Nintendo 64 cartridge art by Mike Vetrone

Mike Vetrone is an artist that specialises in hand-crafting what he calls “Custom Disney Vinylmations”. It’s really hard to describe what that is, but I’ll give it a go. They’re these mini statues, I’d guess about 10cm tall, that are chibi-proportioned and are painted to represent various characters. Most of the ones I’ve seen are Disney or comic book related, but they all seem to have these distinctive Mickey Mouse ears on them. I think that that makes them look a bit more odd than they need to, but they’re not the focus of this a

In late may 2014, he released a series of his custom made art to his Facebook page. This series consisted of three stsues, all of a similar structure but with a different image on them.

Mike Vetrone and his cart art

The three pieces all have the same foundation, two Nintendo 64 cartridges placed pin-to-pin facing up, and then a stack of games on top of them. Then they have been painted along where the end labels would be if the Nintendo 64 actually had end labels.

The first one we see is called “The Bad Guy” which sold for $200. This is the cheapest one of the bunch, I can only assume that it is because the other two pieces are made of 13 carts while this one is only 10.

It features a big Bowser head front and centre with a background of what looks like random splishes and sploshes, kinda graffiti looking if you ask me.

The next one on our list is called “The Hand”, which sold for $250. This one is a bit more interesting. Rather than just having one character, it’s based on various characters from Super Smash Brothers. Unless you’re blind, I’m going to guess that you know that it’s Link, Pikachu and Kirby there fighting against Master hand, hence the name. Just like the other two, it also has a graffiti-esque background to it.

The last of the three woks is called “The Plumber”, and this one also sold for $250. This one has a bit of a simpler design. As the name would imply, it has Mario jumping against a question mark block. Again it has that graffiti background.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that this is really cool. If the games still work (didn’t get their contacts covered in paint) this is a good way of giving a bit of life to the boring tops of the N64 carts.

I think that at least $200 is quite expensive (considering that the games shown look pretty decent like Banjo Kazooie or Gauntlet) so I wouldn’t personally buy them though.

PS.

You gotta love the guy’s surname, at first I confused it for ‘Vectrex’.