It’s great art for the geeks

The titanic trio have been immortalised in paint on the wall of town centre board games cafe Geek Retreat.

The colourful wall painting is the work of talented artist Jacq DeVeaux, who is appealing for anyone impressed by her handiwork to make a donation to Rawmarsh Foodbank.

Jacq, who works in student support for Rotherham College, explained that she had been inspired when visiting the Howard Street games haven to check up on a student who was on work placement there.

“The owners said they had wanted to do a mural for a while, so I said: ‘I could do it for you’,” she said.

“I said I’d do it so long as I could do it to raise awareness of the foodbank.”

Games cafe owner Mike Herrington drew up a challenging collage design also featuring Link from the Legend of Zelda, Dragonball Z’s Son Goku, the title character and the Dark Magician from fantasy showdown Yu-Gi-Oh, Kingdom Hearts hero Sora and — as the centrepiece — Pokemon icon Pikachu, whose little black nose was the finishing touch.

After the design was projected onto the cafe wall and a chalk stencil drawn in, Jacq set to work on the long painting process.

The painter spent more than 130 hours over 18 days on the vibrant 8ft x 11ft mural, which was officially unveiled by Mike.

Jacq thanked customers for encouraging her during the project, adding: “Thanks also to everyone who let me know when I’d ‘missed a bit!’”

Mike said the characters depicted “are all my favourites, either the first cartoons I watched or games I played”.

He said he was “blown away” by how the mural had turned out.

“I never thought it would turn out like this — it’s amazing,” he said.

Jacq said the new Rawmarsh Foodbank was due to open at Rawmarsh Community School this autumn, adding: “A 20ft container, which will be used for foodbank operations, has now been delivered thanks to Rotherham Logistics and RCS site staff.”

Donations can be made at https://tinyurl.com/GeekRetreatmural.