Meh. Never can tell till real life but this is a little better then when GoT art cam out for me.

TH is better and Alien is 10x better than ST or GOT, I agree.

Initially, TH was horrendous, and they have had years to finally get it great

hope they have a populated playfield to show sometime soon. It looks good so far again not mind blowing but good.

Yeah, I don't think anyone here wants to add a Hobbit kind of delay to Alien just so we can let the art cook longer.

Too bad Predator will never be made.

Is there a word worse than "delay"

Yeah i hope all the other stuff jazzes it up a bunch. There's probably a lot of pieces that are fitting in the missing areas that could chance everything. For now...it's just so barren...so blah overall. I don't like it or hate it, I have no feeling toward it.

Just looked back at the closeups of the inserts that look pretty cool but really small...hard to tell.

I really like the final TH PF too ( may get one of those down the road), but again, theme wins again for me here...

Again I respectfully disagree. This seems better thought-out, design-wise, than the Hobbit playfield to me.

I've been on the LE pre-order list now for sometime. Aliens is a title I always wanted done and after seeing Full Throttle, I new Heighway would do an amazing job. I don't know what I was expecting for the playfield but I thought it might be darker. I'm not disappointed or thrilled as of now. It's also hard to tell how it's going to look until it's all together. Keep up the great work guys!
Can't wait for the final product!

Hobbit revised more than just the art...so a few more months of approvals to get the art right on this one wouldn't bother me...

Can't tell you how many times iv'e redone my work to make it perfect, but with some of Aurich's comments about this being the last license job, i'm getting the hint of him being a bit burnt out on this.

I'll probably get flak for this, but if I had his position, Pinside would have been turned off, aside from a simple post here and there to let you know i'm still breathing, and I would have thrown myself into this project with as few distractions as possible.

The more I look at it the more I like it. I think it's going to look awesome as a complete package, assuming that they do a good job on the plastics. What I think a lot of people are forgetting is that the screen will be showing a ton of graphics and visuals, so the playfield is more of a border for the screen than the main focus. Also, a lot of the blank spots will be covered or filled in with ramps, slings, etc.

Great job Aurich

I'm not wowed by the playfield art or anything. Kind of bland IMO but I'm not an artist and I don't really care that much.

I care more about the gameplay.

So now how long until a gameplay video...

Would be interesting to see what they could have done without Corporate restrictions. I'm sure it will look good in person.

you cannot possibly be serious.

Lets be honest theme is very important, I'm not buying TH or WOZ regardless of the display or PF art as I don't enjoy those films, If I was a RZ fan I would probably be able to see the good in that artwork because I don't see any as is. Back to Alien, what I'm really enjoying about this is that its getting better the more I look at it and that's a sign of good art.

He appears to be some kind of ghost.....may not even be real....

To be perfectly honest I think showing just the playfield is probably the worst possible way to show a pin. You're just missing too much context.

In this case it was also obviously the right thing to do. Waiting until there was a complete game to showing something would have been a horrible idea, no one here wants that.

I'm waiting for the final CAD file from Dave to start doing some updates, but I quickly overlaid the latest version over my art. A lot of the space that feels "blank" is covered, there was no reason to put art there that no one would see. And if you look you can see that the Weyland Yutani logos need to move up a bit, the upper right flipper is shifting slightly. Etc etc.

I'll make those tweaks soon. I can repost that art then just to keep a public record of the latest version probably.

But the reality is you're just missing too much of what makes the game the game right now. It's a three dimensional beast, with ramps and wireforms and plastics and toys etc.

New CAD lines in pink (not necessarily final, just a reference for where things are, doesn't include toys).

l3ppkfd-_(resized).png

So this game is called LIE? That's what I see on the LCD screen (and banner photo somebody posted earlier).

With this last post, Aurich, color me Impressed!

I see your vision.

Thanks Art. I think I'll color you green.

So Aurich, are there three ramps now - 2 left and 1 right side? Looks a bit different then before . Awesome stuff !

Well that look a lot nicer!

Play fields are no canvas that's for sure.

Yep, much better than my crappy overlay attempt, looks even more cohesive now. Pre-orderers should be very happy.

I am not keeping up on things much in this thread. I basically skipped to the end to comment on the playfield images I just saw.

But the art on alien is horrible. It looks like an old sega game. Maybe id4 or xfiles. I understand these start up pinball companies don't have good budgets but they should probably at least hire an art guy to help them out. I am artistically retarded and I think I could do better with photoshop and some internet images. Wow.

Honestly I'm not really comfortable answering any questions about the latest CAD, because I don't know how done it is, and I haven't gone over all the changes with Dave, and I don't want to accidentally misrepresent it.

I'll say this: he's been working hard on it, and making changes, and refining things. I'm sure all the changes are for the better. I can see the upper right flipper has shifted down for instance, and I'm sure it's because he was adjusting the geometry of the shots.

Anyone who's play Full Throttle should know that Dave (who designed it) knows how to make a widebody shoot smoothly.

Look, lemme put on my salesman hat here:

The game is going to shoot great, I really am confident of this. It has four flippers that all have important and unique shots. Two magnets, two pop up posts, a spinner, a controlled drop target, a drop target bank that has multiple rules, interactive toys (notice no one has talked about facehuggers yet?), a reverso ramp, multiple physical ball locks (Alien grabs ball, and the Hypersleep chamber locks balls) and just a multitude of shots.

It has the DNA of Dennis Nordman in its genesis, and he's one of my favorite pinball designers. And it didn't work out to finish the game with him, but Dave took it as a basis, and restructured it, reflowed it, and I think improved it. (Dennis, you know I love your work, but we didn't agree about some of that upper right flipper change, I think it was the right call.) It's a collaboration between an old school designer who's one of the greatest of all time, and a new and upcoming one, who's first game demonstrated a great mastery of geometry I think.

Who's played Full Throttle? Forget the theme and looks if it's not your thing, I know Alien probably attract different tastes than that. But it plays great. I won't be surprised to see Alien owners buying it as a kit. That little U-turn shot on the lower right is such a killer shot, I love it.

Dave knows his stuff, I'm confident this is going to be a great collaboration, even though that wasn't the initial intention. I'm choosing to look at it as the best of both worlds.

If we print the art, build the game on top of it, and something isn't right? I'll fix it. But give us a chance to show that to you.

In general I really like it, but I do have to admit (even with the descriptions as to why they're integrated) the 'hot rod flames,' the "Fly the Friendly Skies" helmet writing, the Bug Stomper decal, and the skull and knife drawing all just feel...well, out of place to me.

It looks almost like a second artist came in on top of an already clean work of art, but wanted to add to it and did so by writing on the playfield with a silver sharpie and slapping on a couple of stickers. As if too much time was had and a "what else can I do" attitude was taken - and in turn too many things were added.

While some of the ideas as to why they're integrated make sense when described, why not save some of those elements to be incorporated via plastics or even simply used on the LCD rather than directly on the playfield? It just takes the depth away from the whole scene for me.

Again. I generally really like it. I'm just scratching my head at a few decisions made. I'm sure it'll grow on me...

Ahem. I was going to write somethings about the thinking behind the art, but now I think I'm going to call it a night, go play some SFIV, and then I think I have a call with Nate for C2C, see how that goes.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Cancelled

I'm looking forward to Street Fighter V - and the full Alien reveal. Nice work.

Ah, but this was a good post, so quick reply:

Just a quick suggestion.

First, look at the CAD lines in pink on the drawing I posted earlier. Then follow the flow of the art from the flipper to the top.

Don't think of it as a single scene. Think of it as a gradation, that flows upwards and into the shots. Look at the colors as your guide. As it goes from blue, to green, to red.

You start indoors, in a claustrophobic space, drawn into the motion tracker that's surrounded by xenomorphs.

Beyond that is the darkness, and floating there is your HUD. Your score, your vital info, and context sensitive instructions and timers and anything else might need are there for you at all times, in the playfield.

As you follow upwards that you that the darkness gives wasy to the horizon of the planet, you're actually on LV426. Watch the scene in Alien when they are walking to the derelict ship. You'll recognize that horizon.

You pull back further and the horizon opens up to space, you're going back, and now you're looking at LV426 from far away, and the planet and the moons, and then you're in space. The Nostromo is approaching the planet, leaving the cargo behind. Ripley's ship floats off to the spinner.

Moments from the films float in space. The drop ship leaves a trail of the marines ephemera. The Nostromo's patch, laid out on the grid, all part of a master display.

And over it all lurks the Alien, and the walls of their home. And not the Alien on the playfield. He's almost a reflection, because right above him is going to be a big sculpted Alien head. And that's what will get the attention there.

And this path you walk through the art is guided by the layout of the playfield, you just can't see that very well yet. The CAD helps, but it's only part of the story, you're missing a lot.

Anyways, maybe that will help you see what the flow and connection is once it's populated. You can still not get it! Or like it, or whatever. But I think it will start to make more sense when you see it on a real playfield surrounded by the rest of the game.

I think it looks really good, & its going to look great populated!
You took a lot of negative & rude criticism today like a true gentleman, & for that you earned a ton of respect from me & many other Pinsiders.

I like it but don't love it.

I like the lower playfield with the scanner. But right above this should've been an Alien. Large and in your face like the witch in WOZ or the dragon in TH. Something to immediately tell you that you're playing an Alien pin. The upper playfield I'm not too concerned with. It'll be mostly hidden.

I don't know, maybe they'll have a killer Alien toy to make up for the lack of one on the playfield. I just don't like that you have to take a second look at the playfield before you can see the Alien. In a dark room, it'll be even more difficult to see.

This is possibly the dumbest thing you have ever said. You don't keep up with it, you skip to the end, you are self-proclaimed retarded and blurt out how you could do better. A new low for you.

Yes. Looking at it through that lens definitely does help tie it together for me.

Thanks for the well thought out response, Aurich.

BTW, I've been in on this since week one and I very much appreciate the back and forth dialogue you've provided to the Pinside community since joining the Heighway team.

Go ahead and create one and put your money where your mouth is. Lets see what you come up with

-Jeff

Pretty sure that's there right between the flippers if you look closely.

That's a really great description of your thought process in creating this playfield, thanks Aurich, it's a really intelligent design.

Great! Looking forward to it.

What a transparently disingenuous comment.

Please don't give Aurich this much credit for the Hobbit playfield. People might start to think he was the one who created it. One or two suggestions from him were implemented. And those were about the first reveal and not the final version.

JP

OK, point taken. Sorry about that, no disrespect intended, i'll edit my previous post.

My 2 cents worth.

Yes, it's unbalanced and disconnected but we have to live with it. We don't know what they had to go through with Fox.

So, an easy fix would be this:

* Erase the glow around the nostromo and drop ships ie. get rid of the cartoon look
* Make the nostromo and drop ships larger and darker
* Erase the patches, skull and 'Fly the friendly skies' - such an insignificant part of the theme!!!
* Erase the orange trails from the ships

* The planets- not even sure why they're there. Would have been better with an image of the nostromo or original alien space ship.

* The LCD cuts off the planets. Unless the rest of the planet is always going to be in the LCD display the screen will just look like an insert, rather than integrated in to the machine.

I think this would give it a much better look.

Who want's to Photoshop that? Anyone????

Why always taking GOT to make an artwork comparison with Alien?
Without making a comparison with Alien, it seems to me that Stern has succeeded many pf artwork. Metallica is stunning, x-men, TWD etc are very good too...

Yes. JP, who did the amazing LCD animations for both WOZ and Hobbit did the pf art for Hobbit. The first pass was good, but the final version is spectacular. Really, really good. He deserves probably 99.9% of the credit on that masterpiece.

Edit: just realized that WAS JP responding there...it's really amazing work JP. And it's your first pf too, right?

Yes, that is correct.

JP

Agreed.
While I liked most of the "teaser" closeups of parts of the PF, I did not like at all the first complete PF images I saw.
A populated PF would help. You need the plastics and toys to really decide whether it fits. The artist knows, we don't.
Lighting may help as well. Showing the PF with the lit LCD screen is already an improvement.

Passing judgment until then.

Ok, I'll be bold.

I've add my own interpretation to the artwork and photoshopped the original by deleting the 'cartoon' elements and non-core element like the badges, flames, text and some color splatter around the space ships.

You can click on it to get a larger view.

Mine is on the left, the original on the right.

Personally I think it looks cleaner and they need make sure the planet art doesn't cut into the LCD screen.

sideBysideAlien_(resized).jpg

Because GoT had the potential to be visually stunning with all the visuals the series provides. And Stern has had tons of experience with playfield design and should know better. I have had all the pins you reference and none of them was as thought out as this one. Just made by people that can photoshop but have no heart for the theme they are working on. GoT playfield is just a let down, it only uses assets from the starting credits of the series.

I agree that the pins you reference are very nice complete packages, but a company like Stern that has made tons of pins should do better and the Alien playfield proves that it is possible, even for a less experienced company.

People were critical of the rob zombie playfield and got; both of which look way better then this artwork; which just looks well not that inspiring at all