Cover Reconstructions

[kaysow]

fundamentally based on shenske's template but tweaked for personal preferences, i've vectorized and recolored a couple of NES covers. going for a reconstruction of the retail originals (hybrid between PAL-A&B, those uploaded here, and swedish rentals). psds still contain english texts and vectorized NTSC elements if that's preferable.
thought i'd gauge interest here; is this actually a worthwhile endeavour or am i just wasting my time? doing this for my whole collection isn't really feasible, but i'd like to think the improved picture quality is sort of worth the effort. at the same time, i can't see anyone else doing it even tho it's not that complex if you've got the patience.

first up was popeye, with an illustration from the FC ver, reused and recolored for the PAL release. i love those cheesy old jap FC covers that we got in europe, big reason i stuck with PAL over US cassettes. most work was just figuring out the correct fonts to use. smb2 was a lot more coloring, leading up to bubble bobble. that one was a pain that took me more than a week to get done, only to realize the coloring on the GB ver looked a fuckton better. both are presented below; NES and GB vers.

popeye - http://www.mediafire.com/view/?47k1xuy4ujx35do
mario 2 - http://www.mediafire.com/view/?1sg8ix0wi33tkog
bubble bobble (nes colors) - http://www.mediafire.com/view/?w0ux4arw9ea90yq
bubble bobble (some gb colors) - http://www.mediafire.com/view/?xwvrainopcvdnb1

didn't check this place out first so didn't know there were agreed-upon standards for spines and such, but the NES logo at the top of the spine is still nearly identitical to the standard one. just brighter colors, vectors and ™ instead of ®.

thoughts? living in europe i've never actually had any ugcs in my possession to get a feel for them, so maybe i'm missing something.

[Arseen]

TACK SÅ MYCKET!!!

Finally Popeye cover with correct picture.

[wiggy]

I think Arseen approves.

[satoshi_matrix]

these look incredible. Just incredible. I've love to see English versions!

[pumanchero]

Epic covers. Changed the text on the front to English to finally have these babies ready.

Bubble Bobble - Retail Cover (total credit for kaysow)


Bubble Bobble - TCP Cover (total credit for kaysow)

[kaysow]

cool, thanks for the encouraging feedback! guess i can eventually submit these then. arseen knows what's up; i didn't get eitehr why that cover was left out of the database. happy to oblige =) main concern really was that in the end, what you end up with after this process really isn't the same illustration you started out with. and preservation is key here. but then, having a look at all the bubble bobble covers available here and on google image search, it seems the designers themselves had this process applied between some ports. the outlines (+colors/layout) are a wee bit different between the GB and NES releases.

just gonna keep tweaking these a bit for now, probably best if i make the spinelogo perfectly identitical to shenske's standardized one or someone's collection uniformity might get all outta whack. in the meantime, here's the lot in english

http://www.mediafire.com/view/?ebanzaak898zx06
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?s816bpguni91pdc
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?36f7qpu5aqmh1cf

[kaysow]

i've tweaked the NES logo for the spine to be identical in shape and color (i hope) to the template standard. also made some spine variants, but there gets to be so many variations now that i'm not sure which ones to submit. like i said; i don't have any ugcs of my own yet, so feedback on what works best here would be much appreciated. such as; will the stuff on the front need to be trimmed back as to avoid spilling over onto the spine? don't wanna upload any other variants other than english/swedish and retail/ugc. maybe custom instead of retail? it's all official stuff, just a little rearranged. 

thought the white bg was boring, so here it is against the uniform gradient bg


if the glow is a little much, here's a more sober outline


plain old white ugc spine


also available with taito's 1988 logo used on the PAL release


also, i've started up a few other ones. this turned out so-so, then i found a better source so i'm redoing it.


and this one is taking stupid long. spent entire days on it and still only about halfway done.

[kaysow]

bucky's been done for a while now, i just got sick of looking at it. ended up being THREE layers of black outlines, which might've been redundant.
currently scanning covers & artbooks and playing around trying to learn a thing or two from people around here. will get back to these eventually, but probably post in showcase or some other thread. the finished ones i'll post to the database once i know i've got a good standard going. so there.

[bluedogrulez]

Kaysow, I think this is a great idea, and I have a request.  The NES Castlevania custom covers (games 1-3) could use some touching up.  First, it would be awesome if the silvery-grey was standardized.  Right now, they all print off differently and one of them (Simon's ?) has pixelated tones.  I'm pretty sure all Konami releases had the same color boxes (and if not, some artistic license in ths regard would be appreciated for uniformity).  

There are also some custom NES covers that lack the publisher on the spine.  It would be great if this were corrected.  (Example:  I think one of the Castlevania's lacks KONAMI on the spine).

I really wish I had the programs and talent to do this myself (someday?), but thanks for considering.  --BDR    

[kaysow]

this procedure can really only be applied to certain kinds of illustrations. painted stuff like the castlevania covers are way too complex, would take weeks to fix, and probably wouldn't end up looking much better than any scan that had been descreened. it's actually way too time consuming already, and i mostly did this just to see if it could be done. but for the covers i make in the future, if i have a good clean scan i'll most certainly turn most elements into clean vectors, like the logos. might do castlevania too, but those in the database actually look pretty great to me already =) maybe you're looking at some other ones tho cuz everything in the database is ugc.

[larryinc64]

If you have time,  would love a vector of the MArio on the NTSC Super Mario Bros 3. There is a rebuilt cover on the site, but the Mario on the front is not quite right, using the Japanese vertion of the art.

[kaysow]

i have one of those lying around. it's not mine tho, and i forget where i got it
http://www.mediafire.com/?8g5ekrpuda3rlex

[shenske]

If you have time,  would love a vector of the MArio on the NTSC Super Mario Bros 3. There is a rebuilt cover on the site, but the Mario on the front is not quite right, using the Japanese vertion of the art.

The retail rebuild i made has the corrections to make it the same as the original box.  The custom i made does not

[kaysow]

oh yeah; as for the japanese boxart, i was thinking of doing something with that eventually. was hoping to get a better source for it first tho, this is the best i've got atm

it's pretty good

[Arseen]

Scans of GBA version's poster: http://www.mediafire.com/?jtvcg9y0iok1x