Atari’s Space Duel Sideart

Space Duel Vector Side Art 4

Every once in awhile I get an email out of the blue about an arcade project that really makes my day. Last week, I got an email from Eric (Vector Zorg). Eric has started tracing Atari’s Space Duel sideart from some great scans he pieced together. Eric posted the Space Duel sideart scans he is working with on his website if you want to check them out.

As you can see in the photo on the right, he has his work cut out for him on Space Duel. The Space Duel artwork is beautiful and complex and would take a ton of time to vectorize.

Eric has started a bunch of projects, and from my experience he is like most artists, they take on more than they can realistically handle. (It’s hard to be passionate and talented, give us a break. We want to be involved in everything when it comes to arcade game artwork.) Check out Eric’s vector projects in progress that at some point will make it onto localarcade.com. Most of the marquees, bezels, and side art he has vectorized look complete. I am not actually sure what the artwork pieces need to be finalized, if it is color matching or something else, but the list of artwork he has worked on is a who’s who list of classic arcade games. Some of this artwork has been reproduced over the years, but my guess would be that Eric’s goal is to make the vector files freely available and accurate to all collectors to do with as they please;

  • Burgertime
  • Jr. Pac-man
  • Xevious
  • Mario Brothers
  • Donkey Kong Jr.
  • Donkey Kong
  • Robotron
  • I, Robot
  • Galaga
  • Punchout
  • Popeye
  • Crystal Castles
  • Marble Madness
  • Puckman
  • And the list goes on and on…
The start of the Space Duel Sideart

Here is a small snapshot of what Eric has finished so far. Coming along nicely with two of the detailed side art ships finished and ready to roll.

Space Duel Vector Side Art 3
Space Duel Vector Side Art 1

Here are two small snapshots showing the quality of Eric vector tracing work. A closeup detail of the ship on the left;

Space Duel Vector Side Art 2

And a detail image of the ship on the right. Eric asked my opinion, for what’s it worth. But opinions are like buttholes as they say, I have my fair share of ideas about buttholes, and, well, other stuff.

Looking at the original scan, I would have actually kept the polygon shape edges rounded, at a distance they will appear square which was the original intent. This is a nice scan of some fine detail of the Space Duel sideart, so I would have to go with what I see. Sometimes when you trace arcade artwork, you have to make a best judgement call. But after I gave him my opinion, he agreed and went back and changed this portion.

Silkscreened Space Duel sideart in the future?

We’ll have to see. Not only is Eric vectorizing Atari’s Space Duel artwork, he is also separating his colors properly as he goes (which is smart, a difficult process once the artwork is complete) and is talking about having Rich at This Old Game do a small run. Will it happen? I don’t know, that is anyone’s guess. I would say not for a long time. But the fact that there may be Space Duel sideart available to collectors in the next year is promising enough.

Additional Information

Want to contact Eric about his progress? (Be thoughtful, he is a family man) You can email him at vectorzorg@gmail.com about his other great vectorization projects and progress on the Space Duel artwork.

Don’t forget, all of Eric’s work in progress projects are located on his website. The site is in French, but it is still easy to navigate, here is the direct link to any updated images of the Atari Space Duel side artwork.

Of course, check back here and as I am informed I will do my best to add any progress on the Atari Space Duel cabinet artwork.

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Comments
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Nice work Eric and Jeff, funny you can see a good example of how the yellow and blue printed on one another give you the green during the print saving a screen step as the black detail didnt cover it all.

Keep up the great work ZORG!!

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Rich,

The Space Duel sideart has a ton of colors, and it was interesting to me to see how they saved some money and were efficient with their printing process. Eric and I talked about whether he should try to reproduce the effect seen on the scan of this particular instance of the Atari artwork. I told him that the registration could be different on each cabinet, and that he should just follow the intention.

When he is making seperations for these colors, should he take the layer that is “green”, make a duplicate of it, and make the vector shapes he originally had green and make them blue, and then change the color of the duplicated shapes to the yellow for potential reproduction? Does that make sense?

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Thanks for posting this one on your Blog Jeff.

regarding the sideart, the artwork is complex and will take a lot of time to trace but as far as I understood the silk screening process there is just 5 color to deal with.
blue, yellow, red, white and black.

the remaining colors are obtained by the superposition of the previous ones.
red + yellow will results in orange.
blue + yellow will results in in green.
blue + white will give the pale blue.

and regarding thoose “composite colors”
eg for green I’m currently tracing the shappe and in fact I duplicate the shapes on both blue and yellow “primary” colors. plus I’ve set up for visualisation purpose an accessory layer that hold the same shape color filled in green.

This way I have a visual rendering correct, and what I hope will be usefull for screen printers like Richard.

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Yep thats the way to go. especially if for color match purposes whether its inkjet or screened youve got more control keeping them seperate. the elements to be composited for say the green later can be combined with the Yellow and Blue layers. Although typically there wouldnt be a white screen on sideart like this. The white is from the vinyl itself usally. so its possible 2 blues may have been used. Hard to say for sure without actually seeing it.

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Thanks Richard for this clarification, unfortunatly I can’t provide anything else than scans.

I will provide you the file, this way you’ll be able to comment and recomend any adjustment needed in order to have a file ready for screening (if it will or not reproed is not considered right now)

Regarding how many colors where used, unfortunatly I did not have a Space Duel cab on hand, to check. I will ask the owner if he can provide more material, let me know what will be needed ?

one more point, if I understand the white color due to the vinyl itself, does that mean that I have to have the white parts set to “transparent filling” ?

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Great job on the side art so far Eric! I am the one who Eric contacted and provided the scans that are being used for the reproduction. If you need any additional information, flecks of color for color matching or anything, feel free to drop me an email. Oh and I can’t forget, nice write up too, Jeff!

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Guys,

Richard and Eric, interesting how Eric was good enough to know how to screen the two different colors and come up with the additional colors of orange and green for the Space Duel sideart without ever having done silkscreening himself…Good pickup Erc.

What would you need Richard to identify if there were two blues needed. Would the scan suffice? Would you need nice photos from chad of the sideart? Or would he have to send you pieces of the artwork to truly identify how many blue screens Atari used? Is it possible they just change the application of the color to get a different shade?

Chad has a great new blog about his great pickup in the Space Duel cabinet at craftygeek.blogspot.com. Sounds like he is going to be a great resource if this actually makes it to print and makes fiscal sense to make a short production run of side art. Thanks for the offer Chad.

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So I was bored at work and decided to type in Craigslist and arcade in the search engine, and this site popped up on the search. The name sounded familar, but I couldn’t place it. I read a little, then see a Pengo. I think about it, and then I know who owns this site.

Glad to see that you have gotten into this hobby as much as you have. I also promise, I was going to get rid of that storage unit, and did eventually sell everything in it to another collector in a package deal. Trust me, we were going to work out the deal on that Pengo, if I had to drive it to you. It just would have taken longer…

“The guy in Nashville”

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This was a nice surprise of an email, good to hear from you Chris.

I just got the Nashville bulk buy Pengo up and working this last October, and play it just about daily. I love that game so much. I am glad you found this site, and hopefully you’ll come back and leave some more comments because you know so much about repair and arcade games in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

But I bet it feels good to know that the Pengo went to somehow who really wanted it, and wasn’t looking to just do a bulk arcade game deal for some big profit.

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It does feel good to know that it found a good home. I haven’t been messing with the hobby much due to a lack of time, and everything I have works now. (Fingers crossed) Actually, I take that back, I do have a Baby Pac if you are still looking for one. It is semi working and I would take $300 for it. Nice side art and a new control panel overlay that needs to be applied.

I pretty much quit trying to sell/trade games or parts after I got burned last year on a deal when a guy wanted a refund but wouldn’t send the part back. I finally refunded his money knowing he wouldn’t follow through and when he had the cash back, he kept the part and posted a bunch of trash. Haven’t really kept up with it since then but glad to see you have gotten into the hobby as much as you have. If I work on a game now, it is someone elses machine and usually in a laundromat… Not exactly fun, but it keeps me busy.

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Chris,

Sorry it took me almost a month to reply to this, got lost in my inbox.

On the Baby Pac, you know, I finally played one locally, and I am not sold that I am interested in buying that game. I felt like the gameplay was just average on both the pinball portion and the pacman game itself, and I kind of wanted Baby Pac-man because …it’s the Pac-man brand and because I want one pinball. The pinball just isn’t great.

That is really too bad about getting burned. It is…a tough hobby. And knowing how kind and generous you are, that is even more disappointing. For me, that would have been worse. I put a lot of emphasis on formality and common curtosy in our everyday culture. Wish I didn’t have to, my mom brought me up this way. You were amazing. I have met some collectors who aren’t very well mannered or adjusted. But that isn’t any different than any aspect of life, right?

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Yo yo ma!

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I’m interested in finding out who did the original artwork for the Space Duel cabinet art. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Jeromy

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