Game Art

I like gaming. I like art. I like rye. Want some rye while you look at some high-resolution game art? Course you do! Used to have a little gaming blog at http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com, but that was a long time ago...

[atariforce]

Quantum: Recharged Poster by SneakyBox

[arcadefan]

Saw this one on an X post by Original Video Game Art:

"Here's a bit of Ninja Gaiden art you've probably never seen! Created by Tony Szczudlo for an apparently unrealized 92 calendar, Tony's art (sketch Oct 90 and painting 91) dates it between II and III and depicts the final boss battle of Ninja Gaiden II!"

[arcadefan]

Capcom Captain Commando promo poster by Marc Ericksen. Not sure how effective that camo is, seeing as how it is restricted to Cap's bikini area only, but it's a pretty ballsy fashion choice. The original artwork sold in a 2020 auction for $20,400.

[arcadefan]

Stumbled across this artwork in a Comptiq magazine that Gaming Alexandria uploaded to the Internet Archive, so I thought I'd drop it in here. It was in an ad for the original soundtrack for the 1988 Japanese PC-88 game, The Scheme. I saw it was used as cover art for at least one version of the OST too. Unsure of the artist.

[arcadefan]

Alfonso Azpiri's cover art for the 1986 Dinamic game Phantomas 2. Also released as Vampire.

[arcadefan]

Arcadia cover art by Steve Blower. Arcadia was released in 1982 for the ZX Spectrum and VIC-20, then later to the Commodore 64 and Dragon 32/64.

[arcadefan]

The artwork for the 1995 adventure game I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by American fantasy/science fiction artist Barclay Shaw.

The game was based on Harlan Ellison's short story of the same title. I've read the story, and I own the game, but somehow I've never played it. I plan to rectify that any day now.

The face on the box art is that of Ellison himself. Ellison also provided the voice of the antagonist in the game, the artificial intelligence "AM".

[arcadefan]

I'm a big fan of the 194X series of vertical shoot 'em ups by Capcom. This one for the 1995 arcade shooter 19XX: The War Against Destiny captures the frenetic action with the 3 player fighters (the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, deHavilland DH.98 Mosquito, and Kyushu J7W1 Shinden) diving headlong into battle with enemy fighters and bosses.

[arcadefan]

Stumbled across this very nice D&D artwork by Earl Norem for the 1994 DOS game The Red Crystal: The Seven Secrets of Life. Apparently the game wasn't that great, but the art definitely caught my eye. I removed the subtitle because the generic font just looked in the way, but I liked the look of the main title so I left that.

[arcadefan]

Lee Macleod leaned pretty hard into the deep blues and purples on his Ultima covers, and his artwork for 1993's Ultima: Runes of Virtue II for the Game Boy is no exception.

[arcadefan]

Paul Faris' translite art for Sega's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein pinball machine, released in 1995. One of my more favorite Sega pins.

I just noticed Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is reflected on the left side so I might go back and fix that later...

[arcadefan]

"War Hero" by Julie Bell. Used as the box art of the 1992 id Software game Wolfenstein 3D for the PC and Game Boy Advance versions.

Bell used her local butcher (and bodybuilder) Kerry Palko as the model for B.J. Blazkowicz, the buff shirtless dude kicking over the Nazi.

[arcadefan]

Cover artwork for Ork by the late British artist Richard Clifton-Dey. Psygnosis released Ork in 1991 for the Amiga and Atari ST.

The artwork, entitled Behemoth's World, was flipped and zoomed in a bit when it was originally used a decade earlier for Blue Öyster Cult's 7th album Cultösaurus Erectus.

[arcadefan]

Noriyoshi Ohrai's cover artwork for the Goonies, released for the Famicom in 1986. The art was also used for the Famicom Disk System, MSX, Sharp X1, and PC-8801 releases. I just saw there is a factory-sealed copy of the PC-8801 version on eBay for the low, low price of just $40,000 if anyone is interested.

[arcadefan]

Arnold Doong's cover art for Dragon's Fury for the Mega Drive. Developed by Compile and released for the TurboGrafx-16 in 1990 as Devil's Crush, it was renamed Devil Crash for the Japanese Mega Drive port, then renamed again as Dragon's Fury for the Western Mega Drive release.

[arcadefan]

Luis Royo's beautiful cover art for Game Over, developed by Dinamic Software and released in 1987 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MSX, Thompson TO7, and ZX Spectrum.

I am a big fan of Royo's work. No, no, not just for all the nipples! Well... OK. If I"m being honest, nipples could very well be a factor. But not JUST because of the nipples, I can tell you that. The man makes some of the most gorgeous fantasy art I've seen.

The artwork was also used 3 years earlier for the February 1985 cover of French science fiction magazine Ere Comprimée.

[abobobo]

Video game cover artwork by Masawo Koga. 1. Syvalion (Super Famicom). Taito, 1988. 2. Thunder Spirits (Super Famicom). Technosoft, 1991. 3. Master of Monsters (Mega Drive). SystemSoft, 1991.