Hi, it's Hye.

In this article, I would like to talk about CYBERPUNK briefly which aimed to give a general concept of it to everybody.

It may not be 100% correct - Please do not hesitate to leave a comment if you find something gets really wrong. Welcome to have any discussion as well :-)

(1) Introduction - What is Cyberpunk?

"Cyberpunk" - a combined word of "CYBER" and "PUNK".

I like the defination from wikipedia very much - a "combination of low-life and high tech".

It's about contrast and contradiction of 2 elements, which creates much fun and interests.

(2) Ideology of Cyberpunk

It's all about contrast.

The contrast between high tech and low-life.

The contrast between mechanical and fresh and blood.

The contrast between virtual and reality.

The contrast between highly-developed society and collapsing community ...

All create an anti-utopia atmosphere and, stories start.

 

Below are some moods that Cyberpunk works should always express (at least 1 or 2 from the list):

• Rebellious

• Aggressive

• Provocative

• Exaggerative

• Compressed

Here are some keywords comes from "HIGH TECH" & "LOW LIFE":

 

▶ HIGH TECHNOLOGY ◀

• Highly Developed Society

• Cyber Space

• Androids / Cyborg

• Bio-Engineering

 

▶ LOW-LIFE ◀

• Low living standard

• Crowded

• Shabby

• Punk

• Low culture - sex, bullies, violence, gangster ....*

 

You may not follow the external elements that I am going to mentioned in below sections. But please bear in mind this basic ideology when you are composing your artwork.

 

• Please consider the class of your audience before you include those elements

(3) General Visual Expression of Cyberpunk

Here are some general visual that can always be found in cyberpunk pieces.

Please be reminded you have NOT to include ALL of them in a single artwork.

All purposes of including the below elements are to express the ideology in section 2.

(3.1) Visual Expression

(3.1.1) Colour Usage

✔ High-saturated

✔ Rainbow

✔ Neon

✔ Dark environment

✘ Low-saturated

(3.1.2) Line

✔ Straight

✘ Curve / Organic

 

(3.1.3) Font style

✔ Sans-Serif

✘ Serif

(3.1.4) Recommended Effects/ Decoration

✔ Glitch Effect

✔ Symbol / Character / Number Decoration

✔ Dirty Dust / Noise

✔ Graffiti

✔ Paint Slash

(3.2) Drawing Theme/ Content

Here are some common items you can found in cyberpunk artwork for your reference:

• Robot

• Mechanic parts

• Virtual space

• Duplicated items

• Shabby environment

• Dense skyscraper

• Colourful neon / billboard

(3.3) Clothing Style

• Teared fabric

• Pin

• Bandage / Belt

• Leather product

• Tights

• Plastic / Polyester

• Metal Parts

• Nails

• Tattoos

(4) Example

Although my drawing is not professional enough, hope it can help to illustrate the above tips and makes sense to you.

▶ BEFORE ◀

It can be called a "cyber-themed" artwork..... but where is "punk"?

▶ AFTER ◀

adding some elements i mentioned before:

Seems much better!

 

See what i have added:

(1) High-saturated gradient on top - to create a Neon/ LED lighting

(2) Darken the background

(3) Adding some straight line pattern on background

(4) Adding some rebellious elements

(5) Adding broken robotic part for shabby feeling

(5) Summary

Hope these tips will help more of you knows about Cyperpunk.

Here is a summary of what I have talked.

Sorry it's in English only, you may translate it in any language yourself with credits to this article :-)

 

And some assets I used on the example artwork :-)

▼ Neon pen

▼ Tights Pen

▼ [塗料不足筆/平] / Paint shortage Brush/flat

▼ [ガリっと伸ばし] / And Stretched

▼ [欠けグラデ文字ペン] / Gradation Missing Letter Pen

▼ Effects

Enjoy! :-D