Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts

Dreamcast Covers that Go Hard (and Some More that Can Go Straight in the Bin)

Like the greatest album covers in the world, some games make a great impression even when sitting on a shelf. Whilst previews in the media, video trailers and word of mouth are vitally important, it would be wise not to underestimate the immediate impact a game’s cover can have on those with more impressionable minds. Generic artwork or uninspiring stylistic choices may be fine if the game has loads of pre-release hype or a big name license, but stick some glorious artwork from a talented artist on the cover and you're near enough guaranteed some extra interest.

The Dreamcast's small but beautiful library of games is jam-packed with turn-of-the-millennium style and innovation, and this is present in some of the artwork which adorned gaming shelves worldwide. Some are of course, iconic - Ulala's presence on the Space Channel 5 artwork, the striking simplicity of the PAL/Japanese covers of Crazy Taxi, Shenmue's epicness - but there are some that deserve more attention. These are works of art - they deserve to be blown up to a larger size, framed and hung in the finest of art galleries. So it's time to put my best gallery curator hat on and showcase why I think these fifteen choice cuts of Dreamcast cover art glory are examples worthy of so much praise, followed by five duds that deserve the complete opposite...

All covers used in this article come from Sega Retro, unless stated otherwise. Let's get into them...


The Dreamcast covers that go hard...

Spawn: In The Demon's Hand

I could have picked any of the cover variations of this release, as they are all absolutely epic in nature, but I've chosen the standard Japanese cover. Looking more like some great, unknown fantasy war metal album cover, this puts Todd McFarlane's comic masterpiece centre stage with a swirling mass of metal, cloak and spikes. Spawn is the ultimate badass antihero, an imposing demonic hellspawn, and a character that is designed to be visually interesting in whatever angle, pose or situation he is depicted in. As a game, In the Demon's Hand falls a little short, but the cover art surely must have led to a few extra sales.

The artwork for the standard Japanese version, as well as that used on other examples of the game, seem to have been taken from Spawn issue 95. The limited first print edition of the game released in Japan came with a cardboard slipcase with artwork similar to the US and PAL releases - all of which are based on the cover of 95.

The Japanese limited first print edition slipcase artwork (Credit: PlayAsia)

The US cover has the same artwork as both the Japanese slipcase and the PAL release. It's a bit cleaner than the standard Japanese cover, and not as impactful.

The cover art for Spawn issue 95, the artwork of which was the basis for the game covers above.

Mars Matrix (Japanese cover)

Takumi's underrated shooter delivers a depth to the genre that's unrivaled on the console, and has the best cover of any shooter on the system (particularly the Japanese version's cover). I will take no criticism of that viewpoint! This cover is a dynamic, colourful burst of energy which breaks away from the usual clichés seen on the covers of other shoot 'em ups, whilst never going so far out there that you'd be confused as to what genre of game it actually is. Taken as a whole, it's a piece of art; from the fonts used for the title (to continue with the metal references of this article, this text wouldn't look out of place as the logo for some sort of cosmic math metal band), to the colour gradation, to the sleek sci-fi lines and shapes in the background. The US cover (below) isn't awful either, but it lacks the eye-punching appeal that the Japanese release displays.

The US version does many things the Japanese version did, but the change of colours diminishes the appeal somewhat. Still, a decent attempt.

Using DALL·E mini to create AI Dreamcast images from hell

Good old artificial intelligence. If it's not deciding to wipe out humanity for our own good or powering our Teslas, it's listening to our conversations and plotting ways serve us with adverts for things we never knew we needed. There is another important use for AI though - creating cursed Dreamcast related images. 

DALL·E mini is a prototype 'artifical intelligence model that generates images from any prompt you give,' and so naturally isn't limited to solely spitting out Giger-esque renditions of Dreamcast consoles and games - the very nature of the tool created by Boris Dayma et al is that you can punch whatever you like into the devil's own suggestion box and DALL·E mini will attempt to render approximations of what your twisted mind has concocted.

All joking aside, it really is a very clever little program, and is well worth playing around with if you have some time to kill. With this in mind, here for your delectation/utter disgust are some of the more 'imaginative' images DALL·E mini thrust into existence with a little prompting from yours truly. Viewer discretion is advised.

'Sega Dreamcast'

'Jet Set Radio'


'Shenmue'

Artist Owns Inktober With Series Of Shenmue Watercolours

Inktober is an online initiative which challenges the more artistic among us to pick up a pen (or a pencil/brush/pile of elephant dung) and create a new work for every day of the month of October. It seems to be a really popular endeavour and social media is usually awash with all manner of awesome drawings around this time every year. You can find out more about Inktober here.

The reason I bring Inktober up though, is because one rather talented artist (who also happens to be a wrestler, by the way) has been steadily tweeting watercolour renditions of scenes from Yu Suzuki's epic Shenmue. The scenes will no doubt be familiar to anyone with more than a passing interest in Ryo Hazuki's adventure, and there are lots of references to some of the more humorous aspects - as well as the more poignant moments - of the game.
Artist Joe Klander - also known by his wrestling alter ego Uncle Clutch - kindly allowed us the reproduce his sterling efforts here, and we also asked him about why he chose to bring Shenmue to life through the power of watercolours:

Check Out This Awesome Lo-fi Dreamcast Box Art

The title pretty much says it all. These were created by artist Corey Thompson and actually date back to 2015. However, coolness transcends both the constructs we frail humans label 'time' and 'space,' hence my sharing them here in 2017. Anyway, stop reading this literary offal. Instead, point your eyes downwards and gorge them on Corey's sumptuous, moist, and downright delectable doodles.
Some bonafide Dreamcast classics there, right? Well, apart from Blue Stinger. Which is actually the best game on the Dreamcast and therefore has its own class which is above 'classic.' Nice Jet Grind/Set Radio cover there too, which gives me a great way to segue into this other GIF on Corey's site which depicts a stylised Dreamcast connected to a stylised TV...playing Jet Grind/Set Radio:
Check out Corey's website here for more artwork.

Digital Artists Create Jet Set Radio Tags For New York Yami-Ichi 'Internet Black Market'

The second self-styled Internet Yami-Ichi was held in New York on the 6th November 2016, and was a celebration of all things 'internet-ish.' For those not in the know, The Internet Yami-Ichi in NY2 was a sort of flea market where creators of predominantly digital art and crafts gathered to sell their wares, and to me at least looks like a really cool and intriguing concept. From the official website:

The Internet Yami-Ichi (Internet Black Market) is a flea market which deals "Internet-ish" things, face-to-face, in actual space. Both flea markets and the Internet are fanatical and chaotic mixes of the amazing and useless.  In the Internet Yami-Ichi both the wills and desires which brought us to create the Internet, and the wills and desires we picked up are salvaged to be shared in a social space.
Everything from art based on popular memes to the more bizarre aspects of internet folklore are on display for visitors to the free event to purchase, with many items created as one-offs solely for this gathering. The reason we're reporting on this event (apart from the fact that it sounds really cool) is that a collective of digital artists got together to create something truly special for Internet Yami-Ichi in NY2: a VMU full of bespoke graffiti tags for use in Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast.

Dream Art

Can games be art? I’d like to say that it’s an age old question, but to say that would make me a complete liar as games are not an ‘age old’ medium. I guess computers, which is essentially what games consoles are at their core, could be described as ‘age old,’ but as usual I’m side tracking myself in a quagmire of completely irrelevant horse crap before I’ve even started to get to the point.

Can games be art? Well, I suppose they can. How is an amazing and emotionally-charged still image rendered on canvas with oil paints any different to a similarly powerful image created on a screen with polygons and pixels? Without getting too bogged down in my own half-cooked philosophizing, there are many, many examples of games and art in a traditional sense crossing over – just take a look at pixel art or bead art in the physical sense, and games like Okami in the gaming sense. But what about gaming hardware? What about the physical machines that we as gamers, all employ as tools to enjoy our favourite pastime? Can consoles themselves be considered as pieces of industrial design art? I’d like to say that yes they can. There are some really good-looking games machines, controllers and removable media out there and they have all undergone a complex system of internal design before being finalised and released to the public. Some games machines do look better than others and their physical forms have cemented themselves in the minds of many gamers, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.


Everyone knows what a Sony PlayStation looks like for example (if you don't, then apologies - there's one just up there). Likewise with a Sega Mega Drive. The designs of those systems have embedded themselves in popular culture. On the flip side, the Atari Jaguar with a CD unit on top is often referred to as looking like a toilet, regardless of the fact that the Jaguar base system (minus the CD drive) is one of the better-looking games consoles from the past. Why am I rambling about all this though? Well, I’ve created a nice piece of art myself. Dreamcast art, in fact. Dream art. Hmm. Not sure if that works…but look here, me laddo:


These are images of my tiny Dreamcast in an egg that I got off eBay a few years ago. I did a post about it here. It’s been sat in a box in a cupboard for a while and only the other day did I think to myself – why don’t I do something with it?! So I did. I went down to Wilkinson and bought a deep picture frame – this one, in fact:


And then I pillaged a bit of promotional guff from one of my NTSC-J DC games; in this case it was a square flyer out of the Virtua Fighter 3tb box. I then combined the items together as if I was a regular Jill Valentine and came up with this rather lovely piece of post-modern, neo-classical, baroque, brutalist awesomeness:

Same size as the Mona Lisa. True story.
I was toying with the idea of putting a little light in the top of the frame and having it lit up, but for now it looks just great on the mantelpiece. And there it shall stay until I can afford to have a full-size bronze statue of myself constructed and erected instead.

Pimp My 'Cast

Chances are, if you collect retro consoles you’re likely to own at least one beige-coloured piece of hardware. And the chances are that, if you’re reading this site, you own a beige Sega console. And that beige console is more than likely a Dreamcast. How do I know this? Magic, naturally, with a slight hint of mystical intuition. One of the more common problems I’ve noticed with the hallowed Dreamcast (yes, aside from the controller port fuse blowing) is that unless you keep it in the box and only ever get it out for special occasions (you know, like Christmas or a family funeral), it will eventually start to ‘yellow.’ Yellowing is what happens to lightly coloured plastic over time, where the chemicals that make up the dye in the plastic react with UV light and begin to break down, thus giving the material a tired and well...yellow appearance. And frankly, it looks shit. Add that to all the knocks and scuffs that build up over time (over a decade now, actually), and your Dreamcast can end up looking pretty sorry.

There are several remedies to this. First, you could attempt to ‘bleach’ your system’s shell as this Youtuber demonstrates...but that malarkey looks pretty dangerous to me - and besides, caustic chemicals do not mix well with hands that constantly drop cups of tea onto new carpets. Cough.

Secondly, you could spend a small fortune on one of those replacement cases that regularly pop up on eBay for fairly reasonable prices...but are located in Venezuela and so cost £30 to ship to the UK (granted, it may be cheaper to ship if you live closer to Venezuela but damn that’s expensive shipping). The Dreamcast shell is fairly easy to take apart and remove from the internal workings, so if you don’t mind spending the equivalent of a fortnight’s worth of food shopping on shipping costs, this is a fairly good way of pimping your Dreamcast.

But there is a third remedy. Enter DCJY reader Mike. He does shit like this to Dreamcasts:

Skies of Arcadia-cast

That right there isn’t one of those console stickers you just peel off and apply to your console - it’s a full on professionally applied vinyl coating. And you can have pretty much any design you want:

Jet Set/Grind Radio-cast

How is it done? I’ll let the man himself explain:

“Basically I work for a graphics and vehicle wrapping company, wrapping everything from race cars to motorbike helmets. I actually work in the finishing department. This involves cutting vinyl graphics, laminating prints, getting race car kits etc ready to fit, mounting custom graphics to Foamex and diabond panels etc.

For wrapping the Dreamcasts I first use an HD or similar quality image - this ensures that the picture doesn't look pixelated at all or blurry when upsized to fit the console. It's then down to the printing and artwork department to retouch the image (maybe change the colours slightly, resize it, upscale it etc). The picture can then be printed on cast vinyl in one of the HP Designjet L65500 printers (which are serious bits of kit), and it then comes to my department to be 'finished,' which in this case involves laminating it with some cast Arlon laminate, then trimming and applying to the Dreamcast. 

Placement is key to making the console look cool (you don't want to have an image of say Shenmue where Ryo's face is half off the console), and once you've got placement sorted apply the graphics and heat around all the different levels of the console. Trim carefully around the lid etc to ensure the join looks good. Then it's just a case of popping any air bubbles and trimming the edges and recesses nicely.”

I think you’ll agree that these custom Dreamcasts look pretty damned sweet, and as any image can be applied using the technique detailed in Mike’s explanation, you could have the world’s only Spirit Of Speed 1937 Dreamcast. Or not.





















If you’d like to have your Dreamcast transformed - hell, go crazy and get a top-down view of a Sega Saturn or Neo Geo printed on it! - drop me an email via the link in my profile and I’ll supply contact details for Mike and his factory of wonders.

Art (Spin) Attack

Ever fancied owning a piece of game art? A hand-drawn portrait of Super Magnetic Neo perhaps? Or what about an original oil on canvas rendition of a scene from Crazy Taxi? Eh? Well, if you have - your luck is in. Well, sort of. Before anyone beats me to it, yes, I stole this story off the BBC News website, and to be fair it's only very weakly linked to anything to do with the Dreamcast...but the feature's title is Sonic and Lara: Video game concept art sold for charity, so I guess it's relevant. If you can't already guess from the aforementioned headline, there's going to be an auction of gaming concept art held at (well, after) the London Games Festival Art Exhibition. Here's one of the Sonic concept sketches that's up for auction:

Framed and signed by Yuji Uekawa. This'd look good in anyone's living room.

The range of stuff up for sale is pretty impressive, and covers all genres and platforms - the Arkham City stuff is particularly good, although not all of the art up for sale is of such a high standard: be warned Moshi Monsters do feature. From what I can tell from the website, the actual exhibition is over - they're just auctioning off the art in batches now. Be interesting to see what the Sonic art goes for. Might even make a bid myself, even more so if it's at £1.78 with 30 seconds to go. Ebay skills, don't fail me now!

Exclusive Rush Rush Rally Racing Wallpaper! Ooh!

The reason it's exclusive is pretty simple: I drew it. I was going to hold off on releasing this until the Rummage review was ready (will be at the start of the video), but instead I thought it may tide you over until the review is ready, which I'm not sure when that will be because I haven't started recording it yet, want to get decent enough at the game to show plenty of it! I've provided the wallpaper in plenty of shapes and sizes: find them below!

New Dreamcast 2 details!

Look at those specs! HD-GD ROM! A 1 Terabite Harddrive! Erm...what ever those other features say! Ok, not really, this is just some art I found over at Pixia. It's a pretty neat place to find odd Japanese fan art like that, and this rather excellent piece below. Click it to full view and see if you can recognize everyone on it!


EDIT: Another one, why not? This one is probably the only time I've ever seen anyone illustrate Seaman and Ulala IN THE SAME PICTURE.

Awesome art and video - Shenmue - I'm still waiting


What a cool mural! And the music was from the "Beats of Rage" Dreamcast homebrew game.



Dreamcast fans are the coolest.

Long live the undead console.

Your Dreamcast is still alive *art*


Your Dreamcast is still alive by ~BiBiLeTanuki on deviantART

Sweet Dreamcast art from BiBiLeTanuki (aka Blinky).

I don't know if this has been featured before but I wanted to share it because it was so sweet. Once again it proves how inspiring and artful the Dreamcast can be.

Truly, the Dreamcast is still alive!

Now...say it with me...

ALL HAIL THE UNDEAD CONSOLE!
ALL HAIL THE DREAMCAST!

The Talented Mr Tom

Presenting the world's most impressive Dreamcast-flavoured desktop wallpaper:

Look! It's got (a slightly Spock-like) Ryo! It's got Ryu! It's got some dude from Phantasy Star Online! It's got Sonic! It's got that twatting cat from Chu Chu Rocket! And some Mice!

In a word: Kick Ass. Ok, two words.

My advice? put it on your laptop and then sit with your back to the window in Starbucks (or Cafe Nero - we don't do product placement here at the Junkyard) so that everyone walking past and nosing at your screen can see that you are keeping it real...keeping it Dreamcast. Just don't do it in Manchester. Laptops and street lynchings go hand in hand round these parts.

Anyhow, it was created by a rather talented chap called Tom (I'm seeing a link here, people) and displayed at his site, www.2dforever.com.

And for those people who are a bit thick (or, you know, just not familiar with the DC), here is a guide to all of the characters on the picture above:


This guy is seriously talented though - check out this SNK-esque drawing of Sonic:


Go there now and admire his other Sega and general video game related scribbles.