Ste's Loading Screen Gallery

Ziggurat

ZX Spectrum, 1985

My first published work! This is a pretty tame image, but I wasn't particularly confident in my drawing ability when I drew this, so without any cover art to copy I stuck to lettering, which I always enjoyed working on.

I can't remember whether or not I also did an Amstrad version. I don't have a copy and can't find an Amstrad ROM or tape image on the internet anywhere (probably because there is another CPC game called Ziggurat taking up the database entries).

Ghosts n Goblins

Amstrad CPC, 1986

Ghosts n Goblins was my first paid work, a freelance job for the programmer done while I was still at school.

The game graphics were crap, but I was very proud of the loading screen. I was surprised to learn later than it had been converted to the C64 by my later boss Mike Webb, for which I was never paid!

Max Headroom

Amstrad CPC, 1986

This isn't really my style of image, and I'd forgotten that I'd ever drawn this screen until I came to put this gallery together. I think I was asked to copy Pete Harrison's Spectrum loading screen for the same game on my first day of work experience, and I probably drew it in about 2 hours which would explain why I had no memory of it.

Hocus Focus

ZX Spectrum, 1986

I did two weeks 'work experience' at Binary Design while still at school, and was given a string of loading screens to do, of which this was one of the first.

I must have gained some confidence since the Ziggurat screen, as I attempted my own design here in the absence of any cover artwork to copy!

Omega Mission

Amstrad CPC, 1986

It was quite odd really that I was given a bunch of loading screens to draw on a work experience placement, as in many ways the loading screen was the most fun job on a project for the artist.

I think I spent more time designing the lettering on this screen than on the rest of the picture.

Glass

Amstrad CPC, 1986

I was showing off now, producing a rare example of a screen in the Amstrad's hi-res mode - doubling the horizontal resolution to 320 square pixels rather than 160 fat ones, but dropping from 16 colours to only 4.

A screen in this mode would be impossible to convert to the C64, as it didn't have a corresponding video mode, but this was an Amstrad only title.

Glider Rider

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1986

I think I drew these screen at home, inbetween my fortnight's work experience at Binary Design, and starting work there after finishing high school in the summer.

I was trying to 'innovate' with the Spectrum screen, and avoid the standard 'bright image on black background' which was the loading screen standard (paticularly useful as so many games were set in space!).

I didn't take into account how unbearable all the other seven Spectrum colours were when they filled a large area of screen, and the cyan I chose for the background was possibly the worst of the lot (this reproduction doesn't simulate the incessant glare of the Spectrum modulator). The use of adjacent areas of colour is quite neat for a Spectrum though.

180

ZX Spectrum, 1986

180 was the project I started on my first day of work, aged 16.

This is a neat little screen, but I've no idea why I didn't do the Amstrad / C64 screen for the same project, which was horrible...

Xeno

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1986

Xeno was the title I started working on probably on my second day of work!

A rather dull screen for this 'future sport' simulator, but the game was so plain looking I must have been stuck for ideas.

The strange diagonal line effect on the Amstrad screen was probably an attempt to keep myself awake while working on this screen, but the Spectrum screen suffers from over-use of the 'stipple' effect, so beloved of graphic artists in the 8-bit era.

Zub

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1986

I was really happy with this screen, particularly the use of colour on the Amstrad version, and I even had an A4 shaped sketch which I secretly hoped would be used as the basis for the cover artwork, but it wasn't to be as cover artwork was rarely done with any care, or connection to the game, in those days.

I think this was the first game John and I worked together on, and we had high hopes for Zub as our new character.

The original title was 'Zob', but this had to be changed at the last minute, due to it being a French swear word, and the reason we chose 'Zub' was because the already completed loading screens would be easy to change from 'Zob'.

Hyperbowl

ZX Spectrum, 1986

Another entry into the 'future sport' video game pantheon, and another loading screen for a game which had virtually no graphics, although I came up with an image a little bit more exciting than the Xeno screen.

Those clouds of exhaust smoke look like a homage to the flour trail of Ultimate's Cookie loading screen, which inspired me years earlier.

Once again, I have no idea why I didn't do the awful C64 loading screen for this game.

Street Surfer

Commodore 64, 1986

Street Surfer was a finished game, developed in the US by Sculptured, which came to us at Binary Design from Mastertronic where we were asked to 'tart up' the graphics. So I had to redraw some horrible C64 expanded sprites, and create a new loading screen.

I think this is the only C64-only screen I ever did.

Kobayashi Naru

Amstrad CPC, 1987

This is a strange one, a loading screen for a game I've never played. I did this while at Binary Design, and I think it was as a favour for Mastertronic. It wasn't a Binary Design game though and I don't recall even seeing it run. I must have known something about the game to include the elements I did in the picture. Unless I made them up...?

Die You Vicious Fish

Amstrad CPC, 1987

The lost loading screen! This was a loading screen I did for my friend Paul's home made and home published text adventure - a follow up to his multi selling Al-Strad. I no longer have a copy of the game, and I don't think he has either, and amazingly none of the tens of copies he sold seem to have made it in to any emulation archives.

Defcom

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1987

Urgh! Definitely the worst pair of loading screens I ever did, appropriately for the worst game I've ever worked on.

I find it hard to believe now that I could have let myself produce something as awful as this Amstrad screen. The colours look so bad, you'd almost think it was a C64, hehe.

Feud

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1987

Ah, this is more like it. My favourite pair of loading screens, and in the case of the Amstrad one actually my best, appropriately for one the better games I ever worked on.

With the Amstrad one I was trying to 'free' myself from the limitation of the screen shape (what an idiot!), choosing a square shaped 'canvas' for my image.

I'm proud of the way I designed two completely different images, each suited to the colour and pixel limitations of the target machine, but both accurately capturing the mood of the game. I even came up with a third completely different title screen for the Amiga version.

Amaurote

ZX Spectrum, 1987

Oh dear, another ill-advised attempt to do a coloured background on the Spectrum... Hadn't I learnt my lesson from Glider Rider?

I did the bit with the couple at the front ages before the end of the project, and was pleased with the complicated colour scheme and the way I'd captured the feel of a fifties sci-fi movie poster. But I didn't have the stamina to keep this up for the background, which was horrible and rushed.

Duet

ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, 1987

This was a freelance job, or a 'foreigner', I got due to my reputation as a loading screen specialist. The game was being written by some guys in Stockport (the town where I lived) and I think they knew Nigel Alderton (the Ghosts n Goblins programmer) who put them in touch with me.

I think I played the game once before doing these screens, but I felt like a 'professional' at this point; an expert in my field doing a quality job with the minimum of fuss.

I was 17!