Progress and
inspiration of Faxdoc
Retronator Artist Feature
Less than a month ago I stumbled upon some pixel art that’s right up there in the top of atmospheric, playful environments. I like how the author described it as “A kind of ‘normal day in an abnormal world’”.
It was the work of Petter ‘Faxdoc’ Ramstad and it made me particularly happy because I love discovering artists I haven’t heard of before.
Here’s his latest illustration:
Catching up on his previous works left me flabbergasted. Petter has made more progress over the summer than me through all high school.
That’s why I want to take you on a journey through time and show you how practice and inspiration pushed Faxdoc from a beginner to a place where his name holds value on its own.
274 days ago …
It’s Christmas 2014 and Petter uploads his first work to DeviantArt.
The colorful language comes from a 16-year-old high schooler in Norway, with accompanying pixels not much different from any of our beginnings. Apart from some decent fan art, he makes the usual mix of weird and self-amusing first steps.
Things like scenes with the moon …
… and “Strange colorful creatures” to quote his DeviantArt album title.
If nothing else I find the titles highly amusing. There’s way more of where this came from as he continues to make a couple of pieces every week.
74 days ago …
Eventually we come across the first artwork that speaks of lessons learned. This might just as well be from seeing similar works by other artists and imitating the parts he liked. Such absorption is typical and simply how artists learn.
By following others you are building your vocabulary and recognizing which works resonate with you and why. Learning technique also plays a part. Painters, for example, often do master studies, copies of liked artworks, which help them dissect how to arrive at such level. The lessons are then incorporated into own body of work.
Remember those moons? Let’s add some Sword and Sworcery into the mix:
The influence is obvious and helps Petter push above his random explorations. Instead of just putting ideas on paper he is learning what works and how to do it on his own.
It’s like learning our first language. As a baby you imitate adults until you can understand what the hell it is you are saying. Eventually you end up speaking your own sentences and some people even go on to give talks or write books that leave a shape on society.
A big influence on the architecture in Faxdoc’s pieces are the stacking residences brought to life by Malaysian artist Chong FeiGiap.
His other works admittedly follow the master of peaceful scenes 1041uuu.
46 days ago …
Further on our trip we see more and more combinations of his influences.
Threading into new territory comes with some setbacks, but the push-pull between studying what works and opening new doors to creativity produces fertile grounds for the development of personal style.
13 days ago …
Do you still remember where we started, not even a year ago? Look where we are now.
This is not imitation any more. It’s not a 17-year old kid studying FeiGiap and 1041uuu.
This is now Faxdoc.
0 days ago …
Finally we arrive to the image we started with.
The progress in the last half a year is pretty damn impressive.
An interesting insight is to notice that other mediums (like digital painting) are way less forgiving.
The following pairs aren’t more than a month apart, but you can see how the limited nature of pixel art somehow led Petter to best himself:
I find Faxdoc’s journey inspiring and revealing. It’s a story I see over and over again, but rarely at such speed.
I hope it can heal the impostor syndrome many feel from imitating other’s styles. I might hear some backlash for this, but I think it’s a very normal part of an artist’s journey.
It’s similar to how most non-artists don’t realize that reference photos are extensively used in art, even (or especially so) at the master level. That’s why I would like to conclude with some words Petter shared with me:
“When it comes to improving, practice is the most important (obviously). But taking your time to get references before you start working can help out immensely. Spending 10–20 minutes searching up pictures of what you are about to draw is a good way to expand your visual library.”
What’s exciting to me is that this is but the very beginning of Petter’s journey. To follow it yourself you can find him on DeviantArt, Instagram and Twitter.
Alright dear readers, one more artist feature down the way. My grad school adventure is now in full effect so I’ll be happy if I can keep with the current pace of one article a month. On the other hand, I might be able to find a teacher that would take me on for an independent study. There are a lot of areas of pixel art that I would like to explore from different angles than just as artist features. We’ll see what the future brings.
— Retro
