Midway Rampage restoration/restomod thread

kcorcoran

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 6, 2014
Messages
1,272
Reaction score
1,117
Location
Maricopa, Arizona
Picking up a Midway Rampage this weekend.
Currently has a 25" monitor in it and converted to a Golden Tee 97.

I'm no GT fan but cabinet looked solid and it has a working 25" in it so seemed like a decent deal.

I'm most likely going to, at a minimum, restore the cabinet. That said.. I'm not a fan of the original midway cabinet side art.

Since sides are painted I was considering doing new sideart, maybe in the style/layout of Rampage World Tour but using more of the original style artwork from the marquee, cp and bezel.

I'm an artist/illustrator so I should be able to a decent job recreating the art in the old style.

I'll probably leave the 25" in there and recreate the bezel to accommodate the monitor and have it reverse printed on plexi.


Here's the cabinet and a quick mockup of the layout.

I know.. this isn't 'preservation' in the true sense. It's more like buying an old Chevy and bringing it back to life with some customization.


Anyone got a nice Marquee?
 

Attachments

  • 26231656_10156063128642375_5154889313441078806_n.jpg
    26231656_10156063128642375_5154889313441078806_n.jpg
    74.4 KB · Views: 161
  • rampageSide.jpg
    rampageSide.jpg
    102.8 KB · Views: 155
Sounds cool . Post pics of everything - this will be fun to follow .
 
I know it isn't quite "preservation", but I would keep the 25" in there too. The 19" just looks tiny in that cabinet.....
 
Looks good, but since this isn't a World Tour, eliminate the purple guy(Vern) on the side art. He wasn't in the original rampage.
 
Agree. Didn't pull him out of the mock up since he was partially cut off anyhow. Just thinking having the 3 lined up like that would be an option.

Could also go for one of them clinging to a building with the building running up along the back of the cabinet.
 
Been spending a bit of time doing a vector trace of the Rampage bezel.
I am using what seems to be a fairly decent size emulator overlay bezel which seems to be the one arcade art printers are using.

There are a couple of stitching errors on it but nothing I shouldn't be able to work around.

I'd love to get a really nice high res image of a bezel or someone local with a Rampage I could scan.

I'm vectorizing this so I can adjust the layout to fit the 25" monitor and still keep the spirit of the original cabinet.

I started with the major color separations and then realized I needed to work on individual elements like left building, right building, etc.. so I could move them around. I decided I wans't going to fix any of the errors in the art by the original artist such as poor color trapping and miscolored areas.

That said, I will be adding some hidden details that only I will know about so I can identify if anyone is printing this trace for profit when I release it to the community for personal use.


Finished the businessman this evening.

fGmcr0w.jpg



And will work on the paratrooper and tank next.

PsqnBwC.jpg




The amount of stipple work (dots) on this art is insane. I'm tracing each one. Luckily I'm using a digital pen.
 
Last edited:
Was lucky enough to have a little chat this week with the original Rampage artist Brian Colin about how he illustrated the bezel artwork. Lots of ink stippling as I thought and he agreed that vectorizing the bezel was a chore he has avoided for some time. :)

I can attest to why. SO MANY DOTS.

Anyhow... I've ordered a new poster from Game Refuge which I will most likely end up using as the sideart for my restomod.

There will be some adjustment to get it all to fit right but this is exactly the style I was thinking about for side art when I started this.

XSIfP6l.jpg
 
Made more progress on my vector trace. Starting to get addicted to working on it. I'm going to need more art to trace when I'm done with this. haha

rFTkDcT.jpg
 
I can't wait to see the finished product. I have to agree that working with vectors really does get addicting! After I started a sideart project, I started tracing all sorts of things like game logos and various sprites just so I can get better at Illustrator.
 
Can anyone confirm if an original Rampage came with large ball tops or small ball tops on the Monroe joysticks?

I picked up 3 sticks yesterday but 2 are large and 1 is small.. so I'm going to need to find the right one or the others.

Also, took a bit of a break from the bezel work to start on the CPO.
...and I thought the bezel was going to be a lot of work... just, wow.
Keep in mind this is all hand drawn/traced using a digital pen trying to stay as accurate to the original image as possible.

QyWEHcN.jpg
 
Last edited:
That might be the nicest Rampage I have ever seen. I like that pop of yellow that T-molding adds in the front. I might have to steal that idea on mine. Someone put in different sticks on mine and I've been trying to buy ones back to put it back the way it should be. Those Monroe sticks are crazy speedy right now though. Had to pick up ones here and there until I finally got 3.
 
I was worried about being able to afford some Monroes for my resto.

Then last week on a random chance I reached out to a local arcade guy on CL to ask if he had a Monroe laying around.

He told me he had two and he'd trade me for two of my Betson trackballs.
Then, he couldn't find the second one and a short time later let me know he found a CP with 2 more for a total of 3.

2 Betson trackballs and $20 later I'm the proud owner of 3 Monroe joysticks!

Funny how sometimes you can just get super lucky and sometimes you can't find shit. haha.

My next challenge will be to find the right combination of matching ball tops. Right now I have 2 large and 1 small. Probably easier to find 1 large than 2 small but I'll go either way.
 
update on my bezel and control panel artwork.

i've been very lazy and distracted by other shiny things.
i need to get back to drawing.
 
Hi-did you finish this Rampage restore? I am particularly interested as I'm thinking about a restore with a 25" as well. Thanks
 
Funny I've been looking for a Rampage forever. One of the few games I would get a make room for. It's a mindless beat em up game but I like it. lol
 
Back
Top Bottom