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Thread: Video game original art

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    Default Video game original art

    Anybody out here know where most of the video game art is? Locked up in private japanese collections, or what? I'd love to be able to find or purchase some of the original box art from NES/SNES games - can anyone point me in the right direction? There must be a few people out there with nice collections of this stuff. Would loooove to find the box art to Brandish, for example.

    Hmm.. better question... does anyone know how to identify the artist on a given box? Is there a list of credits somewhere? Any ideas guys? x_x

    thanks for any input anyone might have.

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    Would actually Love to know this myself

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    I'd like to get ahold of some SNK animation...I bet that would be some really cool stuff!!
    I don't know where it is but after finding all the garbage Pail Kids art on eBay, I know it's out there somewhere.



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    Coincidentally enough, I just referred someone who has the original Castle Wolfenstein box art to these forums. Don't know if he'll post, though. He's looking to see how much it might go for.

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    I've got the original artwork to two C64 games: Wizball and Parallax, both done by Bob Wakelin. Priceless now imo. But you do wonder where a lot of it ends up...

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    The production materials for Japanese games are/were often divided up among the production committe members when a game is/was finished. Unless you have contact information for one of them (who could point you in the direction of who has it), it'll be pretty much a crapshoot to track it down... I'm not aware of any companies that deal in this sort of thing either, unfortunately. If you're looking for box art for a game from a company that still exists (like Falcom, who made Brandish), you might want to try contacting the company directly. Be sure to mention how you're aware of how much original artwork costs and how you have lots of cash you're willing to spend.

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRedEye
    Coincidentally enough, I just referred someone who has the original Castle Wolfenstein box art to these forums. Don't know if he'll post, though. He's looking to see how much it might go for.
    C64 or PC version? Or something else? Sounds awesome.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cthulhu
    The production materials for Japanese games are/were often divided up among the production committe members when a game is/was finished. Unless you have contact information for one of them (who could point you in the direction of who has it), it'll be pretty much a crapshoot to track it down... I'm not aware of any companies that deal in this sort of thing either, unfortunately. If you're looking for box art for a game from a company that still exists (like Falcom, who made Brandish), you might want to try contacting the company directly. Be sure to mention how you're aware of how much original artwork costs and how you have lots of cash you're willing to spend.
    thanks for the insight. I figured a lot of it would be stuck in japan And yeah, i know it would be ridiculously expensive.. sigh. x_x Definitely don't intend on collecting a lot of it, but I'd love to have a few

    I don't know if contacting the company will work though. It depends on whether the ownership of the art remained with the artist or with the company. I think contacting the artists might be a better bet... does anyone have any resources with respect to box art credits?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Oscuro
    Quote Originally Posted by TheRedEye
    Coincidentally enough, I just referred someone who has the original Castle Wolfenstein box art to these forums. Don't know if he'll post, though. He's looking to see how much it might go for.
    C64 or PC version? Or something else? Sounds awesome.
    Yeah! details!! Maybe you can pm me with how much he needs for it?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bronty-2

    thanks for the insight. I figured a lot of it would be stuck in japan And yeah, i know it would be ridiculously expensive.. sigh. x_x Definitely don't intend on collecting a lot of it, but I'd love to have a few

    I don't know if contacting the company will work though. It depends on whether the ownership of the art remained with the artist or with the company. I think contacting the artists might be a better bet... does anyone have any resources with respect to box art credits?
    Creators rights are indeed stronger in Japan, but I think work is still generally done on commission - once the artist produces the piece and sells it to the company it belongs to the company. Games based on existing properties - games based on manga, anime, movies, etc - are probably an exception, however. I've never looked into this very much though, so everything I'm saying should be taken with a grain of salt .

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    Nintendo is known for keeping a VERY tight reign on all their prototype / "original" stuff, so it wouldn't suprise me if Nintendo Japan has some sort of art museum with all the original boxarts framed.

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    11 years later, this thread is good for a chuckle

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    Well maybe for you, but there still is quite a bit you can't find very easy still. A lot of that old 8/16bit art from the boxes isn't so easily found, and even if it is, it's not the originals you did but the junk people scanned off 9/10 quality boxes and manuals so you have the cruddy packaging art around it.

    I've got the original art image of the Castlevania1 imagery stored here without the box bs in the way. I'd love to find a huge archive of the original un-doctored art missing the game name, the other textual junk and generic console box tags many/most boxes shared. Recently I got the Centipede MB board game and the box art is epic, but I can't find that original image. I'd probably rotate it into my phone background art which currently is one i put up of my Pinbot play field (and backglass on the lock screen.)

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    Those centipede graphics are great.

    When I started the thread though I was talking about the physical objects. It's cool that you're interested in the images because there are so many great ones a jpg being hard to find on the internet and finding an actual 1/1 object are two very different conversations though. Digital images are child's play comparatively, but I know what you mean the digital images aren't really on the net. I do have a collection of industry film which could be used to create that kind of material, but I am unsure of what will happen to it for now as I was hoping to use them in a book, which may not be possible due to legal issues, and they can't be scanned with normal scanners. I'm sure some of these images will get out there at some point

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    I'm good with art books, haha. Tracking down the original paintings is a rich man's game. I imagine it's not even an option with games made in the last 10+ years since all art assets are probably produced digitally now.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
    I'm good with art books, haha. Tracking down the original paintings is a rich man's game. I imagine it's not even an option with games made in the last 10+ years since all art assets are probably produced digitally now.
    The digital switchover started a lot earlier than you'd imagine. 20 years not 10! Even the great majority of n64 and ps1 are all digital

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bronty-2 View Post
    Those centipede graphics are great.

    When I started the thread though I was talking about the physical objects. It's cool that you're interested in the images because there are so many great ones a jpg being hard to find on the internet and finding an actual 1/1 object are two very different conversations though. Digital images are child's play comparatively, but I know what you mean the digital images aren't really on the net. I do have a collection of industry film which could be used to create that kind of material, but I am unsure of what will happen to it for now as I was hoping to use them in a book, which may not be possible due to legal issues, and they can't be scanned with normal scanners. I'm sure some of these images will get out there at some point
    I know what you intended, just was putting it out there that JPG/RAW whatever format you like copies are a pain to get as well, just not as painful clearly as a one off original like the stuff you used to show off on here or elsewhere. It was a treasure seeing the stuff, but you're right, people would for-profit the hell out of the stuff and it's a shame that stops it from arriving. And you're right in response to him, it's more like 20 years ago definitely. When I was at Midway at the dawn of the Gamecube era they already were just doing it digitally then, but they would for people to get eyes on it internally run copies for people to thumb through. Now if they were shelved, shredded, tossed or burned after the fact I have no idea, but it was digital as far back as 01 and I know EA was doing it that way in the 90s when my brother was at the short lived EA San Diego.

    I just get discouraged as I see really nice art, sure I could scan a cart label but man that sucks, so I just don't bother. I'd love nothing more than to retire the years of orioto art I put on my laptop and have a 24hr hour (or less) shuffle of original 80s/90s art instead and if possible convert some to my tablet/phone size in good clarity too.

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    Not sure what you meant with the "for-profit the hell out of it" ... do you mean that you think people would steal the images , put them on tshirts and crap? I never thought of that, but yeah it would happen. IMO though the real reason it's not on the web is because there was no system of taking care of these things, at most American software houses. Once the game came out everyone was on to the next project; not worrying about what happened before. The reason that the clean sharp images aren't around is because the companies themselves don't have them anymore. I have better pictures of capcoms art than they do. (both capcom and sega have been asking me for images and I did just provide a few to capcom).

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    And yeah the 20 year thing is fact, surprising as it is. 1996 stuff was already digital.

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    Yup exactly what I meant. Make a dime on it, someone will steal it. Shirts, cups, hats, selling image packages, cards, even stickers, wall art in various styles of printing, cartridge labels, new boxes, anything to make a buck off of. Good on you yet still stunning Capcom and Sega would have to beg an outsider to get their own art back since they basically tossed it away. Lesson learned I guess since it's digital they'll back it up more than once place. I know you're serious about 1996, was in college then and people were already using the lame Macs with the preferred version of Photoshop back in the day to do crazy stuff including hobbyists trying to learn the trade copying, scanning+editing or otherwise type stuff of anything from photos to cartoons and even game art off magazines boxes and manuals. If some random nobody on a college tuition was doing it, damn certain the game companies were already on it years earlier.

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