I was never much of an arcade patron, the scene was
just before my time, but thanks to the wonders of the internet and MAME I've discovered a fondness for arcade games, particularly for fighting games with Capcom's superhero stuff being a the top of the heap alongside Mortal Kombat. Interest led me to here and got me fired up for a bartop for the last year or two. This would be a Project Announcement thread but for one issue: No money! So until I get the scratch together all I can do is make the artwork which is just fine by me.
The kit at the top of my list is Haruman's EVO XR so that's what I made this art for. I had a few ideas for themes but MvC rose to the top of the list as I'm a big comic book fan, as well as a fan of Bengus' art which I felt would be a cool challenge to vectorize. I still plan on doing Mortal Kombat themed art as well, and I'll pick whatever one I like best.
Here's what I have so far:
The general aesthetic is stolen from Martijn's Street Fighter builds. I love the yellow color scheme he uses for how much art pops against it, and button surrounds have a bit of a comic book look without being all Comic Sans about it. I also stole the joystick surrounds from SlammedNiss.
I chose Wolverine, Ryu, Hulk and Zangief because they're so ubiquitous in the 2D era of the series. All of the art is based on Bengus's promo art for MvC 2, which has inspired me since seeing ads for MvC2 in old gaming magazines back in the day (ages before I actually played the game). For that game he created more complex rendering with pencil hatching which was both difficult and fun to translate into the hard lines and bold colors of vector art.
The "VS" logo and the label font are from SFIV. Technically inaccurate but I wasn't really satisfied with any of the actual MvC logos and I think it's a good fit, it adds a little edge to the art.
Close up of the control panel:
The control art is designed with a mix of Japanese and American-style controls in mind. I like Japanese sticks (with bat tops) and American buttons, so the joystick surround is smaller than it would be with a HAPP/IL joystick. Control placement is just a best estimation of what can fit where, calculated from the blueprints of the cabinet and the dimensions of the parts.
Rough mockup:
I wasn't planning to do a kickplate but the lack of art there in the mockup looks a little glaring to me, so I may work up a little piece of Spider-Man and Chun-Li.
The Wolverine render:
I spent a very long time working out the lighting on his arm, and of course most of it ended up being cut off in the final art. Oh well.
, if any Martians reading this thread from space don't know who Bengus is.
That's it so far. I've been sitting on this for a couple months digesting and I feel pretty good about it so now I'm turning it over to all you experts for as much criticism and input as you can muster. Thanks for looking.