On the Spectrum the character looked more like Clark Gable maybe, but he was supposed to be Ernesto 'Che' Guevara. I played the coin-op quite a bit back in the day, and was really appalled at the mess Sentient Software made with the Spectrum conversion, even more so given their respectable record. The game was in fact originally called Guevara in Japan, but was renamed to Guerrilla War in the West, out of fear of offending Americans due to the friction with Cuba etc.
As the original title indicates, the game is based on the exploits of revolutionary Che Guevara, and the defeat of the Batista regime in Cuba in the late 1950s. In addition, player 2's character was Fidel Castro
I think in the Legend of the Amazon Women cover the woman nearest the dinosaurs is based on the figure in a Frank Frazetta picture of a Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex (though oddly the dinosaurs are not copied from this image).
Legend of the Amazon Women cover
Frank Frazetta, 'Dinosaurs'
Details:
(BTW what has happened to all the PostImage links in this thread? I switched to PostImage because vgy.me links stopped working, but now vgy.me works and PostImage does not!)
Rorthron wrote: ↑Sat Oct 06, 2018 10:44 pm
(BTW what has happened to all the PostImage links in this thread? I switched to PostImage because vgy.me links stopped working, but now vgy.me works and PostImage does not!)
The problem seems to be that PostImage has changed its domain name. In all the links ".org" needs to be replaced with ".cc". Would an admin or moderator be willing to amend the posts (a fun job for a Sunday afternoon)?
Rorthron wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:12 pm
I suspect the woman on the top right is based on Raquel Welch from the same film [One Million Years BC], but can't point to the source image.
I've found the image:
Raquel Welch in promotional photograph for One Million Years BC
R-Tape wrote: ↑Sun Oct 07, 2018 9:39 pm
I'm fine with the buttocks, but speaking as a Geologist, I'm concerned by the sexual chemistry between Frank's T-Rex and Triceratops.
Now that I've got your attention, any chance of fixing the links?
Rorthron wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:32 am
By the way, does anyone know how the artists copied the art in a predigital age? Did they use a pantograph to produce a sketch, then paint over it?
Rorthron wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:32 am
By the way, does anyone know how the artists copied the art in a predigital age? Did they use a pantograph to produce a sketch, then paint over it?
In my experience they just started drawing on the Spectrum screen, usually with Melbourne Draw, without any aids. Seeing Mark Jones accurately draw outlines a pixel at a time via the keyboard was impressive. I don't think any talented artist would have used a pantograph, it's just too clunky for accurately reproducing small images.
"He made eloquent speeches to an audience consisting of a few depressed daffodil roots, and sometimes the cat from next door."
Rorthron wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 6:32 am
By the way, does anyone know how the artists copied the art in a predigital age? Did they use a pantograph to produce a sketch, then paint over it?
In my experience they just started drawing on the Spectrum screen, usually with Melbourne Draw, without any aids. Seeing Mark Jones accurately draw outlines a pixel at a time via the keyboard was impressive. I don't think any talented artist would have used a pantograph, it's just too clunky for accurately reproducing small images.
I'm sure you're right for loading screens, but for the cover art there must have been some method for copying the images from the sources mentioned in this thread. A pantograph is the only one I can think of. Does anyone have any other suggestions?
You can use a grid; draw a grid of squares on a clear plastic sheet and lay it over the original.
Draw a square grid in light pencil on your drawing paper, and reproduce the outlines and then details using the grid lines as a guide.
This method also helps you scale things to the size you want.
There's also a trick of looking through a sheet of glass at the work you're doing, and having it partially reflect the image you want to copy. But you have to sit very still and only use one eye to make your sketch line up with the ghostly reflection of the original, so I've never got it to work.
For my ZXArt screens I crop and scale an image down to 256x192, enhance the edges and contrast, then scale it up by 9/8 to 288x216 and delete the duplicated pixels. That leaves me with individual 8x8 squares with white or black pixel lines in-between.
I use that as a guide to the detail I can achieve in each character square, and the original full-size image as a guide to layout and colour.
But then I start with a blank screen with a character grid, paint in roughly the attributes I want to use, then draw in the detail pixel-by-pixel
Drawing with the aid of a grid has been used for hundreds of years and is still in practise today, especially when doing larger work. It's a pretty easy method once you get it down.