What the hell
is the underground artscene??
by dangermouse
(Jan 1998)
A question a lot of visiters of this site may ask is indeed, "What
the hell is this 'scene' anyhow?" Well, I'm going to try and
explain.
:: Introduction
The
underground art scene is a collection of people all across
the world.
They draw in a variety of digital formats, supplying bullentin
boards with colourful login screens, web sites with graphics,
and usually, just supplying digital art in general, even
if no-one else gives a toss about it..
The
scene started back in around 1987, or thereabouts. It
seems unclear to some people where it really did start,
but most acknowledge 'AAA' as the first art group
within the scene. Soon after this a group emerged called
ACiD (Ansi Creators In Demand, later ACiD Productions),
put together by ex-AAA members, and still run now by the
original president, Radman. iCE Productions is also another
group which had its birth around this time, ACiD being the
older of the two.
Since
this time, a gap spanning over ten years, art groups have
come and gone: Tribe, Union, mOp, Fuel, Twilight,
Teklordz, Samsara, etc, all of which offered the world's
underground scene the colour of their ANSI, the greys of
their ASCII, and the pixels of their HIREZ. Their have been
many more groups in the scene, but to list them would take
forever..
::
What the hell is ansi??
Standing
for American National Standards Institute, ANSI was
developed to offer a common format for graphics display
over Bullentin Board Systems (or the BBS). ANSI was what
really got the scene started, with AAA being its first peddlers.
At
first artists had to get a hang of the medium, drawing only
logos and simple fonts. But as time progressed, artists
began to draw pictures, venturing into long screens of amazing
detail. Artists got inspiration from comics or themselves,
many times drawing original art.
::
What the hell is ascii??
ASCII,
certainly being the oldest medium to work with in the scene,
has been around a long time. ASCII has always been the
standard character set on PC machines, and someone thought
along the lines to create art with it..
There
are two main forms of ASCII art in the scene, oldschool
and newschool..
Oldschool
(as the name suggests!) is the oldest form of ASCII art,
using the " / \ | : ; " and similar characters to create
simple logos, usually for all the warez pups in the old
days, used in the file_id.diz's..
Oldschool
still has a large following in the scene, well known
artists being Hiro Protagonist and Whodini.
Newschool
is now the most popular form of ascii art, with the
likes of pariah and discyple only to name
a shitload who practice it.. The art primarily uses the
" $ " character on major shapes, and for curving, " n o
| ° º " or similar 'curvy' characters.. Most artists have
there own styles, and therefore, there own 'shaping' characters..
::
What the hell is hirez??
Hirez
is High Resolution Art, and it means exactly that. This
is the art of the future it seems, because now it is the
most widely used medium in the communications world. ie.
on the internet.
High
Resolution art comes in a few forms.. Most scenesters
use the highly acclaimed Adobe Photoshop to create their
masterpieces, the best artists using the 'freehand' method.
Freehand means that the artist will draw something on the
screen either with the mouse or a tablet, using the various
tools such as paintbrush or the airbrush, which are at their
disposal.
Artists
within the scene are truly gifted as far as talent goes.
Most show artistic skills right up there with the professional
world, or above it. In fact, a lot of scene VGA artists
go on to become professionals..
The
examples below showcase two of the scenes best artists,
Wildcat and Catbones.
The
next examples showcase art by ts. ts used to be an ansi
artist within the scene, being the president of Teklordz
a while back, but now has turned his hand to creating pixel
art. Pixel art is created by placing each pixel individually
on the 'canvas' (screen), the idea to use the least colours
possible. Pixel art is most commonly used within the Demo
Scene, where small, colour limited art is a must..
::
What the hell is rip??
RIP
seems to be the only digital artform within the scene that
really served no practical purpose, only to showcase
artistical proess. The actual format is kind of in-between
ANSI and VGA, having the advantage of many colours, but
being semi-smooth in its curving..
RIP,
as mentioned before, had no 'real purpose'. It could
only be viewed in specially made viewers like ACiDVIEW,
iCEVIEW, or something similar. An attempt was actually made
to make RIP orientated BBS software, but that never really
took off, though some BBSs embraced it..
The
example shown, drawn by Degenerit, is one of my favourite
RIP's, showing what can be truly done with talent and a
bit of patience.
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