Now that I have decided to convert my Stargate into a Williams Multigame, I have to decide what to do with the cabinet. I want all of my games in my arcade to look as nice as possible, so that includes finishing this Stargate in some nice artwork. There really are two different directions I can go with: Stargate artwork or Multi-Williams artwork.
Stargate Artwork
Sideart – Full reproduction sideart or stencil kits. I think if I were to do this I would choose the stencils for a more accurate restoration
Control Panel Overlay (CPO) – Reproduction artwork. This would require another joystick to be installed, which would make this panel not quite look right.
Marquee and Bezel – Reproduction artwork or purchase used.
Multi-Williams Artwork
Phoenix Arcade
There have been a couple “sets” of Multi-Williams artwork available. They were designed to go with a specific multigame kit or board, each matching the art of the games available in the kit. The first artwork producer was Phoenix Arcade. The produced a really nice set of artwork to go with Clay Cowgills Williams Multigame. However, this art is no longer available since the kit is no longer in production. Phoenix Arcade sold the films of the art, so this artwork may yet become available again.
Thanks to Jbuck for posting this on the KLOV forums!
Arcadeshop.com
The only currently available artwork available is the Multi-Williams artwork from Arcadeshop.com. This artwork is designed to go with their Multi-Williams PCB. It also is very well designed.
What Should I Do?
Either product above seems like a decent direction for me to go with. However, since I would like to go with JROK’s Multi-Williams board in my project, the Arcadeshop artwork would not be a good fit. The main issue is that their artwork has graphics and logos for Moon Patrol, which the JROK board does not provide. However, the Phoenix Arcade artwork is no longer available. I also feel that both sets of artwork are a bit “busy” with the way they each try to contain graphics from all the games. I’ve never been a fan of most multigame artwork because they always look too busy. I think I may end up designing my own for this cabinet.
Sideart
The first set of artwork to decide upon is the sideart. There is an interesting discussion on the KLOV boards about possibly coming up with a Williams Multigame stencil set, since this is the method Williams used to do their original sideart. I really like this idea, and even provided a few ideas of my own to the discussion:
I actually like the one on the far left, although it begins to get busy again. It doesn’t seem as bad as the other sideart possibly due to it being spread out more. Having it stenciled may also help it to look more legit as a Williams cabinet. I need to try these designs on a Stargate cabinet, which has a different side profile than the standard Williams cabinets like the Joust profile in the designs above.
Control Panel Overlay
A CPO design is going to be difficult for me to create, since I would really need one printed on CPO style material. For this reason I will likely keep an eye out for a Phoenix Arcade CPO or control panel. It is the best match for my plans.
Bezel
Not going to be too picky here yet. I have a Stargate bezel already, so I will probably use it until I can either get a Phoenix Arcade bezel or create my own design. The best bezel would be one printed directly on plexiglass, but I may have to go with a printed underlay to use my own graphics design.
Marquee
I think I will end up designing my own marquee to match whatever I do with the sideart. There a plenty of printers that can print a custom marquee, such as Mame Marquees.
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6 users responded in this post
I couldn’t tell by the way it was written above, did you think that the Arcadeshop multi artwork was nicely designed? You mentioned later that it is busy.
As a designer, I wouldn’t really even throw the work ‘design’ into the mix. They threw every logo possible on a blob cutout. I think it is total junk, but serves a volume purpose.
You have some design skill, and I’ve been watching that thread a little bit on the custom stenciled artwork. I would love to throw my hat in on that topic but really to have an opinion would need to start designing something…that could be a goal without an ending time, and how has the time to do that for free?
But I liked the fact that you made a stab at these and showed a couple of variations. I personally like the composition of the Robotron character the best, although not the most universal for all the games.
I know on your designs I would either separate the two logo / fonts from each other like did in the Joust design, or work the ‘Classics’ text into the rounded red circle in some other fashion and some other font. The two fonts are too different in form to work together.
I know it was common on Williams artwork to have one primary character on the sides, even though the didn’t always compose the best with the side of the cabinet. I tend to agree with the topic on klov that using ‘Multi’ is overdone…
It would almost seem to me like the best path to take would be to make a somewhat new character specifically for the Multi game artwork and have the Williams Classic text incorporated.
Somehow, I don’t think that will happen though 😉
@Jeff: As far as the Arcadeshop art goes, I think they did a decent job if the goal was to assemble all the different brands into the artwork. I think that approach ends up being too cluttered. As far as my “designs”, I was just playing around trying to see if any particular design caught my eye. I still haven’t been struck by any of the ideas I’ve come up with, so I am continuing to mess around with it. I’m just having some fun thinking about how I would do something vs. what others have come up with. I’ve never really done that before since I’ve always focused on restoring original designs.
Just a quick note on how I chose the Williams logo in the rounded block, and the Classics font. First, the Williams block is directly taken from Moon Patrol. I liked the way it looked. The Classics font is just a computer style that caught my eye. I thought about using one of the “video game” fonts out there, like the fonts displayed on the video screen, but games never used those styles of fonts in their artwork. They usually use something unique, and I thought that the computer font was unique and yet technical.
I’m sure by now you’ve seen the T.O.G. williams multi sideart. (I know this is an old post.) But for what it’s worth, it definitely isn’t busy:
http://www.thisoldgame.com/products/multi-williams-printed-side-art
@Matt, As a matter of fact I did see those, and I chose to go with the stencil version for the Stargate cabinet. I haven’t done a post on it yet but I picked up a set of the stencils a few months ago. It will look great!
Awesome, I like the stenciled look. I’m in the process of trying to DIY a Joust side art stencil with printer paper and x-acto knife. We’ll see how that turs out…
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