:D

I've been looking forward to writing this post for months.

One of the things in this world that I am excessively in love with is Pixel art. It was the original style of this site a long time ago and I have been longing to get back into creating my own pieces.

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games are mostly pixel art. - Wikipedia

It interests me because of it's sharp, colourful and cartoonish style. I admire the challenge to cram as much detail as possible into each small group of pixels while keeping the size and perspective consistent. Creating pixel art is no easy task. You must add each pixel by hand, one by one, often taking hours or days to complete anything significant.

In my opinion the world's best pixel art comes from a small group of talented artists named eBoy based in Berlin & Vancouver. The work that these guys create is beautiful and extremely intricate.

eBoy ("Godfathers of Pixel") is a pixel art group founded in 1997 by Kai Vermehr, Steffen Sauerteig and Svend Smital.

Their complex illustrations have been made into posters, shirts, souvenirs, and even displayed in gallery exhibitions. They were founded on May 2, 1997, expressing their modular and collaborative approach as something that defines eBoy as much as the use of pixels. "We started working with pixels because we loved the idea of making pictures only for the screen. It's the best way to get really sharp and clean looking results. Also, handling pixels is fun and you are forced to simplify and abstract things, which is a big advantage of this technique." - Wikipedia

Their portfolio is vast, you have probably encountered their work at some point. Adobe, Honda, Sony, flickr, Yahoo!, Coca Cola are some places their work has appeared.

One of the best things that they produce are posters of cities around the world, among a few other scenes.

What I love about eBoy's work, and the posters specifically, is the amount of detail that goes into each one. Pick a spot anywhere and marvel in all the small things that were drawn. There is so much going on that each time I look at one I notice new things I haven't seen before.

I've long wanted to order a few and put them up on my walls and I did just that in conjunction with my previous post from this week, ordering 3 of the ones I liked the look of most.

The posters are quite big measuring 47.8 x 33.1 inches. I thought the best way to showcase them would be on light foam board or block mounted with no frame around it highlighting nothing but the print itself, sharp and clean.

ATOS Framing once again organised this for me, they also recommended a white edge be applied to the side, which in the end looked absolutely perfect. 2.5 cm in depth and light in weight, i'm really happy with the results.

Rather than nailing picture hangers into my wall, I really wanted to try the adhesive products from 3M. You basically apply a number of them to the back of the thing you want to hang and they attach to eachother like velco, allowing you to take them off the wall and re-arrange or re-align them as much as you want. If you want to remove them entirely they come off easily with no damage.

Another advantage of using this method is the print is perfectly flush with the wall, there isn't a large gap, nor is it tilting slightly downwards.

I've hung one in my bedroom, one in the lounge room and one at work, which i'll be rotating periodically so I can see them all equally, as I spend far more time at work.

Here is each poster front on and how it looks in each location:

There are currently 17 posters on sale from eBoy, here are some close-ups of the 3 I purchased:

1) Paris

Pompidou, Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge, cafes, city streets, bicycles and more are featured in this piece, one of the reasons I chose this one is because of my trip there about 1 1/2 years ago, it's a nice reminder of the time I spent walking around the streets.

2) Amnesty

Created for Amnesty International's Poverty is Modern campaign. Depicting poverty, death, pollution, environment, media and the fight to defend human rights, this is a powerful piece.

3) New York

NYPD, Statue of Liberty, Chrysler Building, open roof tops and high-rise buildings, just a few things in this piece, once again choosing this because of my time in New York.

It's awesome to finally have these posters up on the wall, i'm hoping to hang more of them in the future. eBoy also produce toys, t-shirts, books, bags, stickers and lots of other cool stuff.

Images used are copyright © Eboy Arts Inc. Berlin.