This past weekend I managed to scan the side-art of my two Exidy games. Those games being “Mouse Trap” and “Venture”. It really made me feel good that I’m doing my part to help preserve another piece of arcade history.
It’s been a few months since starting the Ice Cold Beer side art project was started but the artwork is officially off to Rich at This Old Game for production. When Chris Rhodes and myself originally took on this project I thought it would be a fairly easy project but I was wrong. The original plan was to vector the art. However, after talking to Rich about the final medium (Solvent Ink Jet with Screened Clear Coat) it came apparent that all the halftones were going to be next to impossible to recreate by vectoring the art and retouching in photoshop was the best way to start.
I received a shipment from Brian Jones from GameStencils.com last week with a few cool laser cut items which he offers at his site. Brian has been very busy creating many new products including arcade themed t-shirts, cabinet artwork, mappy marquee boxes, laser cut key chains and more which are all available on his website.
A couple of months ago I was talking with Chris Rhoades (Chris25810) and he was still trying to locate an Ice Cold Beer that had salvageable side art so it could be scanned and reproduced so that he could complete his own restoration (Be sure to read Chris’s blog post about his Ice Cold Beer restoration). I casually mentioned that if he lived in Michigan that I knew of two for sale. Next thing I knew we were in discussions on purchasing one of the machines and making this project a reality.
I won’t get into to many details at this point and time but yes I officially have an Ice Cold Beer (ICB) in my garage. Ahhhh yes, the ultimate party novelty arcade has arrived. A big thanks to MudManTim, another MI collector who was generous enough to have delivered it to me out of his personal collection. Also, another big thanks to someone we’ll leave unnamed at this time who also helped make this happen.
CoinOpSpace.com
