MAMEWorld Forums - MAME Artwork: Official

> While I agree that artwork fades over time, I'll have to respectfully disagree on the
> value of flyers as a color reference. Flyers are disposable advertising printed on
> cheap paper that are also 30-40 years old. But more importantly, they were frequently
> retouched to suit the needs of the flyer's graphic designers and printers.

I'm gonna go yes and no with you on that one. There for sure are some cheap flyers out there, but most that I have seen, including the ones I have here at home, are printed on what seems like good quality card stock, or photo paper, or etc. And depending on how they were stored, they are less susceptible to fading than a glass bezel that has a warm cathode ray tube shining on its backside for 12-15 hours a day for how many years.

> Lady Bug
> is a good example. Below is the cabinet photos from two of the flyers you linked to
> on Flyer Fever. Left is the two-sided English flyer, right is the one-sided English
> flyer. I don't believe this is a photo of two different machines, but rather the same
> photo that has been retouched to change the colors. I assume the "grape" version on
> the left is your reference, while the "blueberry" version on the right is closer to
> what I saw at FunSpot, though I wouldn't bet my life on either being especially
> accurate.

Actually, they are two different cabs. Look at the coinslots on both cabs... the left one is Japanese, and the middle one is US. The Japan cab has a different marquee and instruction sticker than the US cab (looks like the sticker on the US cab matches the cocktail). And if you look closely enough, the speaker shelf is covering slightly more of the backdrop on the Japan cab than the US cab (focus on the top left flower).

So back to your first point... yes, the bezel most likely should be less "grape" and more "blueberry" since Funspot's cab is likely a US cab, but I can't help but think the Japan cab artwork is purposely a different hue, possibly to better match with the different colored marquee?

All of this is moot at this point, though, as when I go back and look at the original source I have for the Ladybug bezel, it's junk. It makes me sad. It's not the original scan, just a single-layer "cleaned" PSD, that was cleaned badly (this is why you don't simply trust any of the CAG artwork without looking at it in closer detail... something I was naive about in the past, but have since learned years later).

>
> > In this case... I'm gonna say that Funspot's artwork is faded after so many years.
>
> That's definitely possible and I admit that I may have taken it a bit too far in the
> blue direction, but I don't believe it ever looked quite as purple as in the left
> flyer. All the photos I can find look similar (though it's possible they could all be
> photos of the same machine at FunSpot). I'll keep looking into it.
>

For now... I wouldn't worry about fixing the bezel. We need to get a better scan rather than fix what we have now.

But if you image search, you will see cabs with the two different marquees. But as you said before, they all lean more towards the blue hue, which I'm gonna deem for now is more correct.