Inspired by the fantastic Covered blog, I thought it would be fun to create a “Doc Pop” version of the classic Activision game “PITFALL!“. The piece was created over a week’s worth of BART rides, using cheap watercolor and ink. I also experimented with a “reverse” applique technique on the rainbow that looks totally for awesome in person.
Pitfall was one of my earliest video game addictions. As a longtime fan of the “platform game” genre, I’ve always considered Pitfall to be the godfather of the genre. Although it’s not technically the oldest side-scrolling game, I feel that modern platformers more closely resemble Pitfall than Donkey Kong. The art on all the classic Activision games were great and usually worked the Activision rainbow into the art in interesting ways. I particularly like the art on the Pitfall! package and enjoyed having an excuse to study it more. One of the surprising things about this classic cover is that the protagonist is the LEAST interesting thing on the whole image. I doubt that was on purpose, so I was glad to add a little more depth and excitement to our swinging hero.
Although I’m really happy with the illustration, the rest of the “packaging” didn’t turn out quite as well… especially in the scanned version (seen below), but I’m glad I tried doing something I’m not comfortable with (lettering and cutting) and the end piece looks pretty good on my wall.
[edit: if you enjoyed this piece, you might want to check out my “Pitfall! Roundup” too]
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