Having never manufactured any sort of amusement device before, I felt that the art, and artist, needed to be a selling point. It couldn’t be just *any art* from *any artist*, it had to be iconic art from an iconic artist. I wanted an artist who would be immediately recognized by not only their name, but by their unique style; someone with a solid pinball pedigree.
John Youssi (http://www.johnyoussi.com/pinball.html) fit the bill perfectly. There was a slight problem however; I did not know John! E-mailing a person of John’s stature in the pinball business and asking him if he would be interested in illustrating a pin game takes a bit of nerve, especially when you consider what games he has illustrated; Medieval Madness, The Addams Family, Whitewater, Whirlwind, Funhouse, Bride Of Pinbot, Twilight Zone, and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, just to name a few.
The internet is a wonderful place. I found John’s e-mail address on his web site and sent him a short note explaining what we were up to and asked him if he would consider joining the SGM team. I was not surprised that he answered my e-mail, but I was surprised when he said he would be willing to come out and take a look at our project. About a week later we were standing in front of the original Contact Master. At this first meeting I honestly did not have much to show him. This was very early on and we had only made a few 3D printed parts and not much else. John was very gracious and listened to my pitch. I suppose the whole project sounded just far enough *out there* that it peaked his interest.
John was in!
We tossed around some basic ideas of what we thought the art should look like. Being that the name ScoreGasm Master merits its own attention, I wanted the art to be pretty tame/classic, sort of a throwback to a bygone era. John suggested an art-deco-meets-pinup-girl look. This sounded like the perfect approach.
A few weeks later John e-mailed me with a few first drafts. The art was near perfect from the start! With only a few tweaks we soon had our cabinet and playfield art.
John is a consummate professional, so having him on board for the art package on this project made what could have been a grueling process very fluid and easy.
