Xander, these covers are fantastic. Would very much like these to be standard over the other GBA covers for my collection. Any chance of a template or series of uploads to the site? I'm seriously wanting my entire GBA collection to look like this. Thank you for your hard work. =)
Thanks BigSchmid,
The more of these I do, the more nervous I become about all the flaws that still remain with the template. I originally adapted the template from a custom template (
https://vgboxart.com/resource/9730/nintendo-gba-template/ ), but I have remade or adjusted some of its components.
If I were to release a template, I would want to recreate all of the elements from the ground up, and have multiple ESRB icons available to toggle.
Recently, I've also been using actual UPC codes, which I wasn't doing before using this useful tool:
https://barcode.tec-it.com/en/UPCA?data=008888143413 A number of my old box designs all have the same, incorrect, UPC code, before I was made aware of this tool.
Another potential issue is that there isn't exactly a "standard" to adhere to while making these. For the most part, I don't recreate the back covers of games, I try to "standardize" to a title, blurb, 3 bullet points worth of text and two screen shots, but sometimes I deviate from that. So long as my collection looks more or less similar, I tend to be flexible in my approach. Really, I think the main focus should be on the front cover and spine (hence why I've neglected the back cover, in some ways). I want to make beautiful front covers using the highest quality graphics I can find and eliminate some of the stretching and distorting that I see on other box designs (including the overwide silver GBA panel). There's also the added complexity of the EU box size, which I haven't designed anything for just yet.
I really appreciate your reply. As I've now assembled more than 30 of these covers, I'm actually getting to a point where people other than me may actually adopt these for their personal use, which is exciting. I still have some key games/series to get to: Pokemon, F-Zero, Kirby, MegaMan, but I've been very happy with my rate of progress, especially over the past two weeks.
The more responses like this I get, the more likely I will be to assemble a proper template file for general use. I just want to make sure there's adequate demand first to encourage me to spend the time in creating a template of sufficient quality. Again, thanks for the reply!
EDIT: Oh, in case you missed it, my complete selection of covers is found here, for now:
https://xand0r.imgur.com/ I doubt they'd be accepted onto this site in the condition that most of them are in right now. But I haven't inquired thus far. Plus, by any objective standard, I'm a newbie on this site. There are far more entrenched and serious collectors than me who are doing amazing work at making genuine recreations which are certainly better for mass adoption than my personal hobby project of the past 2 years. I wouldn't presume to supplant their efforts.
