Articles

Building a 1979 Asteroids arcade replica

My third arcade build is a massive, full scale 1979 Atari Asteroids cabinet. Here’s a short write-up on my building process accompanied by some photos.

Building a Cocktail arcade

My second arcade build is a cocktail style cabinet running a Raspberry Pi 3b+. Here’s a short write-up on my building process accompanied by some photos.

We made a Commodore 64 game!

We made Showdown, a game for the Commodore 64! Here’s a short write-up and some media about developing a game for an almost 40 years old system!

Building a bar-top arcade

Here’s a full write up and well documented article on how I set up my very own workshop and built my first bartop arcade machine from scratch!

“Sun-fading” old yellowed plastic

There are several ways of “retrobrighting” old plastic using different chemicals. I read that you can also achieve a decent amount of whitening only using sunlight, so I decided to put that to the test! This article will show before and after photos and some conclusive thoughts on the process.

Tutorial – Series, the four seasons

Henning’s 101: Seasons Let’s go for a walk through all of the four seasons of the year and study their unique characteristics. You can add a lot more depth and life to your paintings if you also consider the environment your subjects are placed in. By adding a hint of specific seasons, or simply some sort of influence by weather conditions you’re suddenly adding a whole another dimension to your art. Let’s go for a walk through all the four […]

Tutorial – Painting puddles

Painting puddles Puddles, rain, and stormy weather makes up for autumn. Puddles on the ground doesn’t have to be hard to paint as long as you simplify the reflection a bit. First, break up the most important features with lines (or do it in your head), to make sure the perspective lines in the reflection continues towards the same vanishing point as the original. This means that you will see the reflection image from a different angle than the original […]

Tutorial – Painting icicles

Painting icicles Step 1 – Get the basic shape up Paint the icicles in a separate layer, and start out getting the main shape up with a nice silhouette and bumpy surface. Feel free to add some filter overlays if you want to save some time, like “Plastic wrap” or anything that gives the surface a more interesting look. Adding a strong highlighted silhouette around the edges of the icicles will make it look more realistic. Step 2 – Refraction […]

Tutorial – Painting glow-effects

Painting glow-effects Adding details like glowing effects can be a lot of fun, and the end result can add a lot to your piece. The effect we’ll be doing here can be added to everything from cool looking logos, text, or for effects in your paintings. Remember that overdoing this effect can make your composition confusing and hard to read, so make sure to take your time and place your glowing details carefully and not too scattered throughout your piece.  […]

Tutorial – Glass, distortion and refraction

When painting glass and reflections, how does one go about creating distortion and refraction? Glass varies from colour-tinted to embossed patterns making reflections and distortion very complex, and it’s impossible to understand this thoroughly. Still, don’t worry, as all you need is to do is achieving the illusion of glass; just enough to convince the viewers. If we take perfectly clear glass into consideration, what makes up for the illusion for this specific type of glass is using heavy high-lights, […]