About

Speed Painting Videos are recorded footage of artists using graphics painting software to create an illustration which is sped up to create a time-lapse of the painting process.

Origin

The earliest known speed painting video was uploaded by YouTuber macpulenta on February 9th, 2007, featuring a real-time drawing of Radiohead vocalist Thom Yorke illustrated by artist Nico Di Mattia within four hours (shown below). Within the next six years, the video accumulated more than 1.67 million views and 3,100 comments.

Spread

On May 2nd, 2007, YouTuber macpulenta uploaded a speed paint video of Spider-Man illustrated by Nico Di Mattia in Photoshop (shown below, left), which garnered upwards of 22.1 million views and 11,400 comments in six years. On May 5th, YouTuber mint301 uploaded a video in which he mockingly draws a poor version of a pixel art Super Mario (shown below, right). Within the next six years, the video received over 200,000 views and 1,200 comments.

On November 3rd, 2008, YouTuber shukei01 uploaded a time-lapse video in which a Gundam character is drawn within the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program (shown below, left), garnering upwards of 1.9 million views and 1,600 comments in the next five years. On January 18th, 2010, the digital art blog Digital Arts Secrets^[1] published a post providing instructions on how to create a speed painting video. On November 29th, YouTuber shadowmuttzr0 uploaded footage of a speed paint featuring the characters Ino and Hinata from the Japanese manga series Naruto (shown below, right), gaining more than 1.89 million views in the following three years.

On January 18th, 2011, YouTuber DrawingNowTutorials uploaded a video featuring a speed paint of the character Lightning Mcqueen from the animated film Cars (shown below, left). The video accumulated over three million views in the next two years. On January 30th, 2012, YouTuber tsitra260 submitted footage of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic speed paint, receiving upwards of 630,000 views and 2,600 comments within the next year.

Notable Examples

Search Interest