Cover artists

[Rorthron]

Death Wish 3

According to the following site, "Steve Kerry and Marco Druoe provided the artwork"

https://www.gremlinarchive.com/index.ph ... -spectrum/

✓ Reviewed

[Einar Saukas]

Miami Cobra GT - Peter Austin
Per PJA signature
Per instructions:

Programmed By: Nigel Speight
Cover Illustration: Peter Austin

Note SC/ZXDB has a credit to Peter Frith not mentioned in the instructions.

This information came from old WoS. Pete Frith even gave WoS a formal approval to host his games:

https://www.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... ete+Frith$

Too bad the actual permission letter is not available anymore.


EDIT: Pete Frith is mentioned in Retro Gamer #153 page 66 in an interview with Tony Crowther. It seems Pete Frith worked at Alligata, although that's not clear.

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

* IVAN "IRONMAN" STEWART'S SUPER OFF ROAD (1990). VIRGIN GAMES. According to Mr. Rowe's website he did the poster included with the UK edition of the game with a completely different art to the game cover. Link: https://davidrowe.net/ivan-ironman.html

There is extra information on the instructions:

Illustration by Words and Pictures
Packaging Design by Khartomb

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Personally I can't see any defensible reason for treating what you call "historic" paintings differently from others. Why does the age of a picture matter? Are pictures from the 1980s not "historic", anyway?

Yes, this is a very good point. This sounds like an arbitrary decision, better to have simple and clear guidelines.

So it probably makes sense to credit both, but the graphic designer should have a different role from the artist. To describe them both as artists seems wrong to me. They are very different creative roles. Including graphic designers with artists obfuscates the artist information.

That is what I feel, and poor Einar knows I'm serious But for now I'm pasting all this cases on a spreadsheet to compile a list and see how many we have.

I agree with you @Rorthron and @druellan that more information the better. In my opinion if we even have only the name of an advertising agency we should include it on the ZXDB, that's better than nothing and a starting point to research for others or ourselves in the future. The perfect scenario on the ZXDB would be to have to every contributor to the game credited as it deserves; programmer, graphic artist, musician, cover artist, cover designer and so on. That would be great, but for the moment I think we should include the most accurate information possible and even go beyond if we can.

Yeah, I like the way Mobygames credit the authors, for example, but they don't seem to have a centralized role system as the ZXDB, more concise and elegant, but on the other hand is forcing us to be careful about changes that might impact the legacy information on the database, or create a void of information we might need to fill.

[druellan]

In fact, the instructions contain a large number of credits, only some of which are recorded in SC/ZXDB:

Interesting, on the ZXDB we have Paul Griffiths on the team, but seems that he only did the playtest:


We usually don't add testers to the ZXDB, since we don't have that role, but I don't want to remove information if I can avoid it, so, I'm going to keep Griffiths, but below the rest of the authors.

✓ Reviewed

[richl]

Boilerhouse by Front Runner (https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.php?cat=96&id=614) currently has the front of the instruction leaflet down as the inlay whereas the proper inlay has the name of the game on the spine and is one of those clamshell type affairs. The illustration is credited to Steve Newport and you can see it on the leaflet I mentioned above and it's also in the text file containing the instructions.

✓ Reviewed

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Extreme (Digital Integration). Artwork by Steinar Lund:

https://www.facebook.com/steinarlundart ... 033326779/

https://www.mobygames.com/game/zx-spect ... reme/promo

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Anfractuos - "Martin"
Per signature
Martin Severn?

I was trying to dig into this a bit more, but there are no information about Martin as a cover artists, BUT he was an artist, so it is very plausible, but since we don't have confirmation and the author is credited in the game on other roles, perhaps is better if we leave this one alone for now. Martin is also the level designer, so, we can credit him for that, aaaaand this game has border effects!

[Rorthron]

Anfractuos - "Martin"
Per signature
Martin Severn?

I was trying to dig into this a bit more, but there are no information about Martin as a cover artists, BUT he was an artist, so it is very plausible, but since we don't have confirmation and the author is credited in the game on other roles, perhaps is better if we leave this one alone for now. Martin is also the level designer, so, we can credit him for that, aaaaand this game has border effects!

Yes, leave it out of we're not certain. I just wanted to make the partial information available in case anyone could use it.

[StooB]

Steve Brown

currently credited for Inlay/Poster Art for Cauldron.


as per this, and this:

- his role on Barbarian and Cauldron II should also be Inlay/Poster Art

- he should also be listed for Inlay/Poster Art on Barbarian II

As the Eurogamer article refers to him as the "creator of the smash hit games Cauldron, Cauldron 2 and Barbarian", he should presumably also have the role 'Game Design/Concept'.

✓ Reviewed

[StooB]

Steve Blower

His role on ZZoom is presumably 'Inlay/Poster Art' as he did all the other Imagine covers. Mobygames agree.

✓ Reviewed

[StooB]

Terry Greer

is currently only credited for 'Inlay/Poster Art' on Diamond Trail.

These titles credit him for 'Inlay/Poster Art' on the inlay itself:
Adventures of Barsak the Dwarf
Africa Gardens
The Curse
Devil's Island
Games Tape 1 (Cover #2)
The Hollow
Madcap Manor
Magic Castle
Mindbender
Spyplane


This page on his website shows he also did the artwork for:
The Illustrator
Savage Pond
Forest at World's End
Tales of the Arabian Nights

and this page shows he did the 'In-game Graphics' for:
After Shock
Heroes of Karn
Jewels Of Babylon
Warlord

✓ Reviewed

[Audionautas]

Hi guys!

Some additions to the cover artist department on ZXDB.

* Fish! (Magnetic Scrolls / Rainbird Software, 1989). (Link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=10797). The cover artist was the amazing Steve Weston. A couple of years back this cover could be checked through his website http://www.swsstudio.co.uk/, sadly now offline. I've been trying to access through the Wayback Machine on archive.org to find a snapshot, but although you can browse the website, all the pictures there are broken, but believe me, Fish! was done by Steve Weston.

* Cecco Collection (Hewson Consultants, 1990). (Link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11568). The cover for this compilation is based on covers done by two artists: Steve Weston and Nick Davies. Hewson worked a lot with these two artists and at least in three of the four games of that cover we have confirmed the authorship. Obviously someone worked on the layout and lettering (probably Weston), but the basis of the artwork are those two artists, so their names should be included as contributors.

* Four Smash Hits (Hewson Consultants, 1987). (Link: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=11179). In this case we don't know who did the layout of the cover, but all the four games in this compilation have covers credited (and confirmed) to Steve Weston. So I think his name should be included as contributor.

All the best!

✓ Reviewed

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Rambo 3, artwork by Renato Casaro (also The Neverendind Story 1 & 2, already in ZXDB), according to this tweet:

https://twitter.com/postersdecine/statu ... 33664?s=19

This guy usually restores videogame artworks, check his interesting timeline.

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Miami Cobra GT - Peter Austin
Note SC/ZXDB has a credit to Peter Frith not mentioned in the instructions.

He seems to work among NIgel Speight making the music, he is mentioned on this game from the same author: https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 96&id=3840

[Rorthron]

Shoot-Out (Martech): Steinar Lund

https://twitter.com/postersdecine/statu ... 6657930241

The Flintstones (Grandslam): Steinar Lund

https://twitter.com/postersdecine/statu ... 1655245825

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Shoot-Out (Martech): Steinar Lund

https://twitter.com/postersdecine/statu ... 6657930241

The Flintstones (Grandslam): Steinar Lund

https://twitter.com/postersdecine/statu ... 1655245825

Both pictures also carry Steinar Lund's signature.

[Rorthron]

A couple more:

Blastermind: Tim Hayward
Per inlay

The Odyssey of Hope: Harry Bates (photograph)
Per inlay

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Liverpool (Grandslam): Martin ... [illegible]
Per signature

Power Pyramids: Steinar Lund
Per signature

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Liverpool (Grandslam): Martin ... [illegible]
Per signature

It might say Martin Buchan, but I am really not sure.

[Rorthron]

BC's Quest for Tires: Johnny Hart
Per signature

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Hart

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Flip Flap: Roger Tissyman
Fred's Fan Factory: Roger Tissyman

https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkRJones19 ... 2138338304

Freex, Loony Lander, Moonlighter, Shuttle Shock, Super Chopper and Ziggurat all also seem to be by the same artist. They have the same distinctive style, and Tissyman did all the other art for Software Projects/Software Super Savers at this time.

✓ Reviewed

[druellan]

Concept and original design: THE SOFTGOLD TEAM
Spectrum coding: KEVIN PARKER
Graphics: COLIN 'JB2' SWINBOURNE
Production, textuals and shots: SIMON 'BHR' DANIELS
PRODUCED FOR PLAYERS SOFWARE BY
RICHARD PAUL JONES

The credits for this game has some interesting bits. For start, on the ZXDB a "Twitchy Fingers (UK)" is mentioned, this is extracted from the loading screen:



But on the credits graphics are attributed to Colin Swinbourne, so, we can conclude that's his nickname.

Also, "Concept and original design: THE SOFTGOLD TEAM". Softgold was the publisher for the Amiga and C64 versions, so, those seems to be the original versions.

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Cyberball: C Buxton
Per signature

Unitrax: David Rowe
Per Signature

Wheels of Fire: Peter Andrew Jones
Per Signature

✓ Reviewed

[Rorthron]

Killer Ring: Caryn Gough
Per inlay: "Cover Design - Caryn Gough (Multi-Modis)"

Multi-Modis was the company she worked for at the time. Fun fact: she also designed album covers for The Smiths.

✓ Reviewed