I certainly wasn’t as close to being finished as I thought

But I’m glad that I finished the underlay artwork regardless. Thanks to Rory B. for getting me a scan of an NOS underlay piece back in the middle of May, which can then also be used for color matching, checking accuracy as well as dimensioning if there is ever a need.

It was crazy to see the amount of small difference between the two scans I had, the one partial off of a Mad Planets cabinet from Chris, and this one. Goes to show you that getting to particular over detail is a folly since each print has the potential for small differences in a mass production process.

Glad to have it done, there was a lot of detail in the moons and took a lot of flipping back and forth between keyline view and the original scan to make sure it was right.

Update 4.3.10 – For those that haven’t done any research, it might be time. The artwork for this Mad Planets piece can be printed at any time. But you know the reasons preventing it from being mass printed. I only prepped it for making my own from scratch Mad Planets, and I ended up finding a complete one instead.

You're reading Mad Planets underlay artwork finished is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

A couple more hours in Illustrator

It’s been interesting to see the small subtle difference in artwork in a scan from an underlay on a Mad Planets vs. an NOS piece. If I were to go out on a limb, I would say that if Gottlieb printed some replacement pieces for sale, maybe there was some time between actually manufacturing and reprints and that could account for small variances. Some of the differences are just where the artwork has shifted or bled together, but in general I was able to line up the artwork I had done with this new scan.

Those stinking planets. I’ve spent a few more hours on this, and mostly it’s on those planets, they’ve got so much detail so this progress shot doesn’t look vastly different than before.

Originally I thought I was about 65%-70% done with this artwork, but the NOS piece had an extra portion at the bottom that I assume either folds under or is cutoff, so in actuality I am now only at about that threshold, where I was maybe 50% before. I am missing quite a bit of artwork on the large planet at the bottom.

You're reading Mad Planets underlay artwork progress part 2 is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

I need a full scan of the Mad Planets underlay

I got through most of the artwork that I could that wasn’t broken from some small tears in the bend or was off to the left or the right side. Scanning those parts on the cabinet is going to be near impossible, the whole face doesn’t just come off the cabinet, and I haven’t seen an edge to edge scanner that could go flush and get the moon and the blazing planet scanned. I would need an NOS piece of artwork to trace that stuff accurately.

None the less, here is how far I got in the keyline view in Illustrator;

I had two guys approach me with NOS pieces that said they could supply them if needed. I am still on the fence, I feel like the piece is 60% done and it would be cool to finish it and not just leave it half done. Plus, in the printing sense it might be easier to make a more accurate piece of artwork seeing as it’s just the vinyl material / or polycarbonate vs. the extra hassle for true die hard collectors who would want to mount the Mad Planets bezel artwork to some cardboard.

So, this post is just to say “This is how far I got”. I don’t have definite plans to continue, if you feel strongly otherwise, pm me and we can talk about it but as for now this project has run it’s course.

Update – June 7th, 2009 – I finished vectoring this piece of Mad Planets artwork. Visit the finalized Mad Planets underlay post. Just waiting on someone to front the money to have a small run of silk screens made so that the artwork is reproduced right.

You're reading Mad Planets underlay artwork progress is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Goodbye Mad Planets Moon and Ship

Here’s an image of the final artwork. The ship with the blue texture about killed me. I thought I would have about a half hour left tonight so I would just finish it. I think all of the final touches and checking took me over an hour and a half.

Here is a comparison detail shot of the Mad Planets blue moon;

And the ship, the two most detailed areas that took the most time.

I will be checking the artwork over again with all of the details before calling it ‘final – final’, there may be some small details not right, a dot or two in the wrong stacking order, but 99.9% of the artwork is done and right. As you’ll see, color matching would need to take place as well.

Tracing can be enjoying, but a night like this makes me appreciate the focus and attention to detail of the Mame team who continue to vector every bezel that exists. So many of these bezels are have a similar level of detail. Blah.

Onto the Mad Planets lower artwork below the control panel.

Update 4.3.10 – For those that haven’t done any research about Gottlieb, it might be time. The artwork for this Mad Planets piece could in theory be printed at any time. But you know the reasons preventing it from being mass printed. I only prepped it for making my own from scratch Mad Planets, and I ended up finding a complete one instead.

You're reading Mad Planets Bezel Artwork Finished is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

The main ‘planet’ has a ton of detail

Looking at the Mad Planets bezel, I was pretty confident I could crank through most of it in a coupe of hours, more repetition than anything else. There are a ton of little stars and the three planets are all very similar with a tri-tone pattern that creates a pitted texture. Here is where I got after a couple of hours;

It appears as if one guy on BYOAC already started vectorizing the bezel, but never finished, and then had a computer crash and almost lost the Illustrator file. From what I can tell from the ‘Mad Planets’ bezel progress thread he started, we were at about the same place only I had gotten through more of the blue moon than he had. Check out the crazy amount of detail in the moon alone;

I have started a number of tracing projects that still need some time to finish, but unless personal circumstances come to the forefront this week, I anticipate I should be able to finish this by no later than next Monday. It will be good to have one more piece of Mad Planets artwork vectorized since there doesn’t seem to be much vector artwork, if any, floating around for this game. There may have been a vector file for the Mad Planets CPOs that Quarter Arcade reproduced, but that is all.

If you know different and someone did finish tracing this Gottlieb artwork, fill me in – leave me a comment. The next piece that I would look at tackling would be the lower portion of the CPO.

Update 3.12.09
I am pretty pumped, I was really in a groove and finished up the Blue Moon artwork on this bezel on Tuesday night, which only leaves the blue textured pattern on the lower right ship, which I am half done with that. I am still shooting for Saturday to finish the Mad Planets bezel artwork, but it may be easier with only such a small section left. Hope to have an update soon.

You're reading Crazy detail in the Mad Planets bezel artwork is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Quarter Arcade has a “limited” run of Gottleib Mad Planets control panel overlays available that have just been listed on their site.

Just got these in from the printer a couple days ago: screen printed, Gottlieb Mad Planets control panel overlays. We did a small run of these overlays as I know there aren’t a ton of them out there, but I personally love the game really wanted a nice one for my game.

I realize the pricing is on the higher side, but bear in mind, this is a limited run and there just isn’t enough demand to support a large run. I have seen NOS Mad Planet overlays sell for two or three times this amount. Also, I believe the pricing is in line with dealers who have done CPOs for the more obscure games.

The artwork looks good, and as Anthony mentioned, they aren’t cheap, but look at what a Food Fight CPO costs from Quarter Arcade, I don’t think this pricing is all that far off if you look at apples to apples. Mileage of popularity of the game may vary….

You're reading New Mad Planet CPO Reproductions is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.