Simon Stalenhag -- Darker Retro Futurist Art

[Pacing Tape]

Recently I rediscovered Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag, who used to be one of my favorite artists after I found his art in the core rulebook for one of the TTRPGs based on his art, using it as a setting. (The one I have is called Things from the Flood, it and the previous iteration Tales from the Loop are both fantastic if you're interested in the setting and enjoy a more roleplaying focused experience than D&D.) Really I just find the idea of alternate, darker, more cyberpunky retro-futurist art fascinating. I've attached some of his art to this post if you'd like to see some sort of reference as to what I'm really talking about.

So what I'm really looking for is any art/artists that are similar, or even entire sub-genres that I'm unaware of. If not, I'd love to hear your thoughts on his art anyhow, since I find it rather thought provoking anyhow.

(adding some photos of the TTRPG Rulebook, including for scale with the Cyberpunk Red Rulebook and the 5e Monster Manual. Plus, there's some cool art in it and it only ran me about $45 at Powell's.)

View: https://imgur.com/a/rXXaTZi

 

[theshredneckcsr]

Did Ultramodern5 also use his art? I swear to god I saw it in the core book but I could be wrong. Cool as fuck art though, very visually appealing.

 

[Pacing Tape]

Did Ultramodern5 also use his art? I swear to god I saw it in the core book but I could be wrong. Cool as fuck art though, very visually appealing.

I can't say I even know of Ultra Modern 5, so I'm afraid I'm of no help there.

 

[brentw]

You may be interested to know that Amazon Prime made a "Tales from the Loop" show.
You may or may not care for it. Personally I was disappointed.

To me it felt like they didn't have the budget, nor sci-fi writing chops, to properly make something inspired by his art.
But I'm an old curmudgeon who thinks everything made today is terrible, so your experiences may vary.

 

[Pacing Tape]

You may be interested to know that Amazon Prime made a "Tales from the Loop" show.
You may or may not care for it. Personally I was disappointed.
To me it felt like they didn't have the budget, nor sci-fi writing chops, to properly make something inspired by his art.

I had actually heard about it when they first started advertising for it, but never watched it because I had a feeling they would butcher one of my favorite alternate history settings. Now that I'm thinking of other media though, the game Generation Zero seems pretty heavily inspired by Simon Stalenhag, even if they didn't work with him directly like the people who made the TTRPGs did. If you think I ought to I'll give the show a looksie, but if it isn't all that great I'll stay in the dark.

 

[theshredneckcsr]

I can't say I even know of Ultra Modern 5, so I'm afraid I'm of no help there.

It's essentially an alternate version of D&D 5th Edition's rules with resources for modern settings. This can range from anything to extreme far futures to World War era settings and even the wild west, it's a fun system with lots of its own interesting quirks like being able to mix and match classes and subclasses and rolling your character's backstory on a table. Back to the topic, I looked into it and I don't think his art was in the book, but some of the art has a very similar style and evokes the same atmosphere.