It’s been years that I’ve thought of doing a Mega Man themed mod on one of my NES consoles and some time later Platinumfunghi released his brilliant Mega Man 2 mod. I was excited to see that someone did such a professional job, like he was reading my mind 😉
I decided to check off one thing on my virtual “to do list” and finally start my own Mega Man mod. I could have done a different Mega Man themed mod, but as part 2 was the best MM in my opinion (probably as I only owned that one as kid…), I couldn’t resist.
And before I forget: I was using a NTSC regionfree board for this console. I recently got a NTSC console,and the 60Hz are so much better for most of the NES games; the music/sound is calculated by the CPU and not on a separate soundchip,so even the music play faster 🙂

Enough blabla, let’s start:

1) Disassembling the donor

The donor case was a NES I got in big package. It had stickers on it and looked like it has been stored in a bunker for a long time…

We need to disassemble it completely as many parts will be painted alter on. Keep all the screws in a box or wherever you don’t lose them.

For reference, I also show the interior. It has common phillips screws too. Unscrew them, remove the top cover and unscrew any screws that are then visible.

We remove the switchboard too, as the powerbutton and resetbutton will be paint too, and additionally the LED is replaced with a blue one to match the Mega Man design.

Remove the buttons. You might use some force to pull them off.

The controller connectors hang loose and can just be pulled out of the case.

The top black parts can be removed by unscrewing 2 screws. The 3rd one holds the hatch in place.

As we now have everything put into pieces, it’s time to teach the board “more languages” 😉 Crimp the 4th pin of the CIC to make it eat NTSC and PAL games. Remember: the CPU of the board is responsible for the speed, not the game. PAL games will play faster on a NTSC console, NTSC games play at 50hz on a PAL console.

2) Preparing the cover-part

For the top cover part, there are many solutions. I first wanted to print the Bossheads onto decal paper, then put those decals on acrylic glass.
Much easier solution: Print them on normal paper and use a laminating machine to make it durable. Together with the acrylic glass, we have a good looking, durable window 🙂

The graphic itself can be created using an emulator with the Mega Man 2 game, screenshooting the level selection. As the resolution is fairly low, use an image editing program, and resize it. Make sure to use the nearest neighbor resize option, as it will not retain the proper pixels with a bicubic resizer etc.

Let’s cut those windows out !

3) Cutting the cover

Cutting out the window is a very critical and difficult step. You could use a dremel or scissor-saw, but that would end in rough corners, non-parallel squares. I decided to cut them out by laser. As I don’t own a lasercutter, I was renting one in a Fablab in Luxembourg (Esch-Belval to be precise). I got some help by Rodolfo who knows how to set up the lasercutter.

Some things that you have to know: that plastic is melting fairly easy and it stinks like hell, don’t cut it in a bad ventilated area!

The last piece was cut out with a dremel (also available at the fablabs. Make sur to search for a fablab next to you! They grew out of an international educational program, and can be used by students, private persons and professionals, and therefore prices per hour vary).
Use sanding paper and a tool to finetune the edges.

4) Sprayjobs

I’m using the same water based mat colors as I usually do for my other console. I don’t like the shiny looks too much. I chose 2 different “Mega Man blue” colors and a “blanc cassé” white for the accent-stripe.

I started with some neutral beige primer. Let it dry for at least 15mins. The more time you give it, the better 😉

I first painted the white accent stripe, then used painter’s tape to protect it from the next layers of blue paint. I used 3 thin layers of blue each time.

5) Replacing the LED by a blue one

Meanwhile, while waiting for the pieces to dry ( rest of the day and over night in my case), if was looking about how to change the LED. It’s fairly easy.

The Nintendo red LED is just an usual LED, bend over and soldered to the board.

It can be desoldered fairly easy. Heat it up and use a desoldering pump to suck away the old tin.

Use a tool to gently pull out the LED.

I more or less mesured the old LED and cut the new LED into the same size.

Then bend it a bit, not the whole 90°.

Make sure you insert it the RIGHT WAY ! It’s a diode and will only work one way 😉

Freshly soldered, we are good to go. The whole operation only takes 10 mins.

6) Decals !

A paint console looks cool, but only looks really good with some decals. I downloaded free fonts that look like the original Nintendo fonts and printed some decals. Delicate operation…

I directly printed lots of the same decals…they don’t take much space on the paper and you can easily fail while applying them!

Drop them into water,only after 2 layers of transparent spray / finisher. Let the finisher dry!

I used some tools to move the decals around easier. They can easily stick onto your fingers, so better use small metallic tools.

And that’s the result of a bad first try…didn’t I told you to print out some duplicates ?

I use a papertowel to suck away the water. Still be careful at this step, the decals can move on the waterdrops.

Couldn’t wait until it’s completely assembled, looked fine to me 🙂

I finished off the sprayjob and decals with some more layers with mat finisher. Was also the time to finish the green DMG Gameboy 😉

7) Final Steps

I still had to cut the acrylic glass. I used a sawing machine, but every other tool should be fine too.

It has to be larger than the windows, but not too large to not be able to fit in…

I just used some hot glue. Easy, fast,does the job neatly.

First test look: yeah !

8) Impressions

9) Credits

– First of all, big thx go to Capcom for making the game 😉 *wiki-page*
– Cudos go to Platinumfunghi who’s creating amazing works and gives inspiration to the modding community
– More thx go to my dad who has more tools than me and assists me with cutting parts etc.
– Thx go to

and Rodolfo Baïz for the lasercutting session (he didn’t get much to eat for lunch as the foodtruck was already closing 😉 )

P.S: images are copyrighted, if you want to use them, contact me