Absolutely agreed. A bunch of photoshopped images is not art. It's called being lazy, or cheap. I feel this way about movie posters as well. Imagine what Amsel's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" iconic poster would have been without his skilled treatment of Indy and his cast of characters. The best, "new" artwork I've seen on a pin lately was "Woah Nellie! Big Juicy Mellons".

As an aside, I also think the backglass artwork needs to be on GLASS. Translites are hideously ugly.

I'm also one of those who makes his living working in digital art all day. So I'm quite familiar with the whole CS package as well as quite a few 3D and compositing programs as well. But when I say "photoshopped", perhaps I need to be more clear. Cut and pasting photos into a layout is not real art, whether you use photoshop, painter, or any other program. Adjusting the levels of the photo also is not art. That's really at the heart of it. There's no art happening. And it shows. Granted the printing process doesn't help the final product, but it still comes back to cut and pasting of real images into a montage of line art. That's what I mean.

I used to hate using digital art programs for anything, but they do have their place, especially in advertising and illustration, and you can create some beautiful images if you avoid using it as a crutch.

We'd have to split on that one then. But I'm one who thinks abstract art is garbage. If a three year old can do it by dribbling paint on a canvas, there's no skill involved. Call me a literalist. I've seen so much crap digital art, whether it's painting over a render of a 3D model (the most common crutch), or taking photos and playing with the contrast, etc.. But I think you'd agree that for pinball art, you shouldn't be trying to do that sort of thing anyway.

That's funny, because I was part of the team that created Wreck-it Ralph at Disney. Small world.

Yeah, they had three Ralph arcade games up in our lounge area during the making of the film. The controller always seemed to be very un-sensitive to moves. Or it was my playing skill. It was my impression they made a couple for promotional use. They set up an arcade in-house as well during the time, but sadly, no pins.

On behalf of all of us who were on 70-80 hour weeks for four months at the end of it, you're welcome. You can find me in the credits.