Gorf Joystick Lens Art

[Scottacus]

The Gorf joystick has a red and black lens in it that is backlit each time you hit an enemy ship.  Unfortunately the lens on my game had a huge dent in it.



I couldn't find anyone who sells these online so I looked online and found the artwork in an appropriate resolution.  I printed this on white ink jet decal paper and sealed it with acrylic clear coat.  This decal was transferred to a piece of clear plastic sheeting so all I was left with was to find a clear cover for the art.  I found that a CD clear case has plastic that is just about the same thickness as the original so I cut out a clear protector to cover the art.  Here is a photo of the decal art, unused spare decals, clear cover and joystick parts.



It turned out really nice, here is a photo of the whole assembly with the back light on.  The shadow that you see in the middle is caused by the mounting plate for the lights and I assume occurs in all Gorf joysticks.



I think I will add a couple of layers of clear red film behind the protector to darken up the lens just a little, but I am very close to the original.

[matsadona]

Nice, and well done.
Haven't seen any Gorf in real life, so I didn't know about this feature.

Anyone know if this signal is available in MameHooker?

[PL1]

Is this pattern the same as the "Red Bit Field" backplate here at GGG?




Scott

[Scottacus]

The red one is the correct one!  I have read that the game art designer (George Gomez I think) hid his name in the black dots.  If you look through you can see all of the letters in Gomez in various orientations and sizes in the black squares.  Pretty cool!

Here is the link to the interview where he talks about the grips for Tron and Gorf

http://peterhirschberg.blogspot.com/2008/04/mini-interview-with-designer-of-tron.html