#like the animations in rodney greenblat's dazzeloids

[mikurulucky]

Honestly, yeah. Semi-related but similarly, one thing my mom would do is say my art is better than the art of someone else whenever I'd say I liked said person's art. I barely thought about it as a kid and it was a confidence boost ig for a while?? Or at least I didn't pay any mind to it as a kid/teen? But, as an adult, it started to get annoying and insulting.

Like, when I got back into Parappa the Rapper, I ended up falling down the Rodney Greenblat rabbit hole and looked into his other earlier games like Dazzeloids (was kinda obsessed with Dazzeloids for a while then, so I can see why Sony chose him to work on a ps1 game back then) as well as his artwork in general. Love his art style and its childlike innocence and whimsy it's got going on, but when I told my mom I bought a print of one of his works, she legit said "You draw better than that."

It kinda pissed me off because MY art and Rodney's art are as different as they can get and comparing the two is like comparing apples and oranges. My art's more influenced by vintage anime and disney movies while Rodney is more of an abstract artist. Two completely different approaches to art.

I can't be the only one who gets annoyed at having my art compared to others' art like that, it feels like how parents compare their kids to other kids but in what the parents think is a more positive way. Being told I'm better than someone who's nothing like me ain't really the compliment mom thinks it is unless she's reassuring me I'm not like a particular person because said person is a selfish jerk, a killer, or just an asshole. If neither of us are assholes, why compare me to them like that? O_o

The most horrifying aspect of parents saying "my kid could do that" about art is that they never ever ever mean "wow my kid is good enough to be in a museum" and they always always always mean "I want to disrespect you so much I'll do it by implying that this thing is just as worthless as the things my child makes with their hands" and right in front of them too. Your kids can hear you u know, and the things they make with their hands are the least worthless and most precious aspects of human life I'll kill u

[mikurulucky]

Holy shit, the details in the ENA shorts...

The whole look of Ena’s world gives off so many weird nostalgic vibes for me. Like, it feels like those weird mid 90s edutainment games that had Macromedia’s logo plastered onto the credits (a LOT of edutainment pc/mac games from then were made on Macromedia Director and their file formats were basically related to Shockwave which was related to Flash).

The music reminds me partly of the MIDI music from pc games at the time, and partly of Earthbound and some of the surrealist aspects remind me a little of LSD Dream Emulator.

The pixel dithering used throughout both Extinction Party and Auction Day is a near perfect approximation of the dithering methods used in 90s pc games right down to the color choices for it, the animation style reminiscient of the many Quicktime fmv’s that could’ve only be programmed on a freaking 90s Macintosh, even the font screams old school Macintosh.

Most modern pixel art recreates the more polished methods and looks of early 90s MS-DOS games or the graphics of the SNES, or in-game Playstation graphics if more colors and less saturated palettes are used. But FMV graphics are a wild card, but tend to be more consistent in the simplified cartoony cinematics in budget games directed at kids, sometimes with some odd color choices when 3D backgrounds and assets are involved as opposed to hand painted backdrops, considering we’re dealing with a palette of 256 colors.

And I could go on about the varying audio quality in the dialog, which was EVERYWHERE in 90s gaming considering CDs and floppy disks could only carry so much audio data at the time, so you had to bitcrush a LITTLE bit, but some games, you could notice a change in quality in various parts. I’ll just leave it at that though, this is getting WAY too long.

In short, I feel like Joel G and the people who collab’d with him went above and beyond with these aspects of the ENA shorts’ overall aesthetic and atmosphere. It feels both incredibly surreal and weird and yet oddly nostalgic in a roundabout way, making one think of all the strange computer games we used to play as little kids.

[acrylicqueen]

top 5 things/people that most influenced you as an artist?

Oooh, VERY interesting question!

5.) Rodney Greenblat

As much as I hate him as a person, I have to admit that his art style has been a VERY big factor in the overall inspiration for my artwork. I appreciate everything he's made from a creative standpoint, I just wish he wasn't such an asshole agdjdkdh

4.) Yugo Limbo

I have so much respect for Yugo and the things they make. Whether it's their animations or their games, it's all just this perfect blend of surrealism and uniqueness. I STRIVE to become an artist that can create like they can.

3.) The Who's Tommy

Tommy is wild, abstract, and oh my god I just love it. I think the way the story portrays mental illness is very interesting, ESPECIALLY as a creator with mental illness myself.

2.) The Dazzeloids

Ah, yes. A creation of Rodney Greenblat. My favorite thing he ever made, actually! I adore it's characters and how unapologetically wacky it is. Too bad Greenblat never did anything else with it!

1.) Super Mario Brothers

Yeah, predictable, I know. But, arguably, Mario has been the most influential franchise in my entire life and I cannot properly articulate how much it means to me. It allowed me to explore unique concepts as a child and really built up my love of wide, expansive worlds. It's extremely painful that Nintendo won't let the series be creative anymore!