Back in 1987, commercial artist Bradley W. Schenck acquired his first Amiga computer and began painting these spectacular images using nothing more than a copy of Deluxe Paint II, a mouse and his imagination.
Inspired by the legendary Amiga artist Jim Sachs, Schenck began developing his own special techniques including an ingenious dithering method that allowed him to squeeze more perceived colours out of the Amiga’s 16 colour hi-res mode.
The images seen here are taken from Schenck’s 1987 Amiga Dreams slideshow which was widely distributed back in the day through BBS systems and diskcopying.
What I really love is the tight pixel control coupled with the lovely textures and patterns conjured from 16 or 32 colour palettes. Its more of a painterly approach that was perfect for the Amiga, especially when viewed on the CRT display hardware of the day.
With the resurgence of pixel art in recent years there is a trend towards a super-refined art style where each pixel is painstakingly placed by hand and so-called ‘noisy’ painting styles are disparaged. The Amiga art scene however was all about experimentation with little regard to any set of ‘rules’. This resulted in a broad spectrum of styles that ranged from tight and refined to loose and impressionistic. It was an exciting time when the medium was constantly being pushed forward by talented artists with an eye to the future.
More of Schenck’s Amiga artwork can be found on his website.
Here is a fascinating article from 1994 about his computer art.
The Amiga Dreams slideshow can be downloaded here.