I wasn't satisfied with the quality of scans of the original cassette inserts so I re-created them. They lose some authenticity in looking a little too perfect.

Anyway since I recreated them i can put whatever characters I like on them and make them any color I wish. Working on images for Buzzsaw, Black and Red Micros, as well as Ratbat, Steeljaw, etc.

I tried printing them on a color laser but the color cracks along the folds.

 

Here's a custom cassette insert for Ratbat who was not one of the original cassettes. I put the name in English, but I could make a variation with the Japanese characters ラットバット

Some of the original inserts had variations. In this case I used asterisks in place of the dot bullets and "War action time" instead of "Operating time". All of the cassettes are 60 minutes presumably based on how much tape they have to record their activities with. I wanted to keep my design uniform so I only have to change a minimum amount of details for new characters.

 

Never had a vintage with case Microchange tape...so not sure how these stack up the the originals, but I think these designs are beautiful, and definitely feel like they belong to the era.

 

I made these in Photoshop overlaying original scans so they are as close to those originals as possible.

The fonts are close matches except for the word MICROCASSETTE in the oval, for that I found the best scan of it I could find. It was much harder for me to find a matching Japanese font, so I just used the closest I could find. The real inserts have more sharp corners on the Japanese text than these. I also put a slight metallic effect on the Japanese text because it just looked a little plain to me.

There are minor differences in the details between the Micros, Jaguar, and Condor inserts, but I adjusted a bit to make them uniform or to make alternate versions rather than make them pixel perfect copies. The originals were not made in a computer so a lot of the original details are far from perfect. The grid on the blue field was really sloppy and misaligned so I just redrew that whole area.

The most effort went into the graphic backgrounds. The original backgrounds were painted just as the character images were and they had a sort of 3D etched effect and on top of that they were very grainy. These look more modern and digital than the originals. What I did was I took the original backgrounds and distorted them until the lines were parallel horizontal, then I drew new lines over those, then I re-transformed the new lines to match the original perspective and added some blending effects. I couldn't come up with an effect that looked quite like the original etching or graininess so these lines look more flat and smooth compared to the originals. Basically, the originals tried to look like circuit board traces but these look more like energy beams and I prefer the energy beam look more than the circuit board look. So now I have plain backgrounds suitable to put any character on and I can make them any color.

These backgrounds have a more energetic/dynamic look than the 2D grid on sunburst that G1 Transformer backgrounds had.

High res scans of the characters were relatively easy to find. I Photoshopped out the Autobot and Decepticon logos.

High res images of an actual microcassette were used, again not difficult to find.

 

You are of my own heart. I love these images! I am currently attempting to put together original Diaclone / Mircoman art to make a Pre-transformers card series online. Please swing by @transformercard on twitter to see some of my stuff so far.

Keep up the great work.

Rickie

 

Just saved all these out to print! Thank you sincerely. Exceptional work!!! I'd love to see the remaining year one cassette colors (Buzzsaw, Rumble) Cheers!!!