Arcade Artwork
Emailing Dan Hower about Mr. Do!
Got information today that Dan Hower actually runs arcadeflyers.net, a great arcade flyers resource, complete and really nice on the eyes. I emailed him to see if he knew anything, because it looks like he has a long history in the business so at the very least he may be able to give me some history on the machine.
Jr. Pac-man Kickplate
Realized today, as I was talking about my Jr. Pac-man artwork journey for this webpage, that in fact I don’t have Illustrator vector art for the kickplate, it was the bezel I was thinking of that I got off of localarcade. I hope Richard can also take some photos of that for me.
Mark Deroller follow up for Mr. Do!
Found another email for Mark Deroller about this game at mderoller@yahoo.com. Hopefully this one doesn’t work since his other two emails bounced back to me.
Mark DeRoller mentions a Dan Hower in his posts, and that Dan supplied a photo of the bezel for him. I was thinking that maybe Dan owns the machine as well, knows someone who does, or just has access to photos and information about most games.
I also found another post of a guy who owns the game as well, so I am shooting him out an email to see if he can help me out. He emailed me right back and let me know that this was a dedicated import from Japan. He said he thinks a company named Gleeb made the cabs, even thought the game was made overseas by Universal of course. So there was a similar conversion kit out there that looked like it, I have seen two different versions in the photos. Either way, very interesting.
Started Jr. Pac-man sideart tracing
I used a good portion of my Saturday to work on the tracing, and got most of it done. I am so pumped. Richard has been supportive, telling me his is willing to take more photos as needed if I need detail shots. That is exactly what I needed, I needed some photos of the kite and of Jr. Pac’s shoes, so I shot him an email to see if he would have time.
Again, Richard came through and sent me two photos right away of what I needed. He is great, now I have to figure out how to scale those pieces and make them mesh with my pretty much finished version of the artwork.
Plus, even though I have mentioned that I am not a purist, I do want the artwork I produce to be remotely close, especially since Richard wants a copy of it and I know that he has a ton of respect for the games. I have found a set of the kickplate art for Jr. Pac-man on localarcade, so I am thinking that since I would be reproducing that as well, I will just take the colors from that in Illustrator so they match. Maybe I am lucky in that whoever did that set reproduced it and the colors are true.
The other option is to ask Richard if he could borrow someone’s Pantone chips and figure out the colors with me. That would be as exact as you can get. We’ll have to see if he is open to that when I am completely done.
Jr. Pac-man sideart photos!
Joyous day, I got a photo back from Richard. I started right away, and laid down some of the most basic outlines tonight, getting through about a third of the drawing. I will have more time this weekend to work on it I am sure. Now, if there is anyone actually reading this, I don’t want to post the photo because I don’t have permission right now to do so from Richard.
Checking in again with Richard Ford for Jr. Pac-man sideart
I still hadn’t heard anything, and tonight was when I found the other photos of the sideart online. I have started to think I may have to have to start my search again, that maybe Richard just is too busy. The photos I found are the first I have seen of the sideart bigger, but I tried to do some tracing and I lose some of the detail, especially in Jr. Pac-man’s shoes. I emailed Richard to show him what I found, hoping that I wasn’t being too overbearing and asked him again if he had time.
Mass emails sent for Mr. Do! information
I estimate that I have now emailed over 20 people on the VAPS group to see if any of the owners of a Mr. Do have this particular model, or know anyone who does, but I haven’t had any luck. I have had a ton of great responses back though, people are nice to at least let you know that they don’t know anything.
