Love and are friends with many of the artists mentioned here. I think Mondo style art would be incredible on a pin... but...
I also know the pinball production pipeline... A major problem is time - and knowing that a typical poster like the ones shown here usually are 100s of hours - weeks to months worth of work - doesn’t translate well to a pinball schedule.
Example - Iron Maiden consists of all new art created without styleguides - all 3 unique backglasses, 3 unique cabinets, playfield & plastics & aftermarket stuff like blades & toppers equates relatively to the framework of about 15-20 posters (working at scale sizing as I do)... that was a 7month project. I worked 15-18 hr days the entire project.
Sooooo the alternative would be I cheapen my art but If you have to lessen your target output to hit a mark, that’s not going to empower an artist... and it will kill your ‘brand’.
It’s hard to both fast and stay broad for a moving target (pinball is not a straight line) - it’s made me question my place and benefit in pinball a lot. The fact is that the process isn’t built with art in mind...
That said - if you love it and don’t mind losing any other client or work during that 7mo period (where you could make products that you could sell) AND you like not spending time with friends and family on holidays, then this is the best job ever
And for the record - this isn’t a Stern thing - it’s the way it works with production schedules in the licensing world. That’s why photoshopping assets was a thing and still is. (With Treatment’s to say they are not).
So anyway - there’s some insight as to why creating new art from scratch for pinball is a hard sell in practice to established artists... thank Jpop for getting me before I was freelance so I’d not know better