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Tom duBois - The Man Who Drew Konami / My Life in Gaming

Jazzem

Jazzem

Member
Feb 2, 2018
2,683



So this is pretty swell! My Life in Gaming just released an excellent mini documentary covering Tom duBois, the man behind much of Konami's western boxart from 1988 to 1994 (various Contras, Castlevanias, Mystical Ninja etc).

I always thought Konami games of that era easily had the best westernised boxart, so it's great to put a face to that work finally. He seems super humble and down to earth, nice to see him getting recognition :)
 
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Bane

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,905
Man, this dude is responsible for so much of the best boxart in those times. I can't wait to watch this later.
 
hiryu64

hiryu64

Member
Oct 27, 2017
603
I'm not the only one who thought about the Boondocks when reading the thread title, right?
 
alr1ght

alr1ght

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,050
It sucks (but entirely predictable) that most of the original artwork is missing. I love that look he gave those SNES/Genesis era games.
 
Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,130
Toronto
I loved Tom's work so much growing up and was so happy when I got the alert for this video today.
 
wenis

wenis

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,110
that was a great video. its rough he's fallen on hard times. cant imagine the life of an illustrator can be financially fruitful anymore.
 
Temtastic Muns

Temtastic Muns

Member
Apr 19, 2018
6,815
Fascinating watch! Definitely loved a lot of his stuff back in the day; his ability to jampack the very essence of a game onto a cover was incredible. Contra III, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, and Turtles in Time are my favorite examples of such.

The Blades of Steel copyright incident was unfortunate, as was the bout with cancer, but I'm glad he was able to bounce back.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,070
What a sweet and humble guy. Great to have a name and face to those very memorable covers.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,070
Anyone know why that painterly style fell out of favor? The guy mentioned that it happened in the early 2000s. I miss that stuff. Heavy Metal had a similar aesthetic. As did fantasy novels and artwork in the 80s.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,348
Sydney
entremet said:
Anyone know why that painterly style fell out of favor? The guy mentioned that it happened in the early 2000s. I miss that stuff. Heavy Metal had a similar aesthetic. As did fantasy novels and artwork in the 80s.
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They're all pretty much Frank Frazetta-esque, and so the style came from fantasy novels originally. Games and album covers come out of that.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,348
Sydney
Fuzzy said:
Yeah but the reason companies stopped using it probably boils down to them not wanting to pay outside artists.
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The syle fell out of favour almost universally. 200 million dollar movies have pastiche 'heads floating' posters instead of classic painted ones, almost universally except for legacy franchises like Star Wars.

I'm guessing market research showed most customers were more attracted to photoshops than paintings.
 
Wulfric

Wulfric

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,965
Very cool, glad to see some of these artists are living to see their artwork take on a life of it's own.

It's a shame the painted illustrations went out of style. Boris Vallejo, Drew Struzman, Michael Whelan are some of the few still painting in the 80s style.

Castlevania, Metal Gear Solid, and Final Fantasy still have painted covers in some regions, but those first two series are AWOL...
 
angelgrievous

angelgrievous

Middle fingers up
Member
Nov 8, 2017
9,138
Ohio
Watched it earlier today and loved it. Will probably watch it again soon.

On a side not, I was rearranging my room and hanging art so I just kept it on the channel and ended up watching about 4 hours of My Life in Gaming content. It's probably my favorite youtube channel. Such great content all around.
 
SpotAnime

SpotAnime

Member
Dec 11, 2017
2,072
Fantastic video. Touching. You can't help but root for Tom, given everything he's been through.

Also, I know MLiG has done some profile/interview vids in the past, but the past year or so they've really grown in this space, beyond the RGB-series stuff. The Night Trap docu was good, but this video on Tom really was a labor of love.
 
Duncan

Duncan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,961
This is now a Konami art thread.


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D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,348
Sydney
Konami were pretty smart, they basically hired him to fix stuff when the Japanese art sucked. Castlevania 1 has fantastic original art, but CV3's Japanese cover is a dud, so it was replaced by his art. Seems his art was used in a couple of Japanese releases too though, eg the Super Contra cover. Some were a bit too American when the original had good art too, Eg Goemon and Vampire Killer/New Generation vs Bloodlines.

They should have kept him on, Konami tried a similar (but lower quality) painted Castlevania 64/Legacy of Darkness covers, and lots of crap on PS1 too.
 
Kyuuji

Kyuuji

The Favonius Fox
Member
Nov 8, 2017
32,119
What a great video showcasing a really nice guy and his passion. Would love to meet him, very inspiring person who had little knowledge as to the impact his work had.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,110
Just finished watching it, amazing to see the man behind the art. And also somewhat heartbreaking towards the end. It's understandable that the time of that kind of art is long gone, but I really miss it. Oh well, what you gonna do.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,070
-shadow- said:
Just finished watching it, amazing to see the man behind the art. And also somewhat heartbreaking towards the end. It's understandable that the time of that kind of art is long gone, but I really miss it. Oh well, what you gonna do.
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Yeah, I always knew it was one person drawing all those since the style was so consistent. Never would've dreamed to see a documentary on the guy.

Really sad he lost his originals as well.

Hopefully, this documentary gets him more work. He says he needs more cashflow after the cancer scare. Lots of retro styled games coming out. Maybe he gets a chance to work on those due to the visibility of this documentary.
 
-shadow-

-shadow-

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,110
Here's hoping this will give him some more work over time and that potentially some people who have (found) his work might return some of it. Despite everything, I have hope some of the stuff might pop up again!
 
Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,130
Toronto
Is this list of box art he drew exhaustive?

1988

>The Adventures of Bayou Billy (EU/ NA) NES.

>Blades of Steel (EU/ NA) Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, Game Boy, NES.


1989

>Defender of the Crown (NA) NES.

>Silent Service (EU/ NA) NES.


1990

>Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (EU/ NA) NES.

>Rollergames (worldwide) Famicom/ NES.

>MetalMech: Man & Machine (NA) NES.

>Mission Impossible (NA) NES.

>Nemesis (EU/ NA) Game Boy.

>Snake's Revenge (EU/ NA) NES.

>Super C (worldwide) Amiga, DOS, Famicom/ NES.

>Top Gun: The Second Mission (worldwide) Famicom/ NES.


1991

>Bill Elliot's NASCAR challenge (NA) NES.

>Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (EU/ NA) Game Boy.

>Double Dribble: 5 on 5 (NA) Game Boy.

>Laser Invasion (NA) NES.

>The Lone Ranger (NA) NES.

>Operation C (EU/ NA) Game Boy.

>Pirates! (NA) NES.

>Skate or Die: Bad n' Rad (NA) Game Boy.

>Super Castlevania IV (EU/ NA) SNES.


1992

>Axelay (EU/ NA) SNES.

>Contra III: The Alien Wars (NA) Game Boy, SNES.

>Contra Force (NA) NES.

>Cybernator (EU/ NA) SNES.

>The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (EU/ NA) SNES.

>Monster in my Pocket (EU/ NA) NES.

>Nightshade (NA) NES.

>Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (EU/ NA) SNES.

>Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (EU/ NA) Genesis/ Mega Drive.


1993

>Lethal Enforcers (worldwide) Genesis, Mega CD/ Sega CD, SNES.

>Raging Fighter (EU/ NA) Game Boy.

>Rocket Knight Adventures (EU/ NA) Genesis/ Mega Drive.

>Sunset Riders (EU/ NA) Genesis/ Mega Drive, SNES.

>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (EU/ NA) Game Boy.

>Top Gun: Guts and Glory (EU/ NA) Game Boy.


1994

>Castlevania: Bloodlines (NA) Genesis.

>Double Dribble: The Playoff Edition (NA/ JP) Genesis/ Mega Drive.

>Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters (EU /NA) Genesis/ Mega Drive, Mega CD/ Sega CD.
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http://www.boxequalsart.com/tom-dubois-artist-page.html

They also did an interview with him a couple of years ago.
http://www.boxequalsart.com/tom-dubois-interview-page.html
 
jett

jett

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,655
Just bumped into this video. Just magnificent. Tom duBois is a true gaming legend.
 

Deleted member 1627

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,061
Thanks for sharing, was a wonderful watch. His stuff is a huge part of that era of gaming for me, it's amazing to be able to put a name and face to that wonderful work.
 
OP
OP
Jazzem

Jazzem

Member
Feb 2, 2018
2,683
jett said:
Just bumped into this video. Just magnificent. Tom duBois is a true gaming legend.
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McBradders said:
Thanks for sharing, was a wonderful watch. His stuff is a huge part of that era of gaming for me, it's amazing to be able to put a name and face to that wonderful work.
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Lovely to see people still discovering MLiG's video and the man behind the art! Glad you both enjoyed :)

And as an aside I'm a big fan of Sumo, keep up the superb work McBradders and co!
 
Funky Papa

Funky Papa

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,694
Bumping because this just popped on my feed and it was such an touching piece of videogame history.

Anybody who has ever freelanced will sympathise with him. It's a career of highs and lows, and it's just incredible to see it narrated by somebody so humble and unaware of the impact he had on our youth. He didn't even play videogames, yet he had true love for what they meant.

If you are over 30 or simply interested in arts, you absolutely need to watch this.
 
Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,130
Toronto
I love that MLiG put Limited Run Games in touch with him to do the cover art and poster for LRG's Bloodstained Curse of the Moon CE earlier this year.

FTPPoJp.jpg
 
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