Artwork

StuntCopter Laser Tile

Classic Mac game on a ceramic tile

When got my first laser cutter, I spent some time trying out different materials, including ceramic tile. I found that etching and inking tile is strangely satisfying! 😅

Also, when using black ink on the drawings, it reminds me of the very classic 1-bit Apple Macintosh look.

After testing the process with a variety of image styles, I decided to adapt a screenshot from StuntCopter – a classic game where you drop a stuntperson onto a moving wagon – to fit the constraints of the format.

Challenges

There are several elements to the StuntCopter screen that had to be moved, removed, or slightly reinterpreted to create the best output. I wanted to retain as much as possible, but sadly the tiny person who does a flip in the bottom corners of the screen had to go in the final version 😄

These screenshots show where the different elements came from that I used in the final version, including the cloud variations, menu bar styles, and sprite frames:

StuntCopter screenshots

The final version

Colouring a StuntCopter laser tile:

The earlier tests

The process of getting to StuntCopter was quite fun! Three of the more successful tests used an owl drawing from Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden colouring book, a framegrab from a Pallas cat gif, and Bonzi Buddy. (Which is another old bit of computer nonsense. 😅)

See the gallery below to have a look. For the Pallas cat and Bonzi Buddy tiles, I used an engraving effect in Photoshop to give them a money-like texture to produce the better image when etched.

Colouring the owl test laser tile: