Where to buy artwork to restore a Zookeeper

Being immersed in the arcade game collecting scene I forget sometimes that there is the average user who has an arcade game but starts in Google to try to find reproduction artwork. In just the last year Zookeeper cabinet artwork has been reproduced, so here is a little bit of history, some relevant posts and where you can buy the artwork today.

Taito Zookeeper artwork at Gamestencils.com

Here is the question (Going to try to more public answers to questions due to the volume that I get)

I am still looking for the Zoo Keeper artwork to paint a cab. ~Jeffrey

The side artwork for Zookeeper is particularly detailed, there is a ton of little texture in the bricks and was quite a project for anyone to vector. Originally, vectorzorg started to trace the Zookeeper artwork which you can see on his WIP (Work in Progress) page. I had emailed him to see if we could get the Zookeeper Illustrator file in the hands of someone who would be able to finish it.

Eventually, Brian Jones got his hands on the artwork and finished it up. Here are a couple of posts from Brian’s arcade game blog – RGVAC talking about finishing the brick detail , and then plotting a test stencil of the artwork . Brian then went on to use Illustrator to trace the kickplate artwork .

The plan was to offer a stencil set for purists to more authentically restore their cabinets, as well as some screenprinted vinyl for those collectors who just wanted to apply and be done. If you want to go the stencil route, which I believe is just a one color stencil, you can buy both the kickplate and sideart currently on Gamestencils.com

• Zookeeper Kickplate Stencils
• Zookeeper Sideart Stencils – Complete with color codes

From there, there have been some posts on Coinopspace about the progress on the Zookeeper silkscreen artwork.

• Zookeeper Sideart Coming Soon – Test Prints at This Old Game
• Zookeeper Sideart Phase 1 Blog Post – Photos showing Kickplate Screening

The sideart has not been finished as of yet. Take a look at the blog post, and you will see that I asked for a progress update the first part of July. I would guess though that the sideart will be finished in the next three months, and it sounds like Gamestencils may offer a complete ‘Zookeeper’ artwork pack. What that entails, I don’t know, at least the sideart and kickplate. Hopefully Brian can comment here.

Zookeeper Control Panel Overlays

If you remember, back in the day, Arcade Renovations did Zookeeper CPOs – the very first piece of the game to be reproduced. That was back in 2002. CPOs are floating around out there, somewhere. Arcade Renovations ran large quantities of artwork, we estimate at least 100 pieces of those CPOs, you might be able to network and find a collector who is sitting on one, waiting to sell for the right price. Brian might have some that he is including in his package.

But my guess is that Brian has the vector versions of the bezel and marquee. Either he’s vectored them himself or someone else has. He may be running some inkjet versions of both to include in the package, but that is extreme speculation. But scans of both the Zookeeper bezel and marquee exist at the Classic Arcade Graphix library.

Even replace sections of your Zookeeper cabinet

Brian just recently wrote a blog post talking about the first cabinet he has cut from scratch from a CNC router. Maybe his plans for his ‘art pack’ are fully artwork laden cabinets and the collector has to track down the inner artwork and guts.

All artwork exists to restore your Zookeeper

In some format or another. Either silkscreened, stencils, or scans. If you have the knowledge to touch up scanned artwork you can get the bezel and marquee printed at Mamemarquees. Heck, Scott over there might have cleaned up versions. It looks like someone has done some cleaning of the marquee scans because those files are also available at the poorly maintained website Localarcade.com.

Know different? Has the Zookeeper marquee or bezel ever been repro’d in small quantities? Leave a comment, let us know.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Zookeeper Sideart Stencils
• Stencils to restore your Stern Scramble arcade game
• Gunsmoke CPO artwork update – final
• Pengo CPO Vector Update 1
• Interesting Arcade Links – 2008-11-02

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