Repostober Day 17

Kick

I've been trying to post only color pieces, but I REALLY like the way I drew Anna in this sketch

(this is going to be a personal, non-authoritative post; a lot of people have probably already heard of this but i hadn't. the website in question here, to skip my dumb words)

So... because I'm not deep deep into this computer stuff (having mostly grown up with Windows XP/7, ASCII art has always been a mesmerizing topic for me. The first time I saw it, and really the only time it's been relevant as of recent, is in guides on GameFAQs. (Fun fact: they've stopped actually calling them FAQs now, and just call them guides? .. for... reasons?) I had figured it was made with some kind of code, not manually constructed by hand, because... how the fuck, right?

Apparently computer people in the '90s and 00's had a LOT of time on their hands, though (and some still clearly do!) because this website called Artpacks, which hosts archived compilations and collaborations made by different digital art groups? Holy SHIT, to put it bluntly. This stuff is crazy!! There's SO MUCH of it, in all kinds of forms!!

This place archives over 30 years of this art, in all the forms it takes. It has all the files clickable on the website, without having to download them! Admittedly, I was kinda lying when I started by talking about ASCII art because that seems to be a simplification; a lot of art here seems to have been done in a form called ANSI art, allowing for a wider selection of characters and more natural drawings + styles. There's also just straight-up 3D or 2D art here!
You can change the settings and way things look by holding down the mouse button for a second anywhere, but I think most of it looks best as it is.

Now.. obviously this isn't all very cohesive, as it's such a giant mix of various ideas and groups of people. There's some 90s-00s edgy contrarian politics in here, and also some genuinely beautiful and touching works. One pack I found, from 2022, is just a big celebration to a community member and Teletext artist (??????) turning 60, and... what a community to be known in, huh?

I'm feeling kinda the same way as when I found pouët looking at this: this insanely talented and skilled group of computer people were hiding in plain sight, all this time? All just by having their own, independent website from everyone else? It's both... incredibly inspiring, and this jaw-dropping reminder of how dedicated people can be to their craft. Can anyone really do this stuff, just by putting together characters on a screen? And.. is it too late to learn? Because this shit kicks ass

This is a big ramble post, I don't have much of a conclusion, but I feel extremely humbled in my Computer Usage now. Maybe you should look around the website yourself for inspiration, or to reminisce! Who knows; considering the CSS things people do on this website alone, maybe you were part of one of these?

Art sources: https://artpacks.org/2005/crisis8.zip/us-myth.ans (by "Prometheus"), https://artpacks.org/2005/antifa-01.zip/m0-smash.asc (by "M0lo"); cw, nazi symbolism in antifascist context

Come forth