Your Inner 90's Kid Will Obsess Over This New Take On Classic Video Games

If you are old enough to remember spending hours playing Tetris on your parents’ TV or frantically trying to beat the next level of Super Mario Bros. on your Game Boy, get ready for some major nostalgia in the form of these incredible 8-bit watercolours coming to you from the USA.

New York-based painter Adam Lister takes his inspiration for the old-school video games you know and love, turning them into characters from your favourite pop culture movies.

To achieve the iconic pixelated look of digital yesteryear, known as 8-bit, Adam uses watercolours as his medium of choice, breaking down the images he’s recreating into their most basic shapes and colours.

His process starts with a pencil sketch, where he renders his chosen character or scene in nothing but vertical and horizontal lines. He then paints within the shapes he’s created using a colour palette akin to that of the subject.

Although at first glance the resulting artwork might be unrecognisable, gaze a while longer and your favourite film characters will come to life right before your eyes in the style of your favourite games.

From Napoleon Dynamite to Edward Scissorhands, Adam has all the classic film bases covered in an nostalgic video game style that will make you smile and maybe even start to crave some long lost nineties snacks. Fruit by the Foot, anyone?

About the author

India Irving

Social Media Editor

Born and raised in LA, India studied Drama at the University of Southern California before shifting her focus to the visual arts. After moving to London in 2013, she co-founded the iOS app ArtAttack which focused on connecting emerging artistic talent with galleries and collectors. Following that she worked at Albany Arts Communications, a boutique Art PR firm in Fitzrovia before joining Culture Trip. Aside from art and theatre, India's other passions include travel, food, books and dance.