Book review: Make your own Arcade Restoration Artwork
beaver
Some of you may know classicarcadegrafix.com. Well I clicked on their
website last month, and found out that they are no longer printing
artwork (side-art, translites, overlays, etc). Instead, they are
selling their equipment and their graphics library, and they wrote a
book to teach others how they do their production of arcade and pinball
artwork. Since I really like the technical aspects of pinball
restoration, I bought the book immediately, and have read it. This is
a chapter by chapter summary.
1. The Beginning
How they gradually got started. Basically with a wide Epson printer
and a laminator, and making side art and CPOs. They then bought out
Pinball Connection's graphic library, and obtained their domain name
arcadegrafix.com. After one year, they grew from an apartment to a
3000 sq ft facility.
2. Legal Smegal
A frank discussion of the authors' views of the legality of reproducing
artwork. It includes his experience with Wayne and the Williams rights
holders. They basically got the run around and gave up on licensing
WMS artwork. The situation regarding each of the former arcade and
pinball manufacturers is discussed regarding how and if the rights are
enforced, and to what degree they are enforced.
3.Digital Artwork
How artwork is acquired by scanning or photographing. They used the
HP4600, which I use as well. It is a scanner that can lie flat on the
object to be scanned, so that very large objects can be processed. It
confirmed my finding that 300 dpi is optimal for pinball work. They
recommend only TIFF as file format, not JPG.
4. Digital Touch-ups
This chapter contains many excellent Photoshop techniques and tips, and
ends with a point by point summary.
5. Adobe Illustrator
A chapter devoted to this software package for Vectorizing graphics.
6. Customizing
Shows ideas on generating your own custom artwork. For example,
creating a sideart from a CPO. Tips and ideas on generating custom
sideart.
7. Printing artwork at a sign shop.
An explanation of the lingo to communicate with a sign shop on how to
print your artwork. Some of it is not explained, but I managed to
understand most of it.
8. Printing artwork in your shop.
I skimmed this chapter, but essentially it is for the person that
decides to own their own professional equipment. How to calibrate with
a spot scanner, keeping ink fresh, etc. Doing this is outside my price
range.
9. Printers
A discussion of some good printers to use and appropriate media.
10. Post Printing
Tools for finishing the job. Laminators, cutters, etc.
11. Other opportunities
With all this equipment, what other work can you go after?
12. Silk Screening
How to go about hiring a shop to produce silk screened materials.
13. Scanners
A separate chapter to go more in depth about scanners. Incidentally,
it confirmed my suspicion why backglasses scan slightly out of focus as
I found when I scanned my Space Shuttle backglass.
14. Home Printing
A short chapter (half page) with some tips on printing small artwork
(decals, etc), or printing large artwork in sections.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and learning the technical
details. I highly recommend it. One curious ommision is no mention of
color lasers. I have printed small overlays with excellent results
(see my MM and TOTAN pages), and think they deserve mention.
My copy had a printing defect (one page bound upside-down), and the
author's sent me a new copy at no charge. Now, I have a collector's
item 8-). My own Inverted Jenny.
Edward Cheung CARGPB26
www.edcheung.com
John Schlarb
arcade flyers DVD:
When it came, I was very disappointed to find that I could only browse
low-resolution versions of the scans. The program allows you to export each
flyer in full resolution, but only one at a time. If you wanted to just
browse all the flyers at full resolution, there's no easy way to do this.
They're all embedded in a proprietary database file.
I also found that http://www.arcadeflyers.net/ has a lot of what I was
interested in anyway, free and a lot less hassle.
- John
Fred Kemper
--
Fred
TX
CARGPB#8
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"beaver" <e...@edcheung.com> wrote
...
scott
Ed, great page on your Totan.
I am going to contact Jeff at Classic Arcades inc to hopefully make a
small overlay for my Totan for a wear spot that is right infront of the
ball drop trough. Also a nice size gash on the front corner of the
cabinet were there is some artwork.
Scott
Detroit
beaver
http://www.classicarcadegrafix.com/sunshop/index.php/action/item/id/13592/
The book is $30 + shipping.
Edward Cheung CARGPB26
www.edcheung.com