Player of games, old and new.
Follow Ms. ausretrogamer on Twitter