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MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

(blog.decryption.net.au)
1032 points decryption | 1 comments | 12 Jul 25 08:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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hcarvalhoalves ◴[12 Jul 25 16:01 UTC] No.44542976[source]▶
These seem to be made by artists trained on traditional drawing. All drawings show knowledge of cross-hatching or pointillism, correct use of values, perspective, and so on. That’s why it looks great today, these qualities are independent of how advanced the digital medium of the time was.
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akie ◴[12 Jul 25 19:17 UTC] No.44544343[source]▶
Look at this one for example - my mind is blown: https://blog.decryption.net.au/images/macpaint/lesson3d.png

How do you even do that? Zoomed out it looks like a nearly photorealistic street scene, zoomed in I just see seemingly meaningless patterns of black and white. Magic. Unbelievable.

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1. bigyabai ◴[12 Jul 25 19:25 UTC] No.44544424[source]▶
> How do you even do that?

Dithering, for one. The parent also suggests pointillism, which was also a popular modern art technique for making detailed portraits using small, low-detail components.