It’s possible to not ‘scan’ an arcade cabinet

That is always a hindrance in getting some of this artwork reproduced. But with Rich offering to send vellum to collectors who want to take on a trace, he steps you through the reasons why this is just as good as a scan, the most important reason being that it saves a ton of time.

The Scramble sideart stencils are now available at ThisOldGame.com. If you are interested in doing some vellum tracing, contact Rich at his website or drop me a line here in the comments section or using my contact form.

You're reading Tracing arcade game sideart to make stencils 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 +.

Restore that Scramble

I’ve been approached about making Scramble stencils, but the individuals looking to restore their games always seem to fade away. A couple of attempts are made to contact another collector for scans of the artwork and then I never heard back. There is the Scramble sideart artwork file from Arcade Graphix library online, but if you follow that link and look you’ll what looks like a file made in Windows Paint. I wouldn’t trust the accuracy of that file to base the creation of any reproduction artwork.

Finally, Rich is doing these stencils which seem to be somewhat in demand and so simplistic you wonder why they have never been done before. Here’s a tiny graphic showing the vector trace;

Fairly simple, with just an orange and black stencil for all of those out there who have wanted to re-paint, stencil, restore their Scramble, hopefully you’ll get that opportunity soon. Stay posted here for updates.

You're reading Stencils to restore your Stern Scramble arcade game 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 +.

Jason originally made reproductions of the Scramble control panel, screening the artwork directly onto the metal. However, finding mentions of Jason’s Scramble artwork from 2002-2003 are hard to come by, so I thought I would post my final progress on the artwork before we moved on.

Final trouble spots on Scramble artwork

Here is a small shot of the finished control panel artwork.

As you can see, I did end up working through the issues I had mentioned in the previous post with parts of the artwork like the player button icons and the dotted Stern logo. The provided photos helped me recreate those pieces.

The last few troubling areas on the Scramble artwork that were marred in the scan were the ‘For Amusement Only’ text as well as the actual width of the black circle by the joystick because it was flaking and colored in with permanent marker.

As close up photos of the ‘For Amusement Only’ text and the black circle helped solve my problems with the deep scratches and other translation impairments.

Matching the Scramble arcade game font

I always leave the small copyright and other similar text for last I found that the font for the other text on the Scramble control panel is ‘Helvetica Normal’ for the ‘Licensed from Konami, Inc’ and ‘Stern Electronics Inc. All Right Reserved’ pieces. A little typing, a little spacing, some font outlining and the artwork was done.

Never got to the color separations on the Scramble artwork

That is when we figured out that there was no need to print another run of Scramble artwork on metal control panels. So, I have the Scramble artwork file sitting here, that needs to be separated and everything should print ready, scaled and everything.

I believe Chris Moore bought Jason’s Berzerk control panel films, but I think that those films are the only ones Jason sold because he probably figured that to date, 3-4 runs of Berzerk screened metal control panels have been made and that puppy should be tapped. However, if there ever is a need to do these Scramble control panels again, I imagine that a better route than using my files might be to contact Jason Fowler because he should still have the these artwork films.

You're reading Scramble Control Panel 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 +.

Stern Scramble Control Panel Progress 1

A contract job always comes before any other fun unpaid work, and I knew that I would be able to spend one weekend and get the control panel vectorized at the very least, if not color separated as well. The collector already had his own printer of choice and they were ready to go when I was.

The control panel was taken to a print shop and scanned for me, and the disk with the high resolution artwork arrived on May 2nd. Here is a thumbnail shot of that scan.

A small thumb, but you get the idea. This is pretty typical wear for the artwork on Stern’s silkscreened metal control panels. Printed artwork on metail opens up the freedom for breaking that rectangular plane for composition a little more, but really hard to keep the printing in good condition.

Here is an image of my initial progress;

I got through a good portion of the control panel in my first pass. There were some details that I felt were a little strange, and some pieces of the artwork that were obscured because of scratches. Here are some detail shots of what I am talking about.

Parts where artwork was completely scratched off like on the Stern Logo dots and on the people by the player buttons;

Areas where I had difficulty seeing exactly where my artwork lines should be, like the outer left edge of the panel artwork that was flaking;

Or the black circle around the joystick which had all three problems, deep gouges on the arrows, flaking around the black circle and the original art was obscured because the original owner colored on the metal control panel with a black permanent marker to try to hide the flaking.

I was able to get some straight on photos from some other areas of less damaged Scramble control panels to get those portions of the artwork correct as I continue to finish up the vectors.

Scramble reproductions have already been done

We figured this out later on. QuarterArcade.com is still selling some inventory of Scramble control panels from the stock purchased from Arcade Renovations. In hopes of someone else not repeating our same mistake I have added the panels to my comprehensive list of past arcade reproduction artwork. Obviously, there really isn’t a demand to finish this project. Check back for an update later this week, I will show the final artwork before we stopped working on the panels.

You're reading Scramble Control Panel Repros 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 +.