RIP F David Thorpe

[PeteProdge]

https://www.binaryzone.org/thezone/davidthorpe.php

"...passed away at the grand age of 84 on January 29th 2024 after a long illness"

[akeley]

Movie, Bruce Lee, Mikie, Raid Over Moscow...wow!...some landmark scr$ that I grew up with. A true giant. Thank you, sir, and R.I.P.

[stupidget]

Such a sad loss. That Head over Heels screen is just a thing of beauty. So much colour and it just screams fun.

[Nitrowing]

Those are some well remembered loading screens - I think I owned the majority of the games!

[Swainy]

What an amazing artist! Everyone one of his loading screens was top notch. Rest in peace.

[Lee P]

My favourite screen$ artist from BITD. If he'd just done Pogo and Hunchback and nothing else he'd still be a legend.

I was reading about him the other day on that binaryzone page, after his last few Speccy (and a couple of Amstrad) screens in 87 he went back to architecture and designed this office block in Manchester. I can just imagine the Hunchback leaping around on the roof.

[Neil Parsons]

Rest in peace. He's been one of my favourite artists in the world of ZX Spectrum.

[R-Tape]

RIP Frederick David Thorpe. Screens like Blue Max shows he could wrestle with attributes and win, Cavelon shows artistic inspiration and skills of composition, and Chinese Juggler and Eskimo Eddie are simply fantastic screens and not just 'for the speccy'. Not to mention his landscape art. He was probably the best bitd.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

The best loading screen artist, definitely. Rest in peace.

Here my faves:

[Juan F. Ramirez]

And here an old interview available on YT:

[worcestersource]

He was quite an artist that knew how to get the best out of the Speccy’s graphical capabilities. I love his loading screens. Full of drama, shadow and light, and colour.

I’m glad he lived to a ripe old age as we’ve lost too many, too young.

[Ralf]

He was a talented man. His forte were pictures with 3D perspective like the "Raid over Moscow" one. It's not a surprise that he was also an architect.
Rest in peace David.

[Morkin]

Awesome Speccy artist, those screens are proper quality.

[clebin]

Sad to hear. RIP. The gallery on that linked page is tremendous. He managed to get so much movement and life into his screens, true classics.

It's impossible to pick a favourite. Pogo comes to mind, not because it was necessarily my favourite, but because my copy never went beyond the loading screen. The game I imagined in my head was reaaally cool. I'm glad I never got to see the actual thing, and my childhood imagination was left to fill in this surreal Portmeirion (The Prisoner) / Santorini-type world to go exploring in.

[Pierre]

RIP Frederick David Thorpe. Thank you for all the wonderful loading screens, and the many happy hours we spent as kids looking at them in anticipation of playing another awesome ZX Spectrum game.

[Pobulous]

The US Gold screens in particular hold a lot of nostalgia for me.

[sn3j]

My Speccy came bundled with Pogo. It reminded me of the drawings by M.C.Escher that we were talking about in the school in arts.
The game took more than 5 minutes to load which was embarassing as it subsequently crashed (turned out my board had an error and needed replacement).

[Lethargeek]

one of the best SCREEN$ artists of the old era...

interesting that, unlike modern guys, he hardly used any textures, and yet most of his works aged well

[Ralf]

interesting that, unlike modern guys, he hardly used any textures, and yet most of his works aged well

He had his own distinctive style. Personally I sometimes find it too flashy and difficult to recognize what's going on the screen, see the Hunchback screen for example. But it's certainly stylish and not boring.

[blucey]

A legit legend.

[druellan]

Oh! What sad news! He was by far my fav artist in the Spectrum. There is "something" about his screens that I was able to recognize. I remember playing Winter Games and immediately wondering of the backgrounds was his work.

He has some fantastic loading screens, but one of my favs is the one for his own game: Royal Birkdale: Championship Golf

[R-Tape]

He has some fantastic loading screens, but one of my favs is the one for his own game: Royal Birkdale: Championship Golf

I see from the video Juan links to further up that this is the one that got him the gig as their graphics guy. I bet when the Ocean team asked him to do a loading screen for this BASIC game he sent in, they got a bloody big shock when they saw what he came up with!

[alejandro-ems]

I share an article about Frederick David Thorpe with interesting information:

Spanish (original):
https://www.elmundodelspectrum.com/fred ... -spectrum/

English (Google Translate):
https://www-elmundodelspectrum-com.tran ... r_pto=wapp

I hope you find it of interest.

[Lee Bee]

Such a talent. No one here could doubt that Mr Thorpe was responsible for many of the very best and most memorable Spectrum title screens of the 80s. One might even say we've lost the "grandfather of Spectrum art". Certainly, his work touched all our lives in one way or another and we pay him our respect and gratitude. RIP, sir.

[Timmy]

Wow, there are many iconic screens right there! I must say I haven't noticed they were all by the same person.

RIP