This is the actual production painting used to create the box for Sierra On-Line’s classic adventure game Space Quest IV.
Ahhh, Space Quest. The charming misadventures of a bumbling janitor in outer space, as envisioned by Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy of Sierra On-Line. Old-school gamers remember this as one of the best adventure series ever made: it was equal parts space opera and geeky humor, challenging but not frustrating, and above all, just plain fun. But all good things come to an end, and Roger Wilco was retired from active duty after his sixth interstellar mission.
Roger’s creators, though, are not retired, and they might just have a grand new quest in store for us. The “Two Guys from Andromeda” believe adventure gaming is not actually dead, just resting, or maybe pining for the fjords. Last month, they launched the SpaceVenture Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a brand-new adventure title, brimming over with the sort of story-based, snort-laugh-inducing goodness that made their previous series so memorable and fabulous.
But right now, things aren’t looking good. With only four days left on the clock, the pledge total for this project is still many thousands of dollars short – around 100k. The seller of this artwork also worked at Sierra On-Line back in the day and is selling it with the proceeeds helping fund the new game.
The painting itself is acrylic mostly done with an air-brush. The original rough pencil idea was thought up by the other Creative Services artist of Sierra On-Line at the time, John Gamache. The foot on the face was part of John’s original sketch idea. There might be a bit of Prisma color pencil on this as well as paint, as that was the technique the artist was using quite a lot at the tome.
