After trying to find a place to scan my trace for a few months with no success, i finally decided to scan it in piecemeal and stitch it back together in Photoshop. After i got that done and tweaked the image so measurements were extremely close to 1:1 with the actual playfield, I started vector tracing elements in Adobe Illustrator. It’s been awhile since i spent this much time in Illustrator, and i gotta say that i like the updates—they’ve made it MUCH easier to create these kind of shapes with accuracy.
The idea is that i’m going to trace in all the fundamental playfield elements, then use that as the foundation for the re-theme art/design. So far, i’ve made a huge amount of progress, vectorizing:
- Holes and playfield cutouts
- Screw/post/nail holes
- Keylines around holes and cutouts
- Keylines for areas below plastics
- Inserts
- Pop bumper area placeholder
- Line showing ball travel from the shooter lane.
Next i’ve got some more elements to scan and/or draw, so that i can lay them in this design as well.
- Posts
- Plastics
- Lane guides
- Return bumper
- Ball gates
- Flippers
- Ball guides
- Top metal arch
This is going to be an enormous project but i’m really having a blast.