[A Summer Snapshot] I love the world of 80s City Pop

My name is tkt, and I am the representative of tkt-artworks.
I started drawing at 42 and began working as a side-hustle illustrator at 45.

I am still new to the illustration business and am currently at the stage of trying to acquire work.
Basically, I operate on two pillars: crowdsourcing and stock illustrations.

This time, I tried my hand at an 80s City Pop-style illustration.

Tracing memories of the 80s

Personally, I love 80s culture, and I also love the atmosphere of the illustrations that were popular back then.
I was born in 1981, so my memories of that time are quite faded, but

even as a child, I felt that
"the adult world looks cool and fun."The world was becoming more and more convenient, and in dramas, glamorous men and women in Tokyo were living stylish lives.In my family, we moved from an apartment to a newly built condominium, and the latest home appliances and stylish furniture kept appearing one after another, making our lives increasingly sophisticated.

Because of those experiences, the 80s for me are burned into my memory as

"an era that was just purely fun and exciting."

As for music,
Miki Matsubara's "Stay With Me" (Mayonaka no Door)played a melody that was urban and filled with melancholy,
(though the song was released in 1979...)
Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe's "Futari no Natsu Monogatari"sang of bitter adult romance,
1986 Omega Tribe's "Kimi wa 1000%"sang of the wavering love patterns of young people,
and Tatsuro Yamashita and Mariya Takeuchi were showcasing stylish songs one after another in commercials.

These later came to be described as"City Pop"or"AOR."As a child, I rarely listened to these in real-time, but the songs that played in commercials and on music programs left an impression of that kind of urban, sophisticated music.

About 80s illustrations

Regarding illustrations, in the 80s, records with package designs by

Eizin SuzukiandHiroshi Nagaiwere famous.The illustrations of sophisticated urban landscapes and summer beaches with convertibles were more than enough to make me, as a child, feel


"the cool and stylish world of adults."

As for how characters were drawn in the 80s,
voluminous bangs, mysterious diagonal lines above the nose, and distinct shadow colors leaning toward purpleare characteristic.

Because of that, I tried my hand at an illustration themed around

"A Summer Snapshot,"
combining backgrounds like those of Eizin Suzuki and Hiroshi Nagai with characters drawn in the 80s style.

Production process

First, the rough sketch. I thought of a composition where a woman listening to music on a cassette Walkman at a beachside in the city at dusk offers one of the earphones to the viewer.

Next, the color rough.

Character line art.

The character is finished.

I draw the mountains and the sky.
It must be the influence of living in Hiroshima Prefecture; the mountains are right up against the sea.

I draw the buildings.

The buildings are finished. I draw the sidewalk and streetlights in front of them.

Finally, the home stretch. I draw the sea and the beach.

To create that 80s feel, I add effects to the foreground.
I also decided to have the character jump out of the frame.

I add those mysterious patterns often seen back then to the landscape frame, and it's complete.

What do you think?
I hope I was able to recreate at least a little bit of the atmosphere from that time.

That concludes this 80s City Pop illustration.

Thank you for watching until the end.

See you in the next post.
This was tkt-artworks.

#ASummerSnapshot
#80s
#Retro
#CityPop
#Illustration
#Illustrator