They just don’t make covers like they used to. Video games of the 80s and 90s were usually accompanied by hand-drawn and detail-rich box art and if it was a title published by Ocean or Imagine, chances are the artist was Robert Wakelin. Sadly, Wakelin passed away earlier this month, but a part of him will continue to live on through his amazing artwork.
https://kotaku.com/the-most-awesome-pc-box-art-in-the-world-5603933
Bob Wakelin enjoyed a brief stint in a “post-punk/new wave band” called Modern Eon before he started drawing covers for Ocean Software. He’d go on to craft box art for a great many games, including Epic, Athena and Choplifter III
If those somehow don’t ring a bell, then how about New Zealand Story?
Operation Wolf? Wakelin too.
And Ninja Gaiden.
Here are some other Wakelin classics:
Over his career, Wakelin was responsible for “almost a hundred pieces” of box art, despite having “no interest in video games”.
Wakelin died on January 20, 2018 — he’ll be greatly missed. To see more of his art, a nice collection including commentary from the man himself can be found on Exotica
This story originally appeared on Kotaku Australia
