nickwillcutyou: This was a fantasically fun project for the great folks at 72pins. Ron Workman and I got to talking about what would be cool to do that was in line with some of the painted covers featured on NES-era carts, and Fallout came up immediately as a favorite we shared and a cart he’d wanted to see since the very beginning of 72pins.

Once we figured out the general idea, 72pins Creative Director Pauline Acalin got on board and we worked out the concept based on a super-quick sketch (the first WIP screenshot above).

I tried to stick in a couple easily recognizable references: Nuka-Cola billboard and vending machine, the character on the crater edge decked out in a standard Vault-Tec jumpsuit, hangin’ with his canine companion. The initial plan was something much simpler, but as I worked on it, the image became more and more complex and layered - if anything deserves some extra detail love, it’s the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout.

The logo was sketched by hand, scanned in, cleaned up and tweaked some more with Photoshop & a Wacom tablet, then finished off in Illustrator to create an easily-scalable vector image…mostly because there’s plans to create a couple different sizes of art prints - the original artwork itself is about 22” wide, so we’ll be able to get a nice big print out there for sale!

I did a tiny bit of color tweaking in Photoshop to give the illustration that otherworldly, heavily-contaminated-by-radiation glow, though most of the piece was created in ArtRage, which I highly recommend checking out for a to do digital art that feels a bit more like working with traditional media and isn’t loaded down with tons of bells & whistles that can get in the way of just straight-up drawing with a tablet. It also has the best damned digital rulers in any program I’ve ever used. Like, actual rulers you can just plop down on the canvas. Craziness!

Okay, that’s enough outta me. See the final cart on the 72pins website, and find purchasing information here.

Thanks! There’s more to come…