TF's Nintendo Fusion Covers for ShadowFox Cases

[Kaiede]

Only one new one from me this week: Super Metroid. There is some nicer cover art available for this one, but it's been watermarked. Need to track down a better cover at some point, but for now, I didn't want to hold things up.

For some reason I can't save NES covers as JPGs. Is this just me or something wrong with the template?

Shouldn't be anything with the template that can prevent that. Especially if it works for PNG for example. Might just be a bug with that version of PS.

[E0N]

Got a whole bunch of covers done over the weekend!



I know Kaiede got to put up his Super Metroid cover before me, but I thought I'd put mine up anyways for anyone who wants it with the original NA box art.

And link to NES covers folder: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rxhidj2nbdov8s9/AAActwfLLRfraHJSO31qvyHCa?dl=0

[TyrannicalFascist]

Excellent covers, both of you! I've added them all to the first post.

I printed out my NES covers and despite some printer issues, I think they turned out great! (forgive my phone's camera quality)



The only thing I don't like, now that I've seen them lined up, is the spine logos for SMB + Duck Hunt and SMB + Duck Hunt + World Class Track Meet look really boring being all red and the latter having those giant slashes. So I've updated them to be a little more interesting.

[Kaiede]

This one may save me the trouble of doing my own take on it.

I know Kaiede got to put up his Super Metroid cover before me, but I thought I'd put mine up anyways for anyone who wants it with the original NA box art.

I actually think either one works pretty well, and mine is intentionally leaning more towards the Japanese release, yes. The only critique I have of these new covers really is that personally, I like the desaturated backgrounds. Letting the color bleed out is an artistic decision, and may make some of the covers pop a bit better, but it does break consistency. Up to you which way you want to go with it.

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And man do they look good printed out. Hows the fit, TF?

[Vaulter98c]

I go away for 9 days and this thread blows up! Great work guys, man I can't wait for these to come in so I can case up the SNES ones, I may start switching over the NES too

[TyrannicalFascist]

And man do they look good printed out. Hows the fit, TF?

They fit perfectly!  Everything looks great. I ended up purchasing the Red River paper suggested here, and it looks professional (printer issues aside).  I can't wait for the SNES and N64 cases so we can see many more of them lined up!

If anyone else prints any out, please share pictures!

[Vaulter98c]

+1 for that paper. I wasted a ton of ink printing on walmart paper. Boy the difference it made

[Kaiede]

They fit perfectly!  Everything looks great. I ended up purchasing the Red River paper suggested here, and it looks professional (printer issues aside).  I can't wait for the SNES and N64 cases so we can see many more of them lined up!

If anyone else prints any out, please share pictures!

Yeah, while I used shenske's dimensions, I didn't get a chance to test the dimensions directly. Good to hear it works. I'll take photos, once my SNES cases come in. I wound up breaking down and getting an inkjet (a photo model that was on rebate, since I also do photography) to compliment my laser printer, and will see how it handles these covers too. 

[E0N]

The only critique I have of these new covers really is that personally, I like the desaturated backgrounds. Letting the color bleed out is an artistic decision, and may make some of the covers pop a bit better, but it does break consistency. Up to you which way you want to go with it.

Yeah I did a compression between your, TF's and my covers and found that mine stick out a bit too much, so I've updated all of my covers to make them look more in line.

And I noticed the front page link to my SNES covers goes to my folder with all my covers, the SNES specific folder can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ydld37wgs8ia1jg/AAAYl8Tz6NDtZtYZq_Y0VD3Oa?dl=0

[Vaulter98c]

I don't know if you care but there is a typo on the last line of your fzero cover. savers lol

I don't care because I doubt I'd ever see it again but figured you'd want to know, some folks can get picky about that, not sure if you're one of em lol

Good stuff tho, thanks for the covers!

[JakeHC]

The only critique I have of these new covers really is that personally, I like the desaturated backgrounds. Letting the color bleed out is an artistic decision, and may make some of the covers pop a bit better, but it does break consistency. Up to you which way you want to go with it.

Yeah I did a compression between your, TF's and my covers and found that mine stick out a bit too much, so I've updated all of my covers to make them look more in line.

And I noticed the front page link to my SNES covers goes to my folder with all my covers, the SNES specific folder can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ydld37wgs8ia1jg/AAAYl8Tz6NDtZtYZq_Y0VD3Oa?dl=0

Is that having them desaturated and then having the blend at 30%? I can't quite remember what the exact term was but I followed the guide in the psd and that's how Hagane turned out.

[Kaiede]

Is that having them desaturated and then having the blend at 30%? I can't quite remember what the exact term was but I followed the guide in the psd and that's how Hagane turned out.

There is a layer in the template that tells you what to do, but some details on how I do it: Desaturating it to B&W is the must. Having it set to Multiply rather than Normal blending works 95-99% of the time. Having the opacity set to 35% is a really good guide, but not what will work all the time.


EDIT:

I printed out my NES covers and despite some printer issues, I think they turned out great! (forgive my phone's camera quality)

So, I'm curious what printer issues you have. As I mentioned, I picked up a photo printer and am noticing that a couple of the covers have major colors that are outside the gamut of even these printers. Super Mario World for example, has too strong a green and winds up a fair bit darker when printed to get the green into the gamut of the printer/paper combination. This is going to be particularly harsh on the matte and semi-gloss papers we tend to use. This is partly what we get for not soft proofing I guess?

[TyrannicalFascist]

I can't speak to Super Mario World as I haven't printed any SNES covers yet, but I meant that I was personally having issues with my printer - i.e. low ink, my printer is crappy quality. But I've never had any major issues printing the UGC or BitBox versions of these covers on inkjet before. Sometimes there are instances where a color appears a little darker but I don't recall any where it was enough that it seemed drastically different. Now laser printers have given me all sorts of trouble printing these and other covers with very dark colors.

Before I got super busy, back around January, I went to the Fed Ex print shop hoping to test print and eventually have all my covers printed there so I didn't have to mess with it. Unfortunately they were all too dark (and their machines really wanted to resize the covers too) so I gave up and went back to my inkjet. If any covers print out really odd, let me know and I'll adjust them.

[Kaiede]

I can't speak to Super Mario World as I haven't printed any SNES covers yet, but I meant that I was personally having issues with my printer - i.e. low ink, my printer is crappy quality. But I've never had any major issues printing the UGC or BitBox versions of these covers on inkjet before. Sometimes there are instances where a color appears a little darker but I don't recall any where it was enough that it seemed drastically different. Now laser printers have given me all sorts of trouble printing these and other covers with very dark colors.

Before I got super busy, back around January, I went to the Fed Ex print shop hoping to test print and eventually have all my covers printed there so I didn't have to mess with it. Unfortunately they were all too dark (and their machines really wanted to resize the covers too) so I gave up and went back to my inkjet. If any covers print out really odd, let me know and I'll adjust them.

Isn't a big deal, the worst is Super Mario World, but it's mostly the profile Red River has for the Zepplin Semi-Gloss has a tiny gamut. It actually prints better if I use their premium matte profile with the paper. Weird.


EDIT: I wound up with a copy of Star Fox recently, any plans on updating your cover for that one, TF?

[TyrannicalFascist]

Yep, I'll move it to the top of my to do list.