Puck Man‘s painting was created by Namco actor Tadashi Yamashita. In 1969, he responded to an ad in a magazine and started working for Namco as a learner. One safely landing the job, he generally focused on designing painting, logos, and fonts for different Namco arcade devices.
His job on some of Namco’s games of the late 70s included Gee Bee, Bomb Bee, and Cutie Q.
Yamashita was approached by the Puck Man‘s custom Toru Iwatani in 1980, with a number of effective art achievements under his belt.
To lift the simple pixel generated Puck Man character out of the screen and into the outside world, Namco designer Tadashi Yamashita created character illustrations, bringing the game’s hero to life.
I played a nearly full version of Pac-Man while it was still in development, which soon made me think of it. I returned to my drawing table and immediately began the painting. In terms of personality style, Mr. Iwatani came to me with what was evidently a near-finished sport. Only four different colored ghosts and a plain yellow circle for PAC-MAN and everything else came up. But, I worked on the pattern from that, rapidly adding arms and legs to PAC-MAN’s round figure. The outcome was therefore unoriginal that I needed to add more character, but I added eyes that resemble those in a traditional manga. Oh, and PAC-MAN’s dark eyes have holes because I created an enlarged and prolonging version of the original PAC-MAN design. No one seems to have noticed, but I think this not only gave him figure, but gave the design some true effect.
These figures are dispersed throughout the cabinet’s pattern. On the side skill, tent and ring.
Yamashita has referred to some of the main character’s distinct pattern traits. Take note that Puck Man has some broken corners:
Because I drew the figure with a thick, unform line, it appeared to be seriously” closed” to Puck Man. The traces ‘ spaces give the impression of action.
He also provided an intriguing insight into Ball Man’s eye design:
Because I created an enlarged and protracted version of PAC-MAN’s style itself, I created holes in his dark eyes for this reason. No one seems to have noticed, but I think this not only gave him figure, but gave the design some true effect.
Here’s some earlier painting created for the activity:
Puck-Man advertisements were made and used in advertising and activity stores all over Japan. The best known of these shots of Puck Man shouting into a camera is perhaps this one.
Something about the initial case pattern is breathtaking:
These top-of-the-article sketches of the area skill I mentioned are amazing. They show Yamashita’s thought process in coming up with the last piece of artwork shown above, along with some of the rejected area art models he had drawn.
Finally, it was the square type that was chosen to brighten Namco’s Puck Man arcades game release:
Of course, the launch of the game in the West via licensing with Midway, resulted in the change of name to Pac-Man.
Here’s a brief discussion with Yamashita, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the sport in 2020.
Yamashita would go on to make the product models for potential Namco legends including Rally X, Warp &, Warp, Galaga, Pole Position and Xevious. The striking painting by Yamashita serves as a powerful reminder that, in order to appeal customers, square cabinet manufacturers in the 1970s and 1980s realized that a complete package was required to draw players in. One thing was the real game and its gameplay, but the artwork filled any imagination gaps that might have otherwise been filled by the artwork.
I highly recommend checking out Tim Lapetino’s outstanding book, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon for further browsing on the development and marketing of Pac-Man.
Thank you for stopping by this week!
Tony
