Cyberpunk Reference Photos From Real Streets

Cyberpunk is built in layers

A cyberpunk street is rarely designed from scratch. It is an old building with newer systems added on top: cables, pipes, cooling units, signs and screens. Each layer was added by someone solving a problem, without a plan for the whole. That is what makes it look real, and it is very hard to invent.

Kathmandu Medieval Cyberpunk Market Streets shows this better than any megacity. Its 188 photos show buildings from the 12th to 15th centuries next to newer concrete housing, with electric cables everywhere, motorbikes on every corner and Hindu shrines on street corners that are in daily use. The result is a very different, older kind of cyberpunk.

Wires, pipes and air conditioners

These are the details artists ask for most, and the hardest to get right from memory.

• Bangkok Messy Wires: 172 photos of tangled cables on electric poles, close up and from a drone. The tangles come from many companies connecting buildings in different ways over the years.
• Street Wires: 84 photos of street wiring in Thailand, at 6000 × 4000, including cables running through trees.
• Asian Back Alley: 356 photos of a back alley in Singapore, with air conditioners stacked on each other, pipework covering the walls and kitchen back doors. Shot at dusk and at night.
• Building Sewers Shaft Hong Kong: 146 photos of the drainage and service shaft of an old Hong Kong residential tower.
• Hong Kong Slums: 229 daytime photos of the back yards and service areas between old Hong Kong high-rises, plus 6 short video clips.

Night markets and street light

Cyberpunk lives at night, lit by many small sources of colored light.

• Japanese Style Empty Night Market: 285 photos of a themed night market in Bangkok with no people in it. Robot statues, sakura trees, slot machines and calligraphy, mostly shot from a drone.
• Airplane Asian Market: 238 photos of a Bangkok market built around a dismantled Boeing airliner and a 1950s helicopter. The plane was rebuilt into restaurants, and its engine is taken apart on display.
• Kualu Lumpur Aerial Nightscape: 145 drone photos of Kuala Lumpur at night, including the Petronas Twin Towers and the KL Tower.

Density from a moving train

Taipei Metro Area Trainscape has 304 photos taken from a train window, at 6000 × 4000. On one side, tall office and residential towers. On the other, small houses, fields and factories on the edge of the city. It is useful when you need to show how a dense city fades into its outskirts.

How to push a real street into the future

1. Keep the infrastructure. Real cables, pipes and cooling units already tell the story. Add to them rather than replacing them.
2. Change the light sources. Replace street lamps and shop lights with screens and signs in your own color scheme.
3. Replace the signs. Paint your own lettering and invented brands over real shop signs.
4. Add height. Stack more floors of the same building on top, using the real facade as a guide.

For more street-level material, see our Asian street market reference. For background art, see manga and comic background reference.

Frequently asked questions

Why are most of these packs from Asian cities?

Many of the dense, layered streets that shaped the genre are in East and Southeast Asia, and several Fotoref contributors have photographed them in depth. Treat the photos as reference for structure, density and light, and design your own city on top of them.

Can I keep the real shop signs and brand names in my artwork?

It is better not to. The Commercial license excludes use in logos and trademarks, and real brand names can cause problems for a published game or film. Use the signs as reference for size, placement and light, then paint your own.

Are there people in the photos?

Some packs show people, such as busy markets. Others, like Japanese Style Empty Night Market, are empty on purpose. If a pack is Mixed, photos with identifiable people are kept in a separate Editorial folder. You can use those as reference, but not reproduce them directly in advertising.

Do any packs include video?

Yes. Hong Kong Slums includes 6 short handheld video clips, which help you understand the space between the buildings.