Game art copied from elsewhere

[Rorthron]

Nice finds!

I think this promo photo of Kate Capshaw was the reference here:



Also I found the bottom right reference on a promo leaflet seen here:

They look like the ones.

[Rorthron]

As i mentiond in the cover artists thread, the cover of Deus ex Machina was, according to Mel Courcher, based on an image he took of a woman he met outside the Automata office, Nina von Palisanderholz:



Mel Croucher tells the story here (p 46):

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... eQLppVrTeP

[Alessandro]

Well since she was photographed on purpose for the game cover, I wouldn't call that "copied from elsewhere"

By the way, "von Palisanderholz" means "(made) with rosewood" in German. The surname sounds fabricated. A quick search on Google did not make anyone come up with that surname.

[Rorthron]

Well since she was photographed on purpose for the game cover, I wouldn't call that "copied from elsewhere"

If the image was used as a reference, then strictly I suppose it is still "copied", but you're right that it is a different case from the others in this thread. In any case, it seems more likely to be be a modified print of the photo than a painted copy. I just thought it was interesting, anyway.

By the way, "von Palisanderholz" means "(made) with rosewood" in German. The surname sounds fabricated. A quick search on Google did not make anyone come up with that surname.

Yes, thanks for the detail. It sounded made up to me. I have a suspicion that the whole episode might have been "embellished" in Croucher's account.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

[mention]MarkRJones1970[/mention] tweeted this today:

https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970/stat ... 65984?s=20

I'm sure it's been commented before, it's one of the clearest examples of copying-art

[Rorthron]

I was looking at this cover art:

Fallen Angel (Screen 7) cover art



I noticed that the guy in the beret looked a lot like Jean-Claude van Damme:



Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a matching image. Perhaps there is a matching still or poster somewhere, maybe from Bloodsport or Kickboxer, which came out shortly before Fallen Angel.

Then I noticed the guy holding a gun, who happens to look remarkably like the figure in the Bronx Street Cop (Mastertronic) loading screen:

Bronx Street Cop (Mastertronic) loading screen



I overlaid the images and checked the dimensions. There is definitely a common reference; the faces and hands match exactly. Either they share a common source, or one is copied from the other. I haven’t been able to identify a source image, though. I wondered whether it might be from Lethal Weapon or Lethal Weapon 2, but didn’t get anywhere.

There is a good chance the other figures are copied, too. The prone figure reminded me of Rocky II, but the closest I could find was this image, which isn’t close enough:

Still from Rocky II



While I was looking at this, I also noticed that the inlay for Bronx Street Cop bears a likeness to Charles Bronson:

Bronx Street Cop (Mastertronic) cover / Still of Charles Bronson from Death Wish 3



The image above is pretty close. It could have been a reference, but the resemblance isn’t close enough to say it was.

Can anyone else recognise the references?

[Rorthron]

Sports Hero Loading Screen



Photograph of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Munich Olympics,

[briefer]

[cmal]

I wonder if the Stamper brothers were Yes fans...

[Ashley Pomeroy]

This cover from Zeppellin. The main soldier image reminds me of an historial pic of one of the israeli-arab wars in the XXth century (Yom-Kippur, etc).



I've tried several times but found nothing. I'm sure I've seen that pic before about that conflict.
Anyone thinks the same?

It stands out because you'd expect the chap to have a beret, not an old-style tin helmet without any camouflage netting on it.

It immediately put me in mind of this famous image, specifically the chap on the right:


Although obviously the poses are different. In fact there isn't much in common at all. The Argentine soldiers in the Falklands War also had plain metal helmets - they were US army surplus - so I wonder if the cover artist went through a book of then-recent war images and picked one that fit the bill.

And is the game Para Assault, or Para Assault Course, or Para Assault Course Simulator? It gets longer the closer you get to it.

[Ashley Pomeroy]

Title drawing for Chapter Eight of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way

Flash Gordon cover

Mastertronic's artists also seem to have used the same basic idea as inspiration for their version of Black Crystal, although the posing of the hands makes me wonder if they were thinking of the alien from Alien:


The artists were presumably Words & Pictures Ltd, who did all of Mastertronic's covers from the period. They seem to be still going:
http://www.wordsandpictures.co.uk/

According to Companies House that business incorporated in 1981, so it's presumably the same company, although I imagine the actual artists have moved on since then:
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... /01601145

Flicking back through this thread I almost laughed at loud at Podder, because it's so cute:

[Evil Genius]

These Eagles look familiar



Naughty naughty



And the stripes and frame possibly adapted from Atic Atac

[Alessandro]

Advert for Nightmare (Exclusive Software), taken from Sinclair User 87, June 1989:



Guns 'n' Roses, Appetite For Destruction (original cover art by Robert Williams):

[Ast A. Moore]

Oh, good find! I’ve never seen this artwork. I only remember the cross with the band members’ stylized faces on it.

[patters]

Oh, good find! I’ve never seen this artwork. I only remember the cross with the band members’ stylized faces on it.

The image above was inside the album's inlay. I believe it was the original cover image for the album but it was deemed too explicit. That was certainly the schoolboy rumour at the time.

[Ast A. Moore]

The image above was inside the album's inlay. I believe it was the original cover image for the album but it was deemed too explicit. That was certainly the schoolboy rumour at the time.

Nice bit of trivia. It’s odd that I don’t remember that image at all. I was so into GNR back then.

[Alessandro]

Never been into Guns 'n' Roses to be honest, but when I saw that image in SU back then, something rang a bell in my head. I had already seen that image - on a magazine maybe? Some years later I made the connection, but I remembered it only now.

Edit: or maybe it was the other way round

[mention]patters[/mention] : the story is true, here is an account of it from Williams himself:

https://ew.com/music/2017/07/24/appetit ... -williams/

[vanpeebles]

I'm sure the box art from Soft and Cuddly was also used on a HP Lovecraft anthology book.

[Mpk]

I'm sure the box art from Soft and Cuddly was also used on a HP Lovecraft anthology book.

I definitely owned a book with that on the cover. I had a 2-volume paperback HPL collection, possibly it was one of those.

[bluespikey]

Yes, good find.

[Rorthron]

Yes, good find.

Most, if not all, the Power House covers are reused book cover art by Tim white. See this thread (and the following pages):

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2880&start=40

[bluespikey]

Its like a mini guess -the-screen$. That grinning imp was bugging me, but it does remind me of the gargoyle in Cauldron II.

[R-Tape]

Saw this on the #zxspectrum twitter feed:

Spectrumeros podcast spotted the critter in the panel from El Poder Oscuro (1988) is nice little homage to these monuments on the cover of the comic Percevan: Le Pays d'Aslor (1985).

[zxbruno]

US Gold released Flak in 1984.

Flak loading screen

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoIm ... r/Flak.scr

One year after, they released Raid Over Moscow. It seems they made the most of the Flak screen to made this:

Raid Over Moscow loading screen

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoIm ... Moscow.scr

Probably unrelated, but those two screens remind me of this one:

[Rorthron]

US Gold released Flak in 1984.

Flak loading screen

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoIm ... r/Flak.scr

One year after, they released Raid Over Moscow. It seems they made the most of the Flak screen to made this:

Raid Over Moscow loading screen

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/SCRtoIm ... Moscow.scr

Probably unrelated, but those two screens remind me of this one:

They may well be connected. They are all similar to art used for the original Scramble arcade game:

https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page= ... 44&image=3