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Classic Video Game Dioramas
How do you make a diorama of a text adventure?
David Friedman
May 14, 2024
I recently came across an artist who makes dioramas based on old video games, and I found them delightfully whimsical, so I thought I’d share them with you.
Pitfall
They are the work of Chris Brooks, whose day job is an office admin for a local water company in Melbourne. But in his free time he makes these dioramas as tributes to games he enjoyed growing up.
International Karate +
More specifically, they are tributes to the Commodore 64 versions of these games. He told me, “I think it being my first system has made me especially nostalgic for the games I had and played.”
Maniac Mansion
Rags to Riches
Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja. All these characters can be moved around, even the ones on the side of the truck!
Each diorama can be displayed in various configurations, as the pieces are all movable. And when the extra pieces aren’t being used in the diorama, they can be set up in their own little stand.
Various characters
One that made me smile at the absurdity of it all is his flat diorama of the text adventure Zork!
Is it still a diorama if it’s just a flat screen?
He added an interactive element by making that bottom line interchangeable. You just slide it out and then you can swap in one of twelve premade options.
Also humorously, he even made a diorama of the splash screen for Fairlight, a cracking group that pirated Commodore 64 games back in the day.
He makes all of these on a 3D printer, as he explains:
Typically I'll play a game for a little while and find a scene that I like. Once I've got a rough idea of what I want to do, I'll check online for any sprite sheets that are already created to save some time, then capture screenshots of each of the sprites and backgrounds that I still need.
The next step is to take all of the screenshots and sprite sheets (if any) and load them into Photoshop and create the scene.
Once I'm happy with the 2d layout, I'll group the elements together in a square layout that fits the printer bed and then export separate files for each colour ready to arrange into a print.
The next step is creating the 3d models out of the flat, colour separated files. Once completed and exported it can finally be printed.
He prints them in full color:
I've got four Bambu Lab printers, and seven of the 4 colour multi material units which are spread across the four printers. I can print up to 16 colours at once (which matches the total colours in the C64 palette and amount of maximum on screen colours). This match in the amount of total colours with the 3d printer and C64 means I create my own consistent version of the C64 palette with the materials I select.
Chris has started branching out into other systems, too, like these Game & Watch figures which might be my favorite thing of all:
Here are more, with an actual Game & Watch game for scale:
Chris has a huge photo gallery you can see to check out even more of his work. And he continues to post new dioramas on his Facebook page and X (if that’s still your thing). And he sells these on eBay, or you can email him if you’re interested in obtaining one for yourself.
You can build your own collection like Chris’!
And that’s it for another newsletter! If you enjoyed this issue, you might also be interested in the time I shared the work of a guy who makes digital recreations of classic game show sets.
Thank you Chris Brooks for letting me share images of your work.
And thank you as always for reading, sharing, commenting, liking, subscribing, following, donating, retweeting, rexeeting, retooting, reposting, bookmarking, highlighting, recommending, reviewing, emoji-reacting, tagging, DMing, emailing, forwarding, QR-coding, podcasting, TikToking, YouTubing, Instagramming, SnapChatting, Facebooking, pinning, blogging, vlogging, GIF-ing, meme-ing, discussing, debating, pondering, and, most importantly, enjoying!
David
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