♥FH: Turbo Powered (2015)
Almost famous
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The original paintings shown here are available as a set.
The artworks are also available as limited edition reproductions here.
This whole Hearts for Hardware series is really a thinly veiled excuse to engage in hardware collecting. It’s given me the excuse to repurchase hardware I once had as a kid, or to acquire systems I never owned, such as the NEC TurboGrafx-16.
I remember hearing about the TG-16 as a teen, but the closest I got to one was a friend who mentioned his friend had one, and that Splatterhouse looked and played awesome on it. I wasn’t a fan of that game, so it didn’t register much. It was a good deal more popular in Japan than in the USA, where we were in the vice grip of the NES. It just couldn’t break through.
Which is a bit of a shame, since it’s a great piece of hardware, with capabilities ahead of its time but eclipsed by the SEGA Genesis, both of which released in the USA around the same time. This was the era where console ports from the arcade were still common but losing prominence. The NES era brought far more focus to those original titles made for the systems, so while a great port of Galaga ‘88 was to be found on the TG-16, these weren’t the reasons one bought a console anymore.
I didn’t get my hands on one of these until it was time to paint it. They have become expensive over the years, so I actually bought a dead unit for this one, and brought it to life again in paint.
The background here takes a cue from the pattern running under the activity on the console packaging, as is visible above. Showing these controllers floating is common in this series, and it gives the items an otherworldly, somewhat magical appearance, which is entirely in line with my impression of them, as objects.
In retrospect, perhaps one of the biggest flaws of this machine was its inclusion of only one controller port. While most game on their own, plenty of fun was had with 2-player games at this time. Nintendo’s Ice Hockey comes to mind.
I did take the opportunity of the Wii’s Virtual Console to try a few gems from this system’s library. Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood was as good as they say, but Neutopia II and Dungeon Explorers II were also pretty great.
Prints are available here.
The original oil paintings can be found here.