I hated using oil pastels in school, but this artist has made me want to give them a second chance thanks to their adorable, low-poly video game character paintings
Low-poly art has definitely been getting more popular over the last few years, which I only realised after a few of my friends started getting low-poly video game character tattoos. But with that said, the vast majority of the low-poly art I’ve seen has been digital. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’ve loved scrolling through endless works from a huge variety of talented creators. However, the moment I laid eyes on the work of Lasher, a UK-based oil pastel artist, I knew I was in for a treat.
The first piece I found from Lasher was a low-poly Chao which popped up on my TikTok feed, which I immediately fell in love with. The second I played Sonic Adventure DX on my family PC back in 2004, I became slightly obsessed with these little creatures and each time I see them in any form, be it digital or physical art, clothing, or even something as simple as plushies and figures, I form an instant connection with it.
Character Select
Welcome to Character Select, a weekly column where PC Gamer takes a look at the art and cosplay created by you. Each week, I’ll highlight a few of my favourite pieces, spotlight and interview creators and artists, or generally just chew your ear off about the talents of the gaming community.
But, Lasher’s artwork perfectly replicates the Chao as I knew them first: slightly rigid around the edges, crunchy-looking creatures, rather than their more polished, rounded, modern counterparts. The same can be said for the equally adorable Devil and Angel Chao which also have their own progress videos. There’s something quite impressive about how much character these pieces have despite the simplicity in their designs.
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Though saying that, working with oil pastels is by no means easy. Most of my experience in that regard comes from unwillingly smushing them onto paper during art lessons at school, but even then I knew that oil pastels can be a challenge. From the videos alone you can tell just how much thought goes into blending colours to make game-accurate shading, alongside manipulating and heating the pastels to form a smoother consistency rather than their standard, scratchy appearance. Despite the pieces replicating a low-poly, somewhat simpler style, bringing them to life is quite the opposite.
However even though the appearance of the characters is smooth to mimic the low-poly look, oil pastels give each piece a lot of texture, especially on the backgrounds. Even though more often than not these characters are accompanied by a plain coloured background, the texture of the pastel alone gives it almost a stonewashed look despite only being made from one colour. The fact this also makes each piece unique, despite featuring the same character and colour, is charming too.
Another one of my favourite pieces from Lasher is a simple pastel painting of a cat from the Katamari series. I’ve seen these little critters crop up a lot over the last year in particular, even before the release of Once Upon a Katamari. I don’t know why, as for me they were always background items you could eventually pick up. But for many, they’ve become one of the more popular characters of the series as a whole. Much like real life, Katamari boasts a variety of different patterns and colourations of its cats, but Lasher opted for the calico.
Of course, what’s a Katamari cat without the Prince himself too. The vibrant colours of any Katamari character really suits this style of art, but the Prince in particular looks fantastic as an oil pastel painting. Sure, I might be biased as I would do anything for this little character, but there’s no denying that Lasher has perfectly captured his cheeky charm in a unique style. In a way, this piece of artwork in particular looks almost like origami stuck to a background, which I really enjoy.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I spent more time than I like to admit scrolling through these videos on TikTok, watching each character get coloured and blended until it was complete, and not once did I find myself not impressed with the finished product. Things like this always inspire me to give it a go (and probably be disappointed by my results) which I admire. I can’t wait to inevitably fill my walls with oil pastel art next year.
