Own a Frenzy arcade game? A couple of questions for ya.
Last night I finished all of the artwork for the Frenzy control panel repro, but there were a couple of details I wanted to throw out to Frenzy owners to get their opinion – a little crowd sourcing.
Frenzy details – Player text / copyright text
First off, here is a small snapshot of the panel artwork finished, as well as a detail. I’m going to print out a full size print just to make sure nothing went severely awry during scanning or checking measurements. If no adjustments needed, color matching next and then color separations. (Button holes filled in with blue.)
The first question I wanted to ask, take a look at this detail of the Stern copyright text, I’ve left guides in for comparison. It is crooked, the top is camel humped, while the bottom of the text is slanted just a degree upwards while the surrounding box is square. At this zoom level, it isn’t as obvious.
This is a detail even I probably wouldn’t be able to see if I still owned my Frenzy, but I wanted to see if you all were ok with straightening those letters out. I think the original intention was for them to be square.
The second question, is if you look at the 1 Player / 2 Players text, you see that the 2 Players text is a touch off center as well. It is a narrow area to work with, but we could probably pull that 2 Players text to the left a 1/32″ or maybe as much as 3/64″ of an inch to give it more breathing room on the right and appear more centered. On such a visible detail though, I plan to leave this as is unless I hear a large majority of Frenzy owners who think otherwise. It’s a little harder to guess on original ‘intentions’ with this detail.
If you have any comments on either of these details, let me know.
Here are some similar arcade posts
- Ms. Pac-man Copyright in Stencil File
- Frenzy reproduction control panels – Progress update
- Bally’s Rally-X Control Panel Artwork Vectorized
- Frenzy repro control panels – printed!
- Pengo CPO Vector Update 1
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Comments
I would correct the Stern copyright text and leave the rest as is. While my brain wants you to correct the player 1 and player 2 issue, it should probably just stay as is.
i’d correct BOTH details, since i’m a perfectionist and WHEN there is a chance to remove slight errors, i’d go for it.
Ideally you would be able to recreate all the flaws of the original. In my opinion it’s details like this — due to printing in the pre-digital age — that give the original item its charm. However I think it would be extremely difficult to recreate the skew to the copyright text without it looking just plain wrong. Therefore I suggest using straight text, and leaving the Player 2 alignment as is.
Ahh the layout days before Ai! I agree with Chris here
I come across this alot when vecotring art as really no art that Ive seen thus far is picture perfect.
letters and logos were sometimes pasted in indivially and the films used were sometimes patched together with smaller elements scotch taped to larger acetated sheets.
which created all kinds of alignment and straightness issues.
Alignment sometimes will get out of wack in the printing process itself there are factors when screening particalry when coming to the last color when you may need to tweak it into postion just to try and trap ALL previous printed colors like the Black for example.
Foodfight for thought
Sometimes duplicating screened flaws may amplify later down the process line.
I agree with Rich and Fuko above. I’d do what makes practical sense and leave the rest alone – it adds to the charm and maintains the original spirit and intent – a “reproduction” not a “re-creation”.
Bill
Rich is right … silkscreen & other manual printing limitations & processes caused lots of imperfections and artifacts like this. But personally, I think stuff like this is part of the charm of 30 year old games. To each their own, but if you’re calling this a “reproduction”, I’m not sure why you would correct anything. Otherwise it’s not a reproduction, it’s a completely “new” piece of artwork that you created. Not the same, at least IMHO, but what do I know.
And that is why, 9 out of 10 times, I’ll keep my scratched and dinged original over a “repro”….including this one.
I can understand being a perfectionist, but in my opinion, this isn’t our artwork to correct, fix or modify. Why not let’s fix Mona Lisa’s nose, or reattach the hand of Michelangelo’s David too while we’re at it?
Yeah i dont see a problem with having the STERN letters alighned to be straight. I believe that was there intension to keep everything straight and true but it appears to be a result of a slight imperfection during the manufacturing of the times i suspect. As for the 2P issues. I would just leave that alone.
I view this like most car collectors. Improving over the original with respect to quality is the gold standard. For example, a car with an original quality paint job would not win the concours judging category. In this case, fix the problems as you suggest.
I hope the Berzek panel turns out as nice.
Mark Hooks
After taking a peak at my berzerk panel, it has the same layout on the 1 & 2 player buttons, I’d leave it as is.
Looks fantastic, Jeff! Thanks for rockin’ the pixel pen!
I like that word, charm. I think if La Gioconda’s portrait had been found in an attic left to rot, a few people in the know would want to somehow restore it to see the master’s vision as he once saw it. ‘In the know’ as well would imply the delicateness of a Q-Tip as opposed to the use of a drill (as impatient hacking indeed tests our sense of charm). But like all bombed-out sacred structures on this planet, the proof that it was there is even more important. As a purist and a perfectionist, I always hate to see an improvement where there shouldn’t be. It really is all in the details. My vote is to keep the player text charm and straighten the Stern. 🙂
Leave the Player 1 and 2 as is. The Stern logo I don’t think will be noticeable so go with whatever is easiest.
outside of colors I thought this was the same as Berzerk no? did I miss something?
If you had the art and films for berzerk I thought it was a matter of simply changing the colors in the screens when they go to print. So why the art revisions??
Hey guys, this is Nick from Arcade Hunters. On our last trip to FunSpot we took some pictures of the games that they fitted with new joysticks. I looked through the pictures and I’m pretty sure this is the Frenzy machine from FunSpot. They shrink the pictures down on Picasa, so let me know if you would like the higher quality version.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_qn4YCRmzW9U/S3okorTl17I/AAAAAAAAAWQ/UaBkJcly_bg/s512/PA190034.JPG
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February 4, 2010
You asked for answers from Frenzy owners. I don’t have one. However, if it were me I’d leave those 2 details as they were. I think that’s how I’d answer this type of question for any repro though. To me, unless the problem is specific to your one original piece and is not the norm, I’d rather see the repro be identical in every way including flaws.