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What is Vaporwave to you?

I asked this question to a few of my friends, where some are more aware of Vaporwave than others. This is their responses:

1)

2)

3) 

The general consensus is that Vaporwave is relaxing.

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edited version of cav, added noise and adjusted the lines a bit

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MACINTOSH PLUS リサフランク420 現代のコンピュー (Reupload)

In the end, I decided to go for this song. It’s one of, if not the most popular Vaporwave songs in existence. It was created by Vektroid, aka Macintosh Plus. It is 7:20 minutes long but I don’t particularly want to cut it down, but the actual animation will be looped so it won’t be necessary to listen to it in its entirety.

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cyberlust - @ ur service

Another contender, definitely Vaporwave.

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SUPERS*X420 - 私は性交のような高いPa r ty おっぱい

This is Future Funk, another niche genre that is steadily gaining popularity. It’s very pleasant to listen to but doesn’t really relate to my project.

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サイコ Post Malone - Psycho vaporwave remix ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ

Yet another song I was considering since it shares Vaporwave qualities. Strong contender since it sounds pleasant and I feel like it would be a good example to show someone who doesn’t know what Vaporwave is.

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80s remix: Lady Gaga - Stupid Love (1985) | exile synthwave remix

Another song for consideration. This is still very clearly a 1980s synthwave inspired remix but as stated in my previous post, it can be applied to the Vaporwave subgenre as well but not entirely.

“The typical vaporwave track is a wholly synthesised or heavily processed chunk of corporate mood music, bright and earnest or slow and sultry, often beautiful, either looped out of sync and beyond the point of functionality or standing alone, and sometimes with a smattering of miasma about it.” Charlie Jones

As much as I would love to do a video for a 1980s remix of a popular modern song, I believe a song that is specifically stated to be Vaporwave would be a better choice. It would fit my overall thematic interest a lot more and I’d rather not misrepresent it.

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80s remix: Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg - California Gurls (1983)

Here is another song I was considering. Rather than going for actual 1980s songs, I considered going for more modernised songs since my target audience is not only those that appreciate the Vaporwave aesthetic, but also those who can appreciate remixes of songs that can lend itself to the Vaporwave subgenre.

While these 80s synthwave remixes aren’t intentionally Vaporwave, they clearly share similarities and can be expanded upon visually through a very clear Vaporwave inspired animation.

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Lady Gaga - Venus (80s Synthwave Version)

As I am able to use copyrighted music for this project (for educational purposes and as long as the final video doesn’t enter the public sphere), I am considering using 80s Synthwave remixes of popular older music for that added nostalgia. This is one I was considering.

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Another wink animation practice. It’s a bit slow but I think it’s okay?

Drawn on Procreate

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A commission and practising some subtle animations (winking). The full body animation was too big for tumblr.

Drawn on Procreate

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A gif of the process of a personal piece. The first theme I was considering was “robots” (like above, my robot character), but “Vaporwave” won in the end.

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The render workshop was very informative. We learned how to use textures and paint meshes of objects among other things. 

I got the background for the first image from HDRIHAVEN: all of the images are copyright free

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Lofi music compilations or radios on YouTube all tend to have some form of looped animation playing through its entirety. It’s essentially a gif in video format with music playing over it. The artist of this animation is Margaux Peltat.

ChilledCow was the first user to make this genre blow up in popularity. The original looped video featured an anime girl studying, which in turn set up the aesthetic framework of everybody else who decided to operate in this genre.

I really enjoy listening to lofi music and have always found the repetitive animations to be relaxing to look at; the animations are usually very subtle and don’t take up much of the screen, which further enhances the relaxing atmosphere.

My goal is to make an animation to use in a Vaporwave themed lofi video, incorporating 3D and 2D elements.

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Grease Pencil workshop

During this workshop, we created animations using the grease pencil in Blender. Drawing on 3D objects was surprisingly fun but I don’t think I’ll use this technique in my final project.

Some process pictures:

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I continued to experiment and practice with using Blender and found this MatCap lighting example really pretty; the soft yet vivid colours really intrigued me and really makes me want to use something similar for my final project, or at least a similar colour palette. Some of the 3D elements could be like this?

To get this:

Select object > Solid Mode > MatCap > click on sphere

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'AESTHETIC' in Ipad drawing : Retro-style Korean illustrator, TREE13

Artist Influences

Yoko Honda, Jordan Debney and TREE13 are very strong visual influences for me during this project

Yoko Honda’s work reflects his interest in ‘80s America, often depicting palm trees, sunsets and very limited colour palettes, which is a very popular subject in Vaporwave themed artwork. While he may not necessarily be a Vaporwave illustrator, a lot of his work can be seen as having Vaporwave elements.

Jordan Debney is not a Vaporwave artist but his use of bright psychedelic colours is visually appealing and reminds me of ‘80s synth pop/retro electronica, which in turn relates to the niche genre of Vaporwave. He remains to be one of my favourite illustrators of all time.

TREE13′s work is, again, not intended to be Vaporwave but shares similar elements. His work is described as being “City Pop”, which is loosely defined as “a subset of pop music that originated in Japan in the late 1970s” and “made by city people, for city people”. His work could lend itself to the Vaporwave subgenre but is clearly only intended to be retro.