Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom CPO Reproductions
That’s a mouthful, and something you wouldn’t sit down and think “Hey, there’s a big money maker”. But that is what makes this Buck Rogers project so cool! I’ve been in touch on and off with Shaun for over a year, usually over a period like that an artwork project gets dropped and is never finished. But he got back in touch, sent me photos of the overlay and said everything is done and ready to roll if anyone else needs one.
The control panel overlay looks like the gameplay
If you have never heard of this game before, check out the Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom entry on Klov. There appears to be two cockpits, the one on the top is maybe a prototype version? I see the cockpit on the bottom is shown in both the Buck Rogers Flyer and in photos on the Spies archive. But I digress.
The Buck Rogers upright is what we’re concerned with, here is a shot showing the artwork for the full overlay;
Shaun had a digital reproduction of this overlay printed. So no, they’re not screened. But this game would not be able to support a run of screened CPOs, so this is the next best thing. Shaun works for ILM out in California, so while I might be over generalizing to say that he is a graphics expert, tracing some artwork in Illustrator was probably not a difficult task. I’ve got some detail level shots so you can see the original scan;
And the quality of the tracing (guide lines included);
As well as some shots of the CPO itself in hand.
If you need a reproduction control panel overlay for your game you can email Shaun directly or leave a comment below and I’ll have Shaun get in touch with additional information.
If you have played a cockpit Buck Rogers, either version, leave us a comment and tell us what it is like, either the gameplay and how it stacks up against other cockpits, or how the artwork looks in person. I’d be curious to hear, having never seen one myself.
Here are some similar arcade posts
- Pengo CPO Vector Update 3 – Tracing Complete!
- Pengo CPO Scanned
- Pengo CPO Vector Update 2
- Pengo CPO Vector Update 1
- Atari Football Sideart Reproductions
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
I might be very interested in a CP overlay and side art, I’ve got a BRPOZ upright that I’m trying to bring back from the dead. I bought it for $1 on Ebay as amongst other things the cabinet has significant water damage and the CP overlay is in none too good a shape either, I’m trying to solve its electronic issues at the moment and once done I will probably have to wipe out the otherwise intact side art in order to properly fix the cab damage, or I may just build a new one from scratch.
Andy D
If you haven’t already, email Shaun then with the link provided to see if he can print you an overlay. Side art could always be done I am sure on contract by Shaun, or by me unless you know how to prepare a piece of artwork for printing.
I’d hate to bug the guy prematurely, because it might be a quite a while before I actually buy them as money is tight to say the least right now. There’s a lot I’ve got to straighten out before spending $ on artwork makes sense, I was looking at the cab last night and the only thing that makes sense is to build a new one from scratch, which shouldn’t be too tough as it’s not a complicated design. As far as the electronics go I’ve confirmed the original monitor is screwed up in some major way, and apparently the main board has some video problems itself as it shows a scrolling wave in its picture when hooked to a good monitor, also there’s no sound as the IQ deprived previous owner removed the amp PCB and connected it directly to the speaker, duh. All hope is not lost, needless to say, I’ve got work ahead of me, maybe over the weekend I’ll play with it some more. 😉 The upright cab pic on KLOV is of mine, somebody apparently took it from the Ebay listing I bought it from, I recognise the hacked in credit button and some of the other damage.
Hey do you think an original control panel overlay and side art would help Shaun at all, assuming I was able to remove them without totally destroying them?
I have no idea, I’d email him. Probably not the overlay, but possibly the sideart for Buck Rogers. Otherwise, I’d scan the sideart myself if you wanted to send them to me on your dime and I was able to keep it.
I tried emailing Shaun a few weeks ago, I haven’t gotten a response yet. I’ve managed to get one of the sidearts off more or less intact, it’s in three pieces and was missing a little on the borders. If I were to send it to you what would you do with it? It’s going to need some work to make it reproducable.
I am always more than happy to take carefully peeled off arcade sideart to then scan for preservation. But if someone wants it back, they need to pay to have it shipped back. Digitally scanned files can be provided.
Beyond that, once it comes to actually vector tracing or raster refurbishing the artwork, I am always looking for new contract work.
Leave a comment
Your email address is never displayed and cannot be spammed. If your comments are excessively self-promotional you will be banned from commenting. Read our comment privacy policy.
May 16, 2009
Thanks Jeff… just an update – the pics above are a slightly old version for the art which is updated now as some details were tweaked / missing from the test print (ship shadow, some speed lines etc), but as you can see it looks pretty good.
I will also be producing sideart for the same cab (a way more complex task if you know the artwork in question!) in the near future and will be sure to post it here.
A note on the CP, although digital its extremely good quality, on very hard wearing textured vinyl, adhesive backed, UV and scratch protected. If you need more details, get in touch. Pricing will be in the $30-$40 range for the CPO, I am not making any money from this, I’ll do it at cost as I know theres likely to be a relatively small demand.