Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Artwork => Topic started by: EMDB on December 05, 2013, 04:30:44 pm
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I finally started on my artwork. I was a bit scared to start using Adobe Illustrator but with some YouTube tutorials and some trail and error I managed to exactly create what I already designed in my head. The theme is inspired by Martijn's Streetfighter cab but with a Metal Slug touch. The images I used are quite low-res PNGs found on the web. I converted them to vector images using Vector Magic. They came out pretty nice. I just finished the first attempt on the marquee in 300dpi:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/marquee_ai_01.jpg)
First lesson was the area covered by the retainers should be taken into account as they now mask too much. I have to adapt this in my design:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/marquee_ai_02.jpg)
Furthermore I think the text should be vertically centered and the shadow of the tank was not transparent like in the PNG. I still have to make the edge transparent again too. What do you guys think?
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I like it a lot! Very clean! it will work very well. 8)
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That is awesome. Make your changes and you are good!
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That is awesome. Make your changes and you are good!
What he said, I wish I had talent and/or skill. :(
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Excellent job.
I like it
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I love it, especially the girl side. Kudos.
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Today I worked on the button surroundings for the CP. I thought this would be the most difficult part of my artwork but... actually it was quite easy :cheers:
I used the 300DPI slagcoin layout I'm going to use (I use 7 out of 8 buttons to have both the 6 button fighter layout and 4 button in a row Neo-Geo layout) and drew the vectors on top of it. Perfect fit...
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp-player-buttons.jpg)
Next up the joystick arrows
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Slagcoin is a great resource. I use a mixed layout as well, but I do 4 over 3 and wire the buttons as:
1 2 3 4
4 5 6
That way I don't have to do any odd control remapping in the software end.
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That is awesome. Make your changes and you are good!
What he said, I wish I had talent and/or skill. :(
+100
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2
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That is awesome. Make your changes and you are good!
What he said, I wish I had talent and/or skill. :(
+100
Thank you guys. I will just clean up and use this for the marquee. I did not have any Adobe Illustrator skills myself. Just common sense and YouTube ::) And I guess my talent is just combining what I like from other artwork and using Google Images ::)
I started playing with the sides a bit:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/right-side-ai.jpg)
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Thank you guys. I will just clean up and use this for the marquee. I did not have any Adobe Illustrator skills myself. Just common sense and YouTube ::) And I guess my talent is just combining what I like from other artwork and using Google Images ::)
Even composition is an artistic skill. I have all the artistic ability of a street cobble. Add to this amazing lack of talent the fact that I am red/green color blind and you do NOT get an artistic master. That's one of the reasons I love this forum, even the few folks that are jackasses are still wells of knowledge/skill/talent and everybody seems willing to share.
Oh yeah, back on target. Love the side art, you putting the guy on the flip side?
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I really like the marquee, I think the composition is great. Apart from the issues you've already identified, I think the male character needs brightening up. The whites in the teeth, glasses and gloves look greyer than they are on the female character.
Also, and this is purely personal preference I think the font doesn't match the nature of the artwork, I think something more military like spray stencil lettering or metallic (like the metal slug in game titles) lettering, would marry up with the images better.
But as others have said I'd be more than happy if I'd produced those images myself. :)
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...
Oh yeah, back on target. Love the side art, you putting the guy on the flip side?
yes.
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Very cool care to share the artwork?
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Very cool care to share the artwork?
I'm sorry I want to keep it exclusive for my cab...
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Very cool care to share the artwork?
I'm sorry I want to keep it exclusive for my cab...
Oh thats a pity - :o
Cīmon m8, think twice!
Community - thats what itīs all about!
Gr8 work! :applaud:
R.
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Very cool care to share the artwork?
I'm sorry I want to keep it exclusive for my cab...
But...didn't you snatch the artwork off the net anyways? I mean why not share it if it's not really yours?
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Very cool care to share the artwork?
I'm sorry I want to keep it exclusive for my cab...
But...didn't you snatch the artwork off the net anyways? I mean why not share it if it's not really yours?
Artwork is about the only thing which make a cab unique. So I won't share it. It's not that uncommon on BYOAC. Grab get the images from the web and be creative. Feel free to be inspired by my work if you want. I liked Martijn's StreetFighter artwork so I got inspired by that. Invest some time...
Martijn's artwork (done by Waveryder):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/sfacpid4.jpg) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/sfamarqueeqp4.jpg)
Today I finished creating the joystick arrows in Adobe Illustrator. It was not easy but I like the result:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/joystick-arrows-ai.png)
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Artwork is about the only thing which make a cab unique. So I won't share it.
God forbid you should show up at a party where someone's wearing the same artwork, right? >:D
Just pulling your leg.
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I haven't shared any art that I did for someone else (not mine to share the way I see it) but any art I did for myself I've shared freely, especially if it was compilied from art goinked off the web. I would take it as a compliment if somebody built a dup of my work. Echo Base got a complete dupe w/in a year or completion and the artist was very pleased IIRC.
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I haven't shared any art that I did for someone else (not mine to share the way I see it) but any art I did for myself I've shared freely, especially if it was compilied from art goinked off the web. I would take it as a compliment if somebody built a dup of my work. Echo Base got a complete dupe w/in a year or completion and the artist was very pleased IIRC.
So I guess everybody has it's own thoughts about this. That's fine by me. I take it as a compliment people ask for my artwork in progress ::)
Talking about progress... This will be the layout of the CP:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp-layout-ai.jpg)
Positioning of the buttons and joysticks is based on experience from my current test CP:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp_u360_sanwa.jpg)
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I haven't shared any art that I did for someone else (not mine to share the way I see it) but any art I did for myself I've shared freely, especially if it was compilied from art goinked off the web. I would take it as a compliment if somebody built a dup of my work. Echo Base got a complete dupe w/in a year or completion and the artist was very pleased IIRC.
So I guess everybody has it's own thoughts about this. That's fine by me. I take it as a compliment people ask for my artwork in progress ::)
Talking about progress... This will be the layout of the CP:
Positioning of the buttons and joysticks is based on experience from my current test CP:
Are you going to use Metal Slug characters instead of Street Fighter characters on the CPO?
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Waveryder's artwork looks good. It was nice of him to give you the go ahead to copy it.
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I haven't shared any art that I did for someone else (not mine to share the way I see it) but any art I did for myself I've shared freely, especially if it was compilied from art goinked off the web. I would take it as a compliment if somebody built a dup of my work. Echo Base got a complete dupe w/in a year or completion and the artist was very pleased IIRC.
So I guess everybody has it's own thoughts about this. That's fine by me. I take it as a compliment people ask for my artwork in progress ::)
Talking about progress... This will be the layout of the CP:
Positioning of the buttons and joysticks is based on experience from my current test CP:
Are you going to use Metal Slug characters instead of Street Fighter characters on the CPO?
Yes...
Artwork is about the only thing which make a cab unique. So I won't share it.
God forbid you should show up at a party where someone's wearing the same artwork, right? >:D
Just pulling your leg.
I'm not a girl but yes... I don't want any other cab to show up at this party showing off my artwork ;D
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Waveryder's artwork looks good. It was nice of him to give you the go ahead to copy it.
You of course mean it's a shame he did not provide it to the community after shamelessly using artwork from Capcom in the first place!?
Funny: it's all right to ask money designing artwork, its an honor for your artwork to be used by anybody for free but you may not create it yourself (partially) based on other people's work?
I will now stop this discussion on intellectual property of artwork and focus on my project and have some fun again. Hope you guys do to :cheers:
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I haven't shared any art that I did for someone else (not mine to share the way I see it) but any art I did for myself I've shared freely, especially if it was compilied from art goinked off the web. I would take it as a compliment if somebody built a dup of my work. Echo Base got a complete dupe w/in a year or completion and the artist was very pleased IIRC.
So I guess everybody has it's own thoughts about this. That's fine by me. I take it as a compliment people ask for my artwork in progress ::)
Talking about progress... This will be the layout of the CP:
Positioning of the buttons and joysticks is based on experience from my current test CP:
Are you going to use Metal Slug characters instead of Street Fighter characters on the CPO?
Yes...
I had no idea there were enough characters.
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You of course mean it's a shame he did not provide it to the community after shamelessly using artwork from Capcom in the first place!?
No I mean, you clearly traced his rosewheel, which is not exactly "being inspired". Then you have the gull to claim originality when asked to share the copied work you've done.
Funny: it's all right to ask money designing artwork, its an honor for your artwork to be used by anybody for free but you may not create it yourself (partially) based on other people's work?
What I do is completely different that what you have done here. I take an IP and come up with a completely original take on it, all from scratch. You took images from other people's creativity, traced them, arranged them in different places, and called it your own. At what point is it really your artwork?
I will now stop this discussion on intellectual property of artwork and focus on my project and have some fun again. Hope you guys do to :cheers:
Please, you don't drop a bomb and be like "well I'm done with the war now, hope you guys are".
I'm not against you not sharing it. I'm against your reasoning behind it, the statement of being original when it's all traced work from other artists.
Now, I'm done with being the Art Police. Carry on. :police:
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I had no idea there were enough characters.
That's still a bit of a problem. I only have 5 of them in the same style:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/ms-characters.jpg)
I was thinking about sneaking some StreetFighter characters in or just use the 5 in a different layout of tiles. Any suggestions?
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You of course mean it's a shame he did not provide it to the community after shamelessly using artwork from Capcom in the first place!?
No I mean, you clearly traced his rosewheel, which is not exactly "being inspired". Then you have the gull to claim originality when asked to share the copied work you've done.
I never said I was original. I just combine what I like and give it a personal touch.
Funny: it's all right to ask money designing artwork, its an honor for your artwork to be used by anybody for free but you may not create it yourself (partially) based on other people's work?
What I do is completely different that what you have done here. I take an IP and come up with a completely original take on it, all from scratch. You took images from other people's creativity, traced them, arranged them in different places, and called it your own. At what point is it really your artwork?
At least it's my composition of existing parts. I clearly state all sources and give credit to the original artists.
I will now stop this discussion on intellectual property of artwork and focus on my project and have some fun again. Hope you guys do to :cheers:
Please, you don't drop a bomb and be like "well I'm done with the war now, hope you guys are".
I'm not against you not sharing it. I'm against your reasoning behind it, the statement of being original when it's all traced work from other artists.
Now, I'm done with being the Art Police. Carry on. :police:
Thank god I got the cops off my back ;)
A fair discussion is never a bad thing. We don't have to agree on everything. That would be boring. Thanks for letting me know your position on this...
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Playing around filling the tiles. The full grid (4-5-5 characters) with the 5 MS characters and several SF characters did not look any good. So I decided to reduce the number of tiles and make them a bit bigger to fill the space. First I tried 3 below and 2 on top but than the 2 on top were mostly covered by the buttons and joysticks. I ended up with a single row of 5 tiles. What do you think?
Maybe I can add a Neo Geo or SNK logo on the top left?
This is just a first version. I have to finish the tiles off with some 3D bevel or drop shadow...
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp-layout-ai-2.jpg)
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That looks good. I **hate** when artwork is obscured by buttons and joysticks. It makes no sense to me.
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Nice job bro.
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I think it looks good. If you still want to fill more space; how about 2-1-2?
I was gonna suggest deviant art, but I couldn't find a matching set of more than 5 characters.
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Honestly, I think it's fine the way it is. No one's going to give a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- if it has more than 5 characters- they just want to know if it will play Galaga.
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I found one (and a half) additional characters from the same series (Metal Slug Type A):
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/rumi-typea.jpg) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/mummy-typea.jpg)
But I agree with Yotsuya about artwork behind buttons and sticks so I will keep my current CP design.
Next: the sides...
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Good call. Look at the original - there are at least 5 characters with their faces partially or fully obstructed. :dunno
I like yours better.
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Yup - love the theme.
I too also don't like to cover chars faces - here's one i did some moons ago.
On a side note: imagine if the community didn't share so freely - this passion is only available to us due to the kindness of the thousands it's taken to get to this point.
You don't have to share the lot - but given a sample helps us all :cheers: i get a real kick out of someone being able to utilize any work I've done. Just saying it's a real good feeling ;D
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Yup - love the theme.
I too also don't like to cover chars faces - here's one i did some moons ago.
On a side note: imagine if the community didn't share so freely - this passion is only available to us due to the kindness of the thousands it's taken to get to this point.
You don't have to share the lot - but given a sample helps us all :cheers: i get a real kick out of someone being able to utilize any work I've done. Just saying it's a real good feeling ;D
I like what you did with the Streetfighter characters in that example! They seem to partially cover the arrows of the right joystick though. And there is no art for the player button surroundings but for player1 / player 2 there is?
It is nice of you to share these examples but that's just what they are. If you had build your own cab and wanted something special for the artwork I guess you wouldn't share that too? My used images (Metal Slug characters, globe, tank) are easy to find using Google Images...
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The marquee and CP are (semi-) final:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/marquee_ai_semi-final.jpg)
(the darkened areas at the top and bottom are hidden by the marquee retainers)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp-layout-ai-semi-final.jpg)
And this is the first version of the (right) side panel:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/right-side2-ai.jpg)
The left side will we a mirrored copy but with the Tarma (the guy from the marquee) instead of Eri.
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About the marquee, are you going to print it black? Or is that just for reference in your graphic program? I think you would benefit from trimming a fully colored marquee than one with the black horizontal bars. Just in case there is some minor variation in the build or the printing. Just a thought.
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About the marquee, are you going to print it black? Or is that just for reference in your graphic program? I think you would benefit from trimming a fully colored marquee than one with the black horizontal bars. Just in case there is some minor variation in the build or the printing. Just a thought.
The bars are just temporarily overlays to see what part is still visible when mounted. I will remove them before printing...
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I finished the whole set of artwork (marquee, CP and both sides). I'm very happy with the result. Especially since I had zero experience with Adobe Illustrator when I started...
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/sides-final-ai.jpg)
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/marquee-final-ai.jpg) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/cp-final-ai.jpg)
I will prepare for printing now (adding some bleed, flatten all layers, final check on dimensions) and send it to GameOnGrafics :)
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Widen your character spacing so your letters don't touch.
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Looks Great
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Widen your character spacing so your letters don't touch.
Thanks but I think it looks better this way...
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It doesn't.
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It doesn't.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. I still think it looks better this way though...
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Really like the theme but for the side art maybe you can have the tanks pointing towards the front of the cab and make the side text smaller to avoid covering the tank. Just a suggestion.
Well done.
:cheers:
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Really like the theme but for the side art maybe you can have the tanks pointing towards the front of the cab and make the side text smaller to avoid covering the tank. Just a suggestion.
Well done.
:cheers:
Thanks. I had the tanks pointed to the front but this way the gun and exhaust pipe better fitted. I like the individual parts not being isolated but overlapping a bit to become one artwork.
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character spacing looks fine
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EMDB I am currently building a Metal Slug series cab, I guess you wouldnt save me a month worth of vectoring and share those Metal Slug files you drew up would you? I'd owe you a vector favor if you did. I am so bogged down with other artwork now I couldn't even imagine trying to start Metal Slug themed stuff.
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EMDB I am currently building a Metal Slug series cab, I guess you wouldnt save me a month worth of vectoring and share those Metal Slug files you drew up would you? I'd owe you a vector favor if you did. I am so bogged down with other artwork now I couldn't even imagine trying to start Metal Slug themed stuff.
Love it man, looks awesome!
If I'm not mistaken, he stated in this thread that he wouldn't be sharing his artwork.
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EMDB I am currently building a Metal Slug series cab, I guess you wouldnt save me a month worth of vectoring and share those Metal Slug files you drew up would you? I'd owe you a vector favor if you did. I am so bogged down with other artwork now I couldn't even imagine trying to start Metal Slug themed stuff.
Love it man, looks awesome!
If I'm not mistaken, he stated in this thread that he wouldn't be sharing his artwork.
Did he? Must be tired. Didn't see it. Oh well, I'll share whatever I vector for Metal Slug. :)
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The images I used are easily found via Google Images. I got most of them from here: http://metalslug.wikia.com/wiki/File:Morden-TypeA.png (http://metalslug.wikia.com/wiki/File:Morden-TypeA.png)
I used Vector Magic to vectorize them. I did not change the default settings nor did I do any post-processing. Took me about 5 seconds per image ;-)
I will not share my final artwork, I like my cab be be more or less 'unique'.
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Take what you can. Give nothing back.
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Take what you can. Give nothing back.
A very childish reaction... Almost nobody shares his custom artwork. There are even people asking money to design artwork on this forum. I think I share a lot of experiences in my build thread...
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Take what you can. Give nothing back.
A very childish reaction... Almost nobody shares his custom artwork. There are even people asking money to design artwork on this forum. I think I share a lot of experiences in my build thread...
EMDB, I think he was just kidding man. It never hurts to ask and I didn't see you aren't sharing, which is my bad. It's your art work, it's up to you to share or not. :)
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I decided to share the Metal Slug vector images. Metal Slug seems to get really popular these days...
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I decided to share the Metal Slug vector images. Metal Slug seems to get really popular these days...
:applaud: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :cheers: ;D ;) :burgerking: You are the bomb. Thanks a lot man, this is really appreciated.
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I decided to share the Metal Slug vector images. Metal Slug seems to get really popular these days...
:applaud: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :cheers: ;D ;) :burgerking: You are the bomb. Thanks a lot man, this is really appreciated.
No problem. I think the Type A characters are by far the best looking MS images :applaud: :cheers:
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I've done three cabs, all involved some vectoring of existing or original art, many hours of real work, tracing in Illustrator, and all the files are free for the taking. Thanks for finally sharing them.
A word of caution, though: these vectormagic/auto trace programs make an image that looks "good enough" but not really great, IMO. It is just a computer's best guess where to put paths, so you get weird splotches of color. I tried it myself early on, but spent so much time tweaking the automatic result that eventually I just did it all by hand. And some illustrations just aren't meant to be simplified into vector art. Might be good for very simple logos and such though.
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I've done three cabs, all involved some vectoring of existing or original art, many hours of real work, tracing in Illustrator, and all the files are free for the taking. Thanks for finally sharing them.
A word of caution, though: these vectormagic/auto trace programs make an image that looks "good enough" but not really great, IMO. It is just a computer's best guess where to put paths, so you get weird splotches of color. I tried it myself early on, but spent so much time tweaking the automatic result that eventually I just did it all by hand. And some illustrations just aren't meant to be simplified into vector art. Might be good for very simple logos and such though.
These are quite cartoonish and I think those vectorize pretty good. Even the tank which has quite some detail.
I think they turned out pretty good given the size they are printed:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/GoG/sideart-standing-left.jpg) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82432150/Retrocade/GoG/sideart-standing-right.jpg)
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I F'ing love this cab. Gives me some ideas about my Metal Slug project. :cheers: :notworthy:
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The cabinet turned out very nice, and I'm happy to see you were nice enough to share the artwork with the rest of the forum.
:cheers:
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Awesome artwork and thanks for sharing! :) :applaud: :applaud:
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These are quite cartoonish and I think those vectorize pretty good. Even the tank which has quite some detail.
Yeah the characters especially are the right kind of source image for this, big bold lines, blocks of color, no gradients. That was just a general word of warning that vector magic has limits and to be sure to look closely before printing the files it generates. I sometimes see it talked about as the ultimate tool but sometimes things need traced by hand. Glad that the web tools exist, though. In fact I think the newer versions of Adobe Illustrator have some auto-tracing capabilities built in, but I am years behind on my software updates.
Love to see MS get some attention. Those games have so much style, in the sprite animations and sound, etc. The first time I got "big" by eating too much in Metal Slug X is one of my favorite "humor via gameplay" moments.
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arcade looks great and thanks for the great share on the artwork...