Artist's Corner > DS Case Covers
DS SNES Project
TyrannicalFascist:
This project intrigues me. You got me thinking about what this would look like when completed. It's not something I would do on a large scale, but I too like seeing new creative ways to display games.
paqman:
--- Quote from: TyrannicalFascist on September 13, 2013, 06:50:50 PM ---This project intrigues me. You got me thinking about what this would look like when completed. It's not something I would do on a large scale, but I too like seeing new creative ways to display games.
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Oh yeah, it is a nutty idea -- a very nutty time consuming idea :D
I just ordered 10 Red DS cases from Nintendo the other day for about $14 and I'm working on more covers in Photoshop at the moment just to get the ball rolling. I spent the last half of 2012 working on my PS1 and Saturn collections, so I'm gonna take a break and do SNES for awhile. It's a personal tribute to the system for me, really. In 2015 it would have 20 years since I got a SNES. I want everything done by then.
Considering the time and cost in doing this (probably about $6-8 per game after all materials have been accounted for), I'm really trying to only do this for games I REALLY love. At least at first, any way. I refuse to play Earthbound for the first time until I have the case and labels finished and Super Everdrive sitting in my SNES.
It just blows that any time Super Everdrive has a firmware update I'm going to have to update the SD cards of every game haha. Small price to pay to have my games displayed how I want them & still be functional, though.
The only other thing that kind of bugs me is that I can't include soundtrack CDs with the games like I was originally planning on doing when I was going to use CD Poly cases -- where I had plenty of room for an SD card and optical disc. MP3 soundtracks are good enough I suppose. I'll just have to make a CD cover and audio CD separate lol. Yay for more work.
One of the bigger reasons I'm using DS cases is to keep my "cartridge" based stuff distinguished from CD/DVDs/Blu-rays. My DS/3DS/GBA/GB/NES/Genesis/32X/N64/SNES stuff is all getting done DS/3DS cases.
Lastly, if anyone can point me into a direction of a large shelf, I'd appreciate it LOL. I ran out of room awhile ago and just have cases stacked in my closet.
Spiden:
I think it would be cheaper to use a micro sd card, and an adapter. That could give you some extra space for soundtracks and video clips.
Also, why did you choose ds cases? Why not use poly cases?
I already bought a bunch of poly cases for all of my disc based games, music, movies, ect..
I'm just experimenting with different kinds of printing paper right now. But I think making templates
for dvd, blu-ray and audio cd's will be my biggest hurdle.
paqman:
--- Quote from: Spiden on September 14, 2013, 07:00:34 PM ---I think it would be cheaper to use a micro sd card, and an adapter. That could give you some extra space for soundtracks and video clips.
Also, why did you choose ds cases? Why not use poly cases?
I already bought a bunch of poly cases for all of my disc based games, music, movies, ect..
I'm just experimenting with different kinds of printing paper right now. But I think making templates
for dvd, blu-ray and audio cd's will be my biggest hurdle.
--- End quote ---
Micro SD is waay too tiny to keep up with and harder to individually label. It was an idea I thought about for a few weeks, but just normal SD seems to be a nice balance in price, label size, and Everdrive use. Like I said, I'd rather use Compact Flash, but Super Everdrive use would be pointless. I just found a $15 27" CRT and lugged it up two flights of apartment steps (and fell into a bucket of my sweat in the process) -- I'm gonna play games on it LMAO.
I think part of me just wanted OEM Nintendo cases to enhance the "feel" of the case when dealing with classic games considering I'm not using real cartridges. Besides, I can't find red poly cases like I have with DS. I've only seen black, blue, green, and clear. I'd use 3DS cases, but I don't want white.
As far as movies and music templates, that is indeed a hurdle. A bit off topic, but I figured I'd share my ideas. I just wrapped up my CD template and I'm using four disc cases for everything to house multiple formats. First I'm doing the Audio CD -- because I enjoy listening to discs when my MP3 player is somewhere else, secondly I'm burning an MP3 disc for back up purposes (I lost 30GB of music before and that's the worst feeling in the world. At least now I have a tangible back up correctly tagged), and lastly I'm making an extras disc with live performances, music videos, and interviews ripped off YouTube. As far as movies go, I adjust the spine colors according to genre. Blue for action, Red for Horror, Green for documentaries, Pink for drama, etc.. When I have like 300 movies on my shelf, having them ordered by genre then in ABC order will make things tons easier to index.
I usually have to do some heavy photoshop editing for front covers to scale them properly to a poly case format, so that takes a great deal of time, but that's about it. I didn't want to spend days doing one cover.
Just remember to keep your templates simple and easy to work with. Information needs to be easy to find. I keep it in line with other templates and just list the most important info. pertaining to the media. For movies I always put the year released, video specs & resolution, run time, audio specs, format (AVI, MKV, WMV, Retail DVD, Retail Blu-ray, etc), and rating. I paste a synopsis, choose a single still photo, and list the extras and call it a day. All my back covers look the same.
I guess a lot of time was put into this project for me because I didn't use somebody else's poly case template. I had to rig up my own and print out a bajillion test pages and guesstimate adjustments. This is back when I was going to Staples every other day for prints. So glad I got my own printer so if I flub up I don't have to drive all the way home to fix it -- although towards the end of my Staples run I was just lugging my laptop with Photoshop loaded and sitting in the copy and print center LOL. I completely started over about 3-4 times because I made better template ideas, so be sure you're cool with the color scheme and lay out before you go "live" with making covers. I probably wasted around $80 in ink and paper because of it.
It's why I'm still mucking about with my SNES template when I've had this Metroid test printed out since April :P
BTW, I swear by this paper: http://paperworks.com/store/products/paperworks-inkjet-2-side-semi-gloss-8-12x14-48lb180g-50pkg
TyrannicalFascist:
--- Quote from: paqman on September 14, 2013, 08:15:38 PM ---I'd use 3DS cases, but I don't want white.
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This eBay seller sells black 3DS cases. I've been using them for some of my handheld games in 3DS cases:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-VGBR113DSBK-Black-Nintendo-3DS-Replacement-Cases-Boxes-Game-Empty-Gamer-NEW-/161101329391?pt=US_Video_Game_Cases_Bags&hash=item25826333ef