MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Greg Martin, the man behind a huge number of classic 1990s video game covers, has passed away.
Martin’s works include the likes of Adventure Island, Bonk’s Adventure, Pac-Man, Sonic CD, Aero The Acro-Bat and perhaps most famously Sonic the Hedgehogs 2 and 3.
Greg was the exceptionally talented illustrator. He was an incredible artist and an even better person,” a personal friend wrote on the NintendoAge forums. I never met Greg in person but we spoke on the phone many, many times. I must have spent at least 50 hours with him on the phone.
Each conversation was special to me as Greg was incredibly friendly and an excellent conversationalist – actually that’s probably selling him short! He had a gift for conversation and for making you comfortable in speaking with him.
Greg started his career at Hanna Barbera. He worked on projects relating to the Flintstones, Jetsons, Yogi Bear and the rest of the Hanna Barbera line up. It was no surprise then that he illustrated the packaging for the video games related to these properties later on – he already had perfected illustrating these characters.
After Hanna Barbera, Greg worked for Nintendo and Sega and many other companies. He produced beautiful 24 to 30 inch airbrushed paintings that took nearly a week to complete. Of course the trouble was he was never actually given a week so there were a lot of all nighters to put out 5 days worth of work in 3 days worth of time.
He was one of the very best and most prolific artists in this area and the list of well loved game boxes he had a hand in is incredible. He also worked on many other projects including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, and, early in his career, movie posters.”
