I'm working on a pretty complicated picture of my friends' and my Shadowrun characters all dancing and hanging out at Club Penumbra. I was wondering if there's actually any images out there of the club or should I just wing it based on the vague written description?

Haven't seen many if any pictures, but I used the club extensively. Got a soft spot for it.
If you like, I can write it up for you tomorrow, but it's only descriptions and heavily relying on my own imagination of it.

Sounds good. All I have to go by right now is what I've found in the Shadowrun Wikia, and "retro interior" and "moon surface floor" don't tell me a lot. After all, what's considered "retro" by 2072?

Apparently the inside of it is very much like a moonscape. Seattle 2072 or the earlier Seattle Sourcebooks are probably your best bet.

Thanks CanRay. I happen to have both Seattle2072 & New Seattle. Of course I still appreciate any interpretations other runners have of the infamous club.

Ok, here is my interpretation:
The entrance is made up like an airlock, for a space station or something of the like. Bright, white-ish, think Star Wars, that rebel ship that gets boarded in the beginning.
The bouncers are usually either BBT (Big Bad Troll), or MLD (Mean Little Dwarf). Both are nasty fellows, but at least they wear good clothes.
Once inside, you walk through a weapons scanner (rating 5, if it's important) and will be asked to check all weapons at the checkroom, where you'll get an RFID-tagged plastic chip in return.
Magical first comers will have a short word with an albino woman, dressed in white leathers. Tall, lean, red eyes, short white hair.

After you exit the 'airlock' you stand on the moonscape first floor. Uneven floor, pockmarked by micrometeorite impacts, ceiling dotted with stars. The dancefloor is in a larger crater in the center of the room with a primitive-looking, bare metal stage (made famous by the one and only Concrete Dreams gig ) on the rim of the crater, towards the left wall, with backstage entries. A bit further towards the entry is a corridor that leads to the toilets, a private (and locked) door upstairs to the owner's office and another private (and locked) door to the backstage area, with a few rooms for clandestine meetings. The corridor has the same 'moon rock' surface as the rest of the first floor, but with additional metal grating over it. This metal grating repeats itself in the two bar areas (one immediately to the right after leaving the airlock, the other on the opposite wall) and in the alcoves on the right and opposite wall. These alcoves are the only locations where you can sit on the first floor, apart from a few bar stools
The tables and benches in the alcoves are designed as space shuttle seats and similar space ship interior, as well as both bars.
A few standing tables are placed around the dance floor.

There's another short corridor on the right wall, with a metal grating staircase leading to the second floor, a gallery overlooking the first floor through spaceship window frames (no glass, though). Here, you can get small snacks, mostly soy and sit around tables, similar in design to the ones in the alcoves on the first floor.

Basically, that's it.

A few of my regular NPCs there:
Jono (Jonesy Warner), the elven barkeeper on the bar right at the entrance. He has hollow eyes and is not the best looking elf, but he's a wizard with the bottles and makes mean cocktails
Cathy (Donovan, but no one knows her last name), human fixer with a datajack as her only apparent cyberware. Assensing her will reveal high quality headware, a bit of bioware and an artificial left leg. Brown, shoulderlength hair, good looking, even if she's pushing 40. She wears mostly armoured leather pants and jacket and has, in case something goes wrong, a savalette guardian hidden in her leg.
She's famous in the sprawl, has international contacts, a good rapport with the club-owner (Kevin Hokama) and is know to broker jobs and that she can get you a lot of equipment (usually no 'ware, but everything else is fair game, with 10-20% added to the listed price). In game terms, she's a light pacifist, is very perceptive with an analytical mind, comes across as very amiable (first impression ) and has a black market pipeline. Details from her past are erased, but she got her start as a small time runner before changing to the fixer business via her father's connections.
She usually sits in one of the alcoves on the right wall and is accompanied by a black ork with dreadlocks, her bodyguard.
He's another Jono (Carlysle), 2nd generation runner and adept with a close combat focus and brutal punches (Mystical Armour, Spellresistance, no boosted reflexes). He's actually really nice, but doesn't show it. His job is to impress and intimidate people and he can do this fairly well.

I have a LONG way to go, but here it is. I could probably add the aloves in the back but I welcome any input on what I have so far.

I know the original Seattle Sourcebook had a glossy advert type of deal for it in color, but it wasn't anything like an interior shot.

The hardest part was the shadows. I want to thank everyone again for their input. In any case, here's the finished work: Party At Clumb Penumbra

I like it, seems accurate!

Reviving this old thread since it's relevant. I have an idea for a new piece. I want to draw the exterior of Club Penumbra and I was wondering if there are any pictures at all of it. I'm going out on a limb and guessing where it is on 5th & Yesler but I was wondering if there is any canon artwork showing the outside of the club (I already saw the shots from the SNES/Sega game, that is not an accurate portrayal of Seattle's streets. For one, there's no hills ).

https://maps.google.de/maps?q=seattle+5th+a...002064&z=20

This is the location at our time.
I kept the parking space in the south but the building itself didn't receive much description. Also, there's a hill

Here's the street view, and I think it's rather fitting for a night club
https://maps.google.de/maps?q=seattle+5th+a...,310.7,,0,-0.35

Or maybe it's this one:
https://maps.google.de/maps?q=seattle+5th+a...-45.77&z=21

I was thinking it was the older building across the street from the second link.

I was telling my husband that in 60 years, I could see some of the older buildings being torn down and the ones recently built in our time would become worn out but remain. I figure the triangular building could've been demolished and the club built in its place (there's a LOT of shadowrun locations that overlap current buildings but then again, a lot happened in SR that hasn't happened in real life)

http://fexes.deviantart.com/art/Downtown-S...oster-216470395 <= here you have the exact location, with Arcology across the street

Edit: According to the map, the Penumbra is indeed at the location of the fire station. I seem to remember some piece about that in SR, too. Can't remember, where, though.

Yeah all I've ever found in the books I own is its on 5th & Yesler. I suppose future budget cuts could result in the station's lot being sold to private interests. I'm redoing the piece I had in mind to be some innocuous street in Seattle, but it doesn't hurt to speculate or research since I want to make a webcomic someday.

SR1/2 Sourcebook entry



The map in the back of the Book has them on the SouthWest corner of the intersection.

I was hoping for an exterior description but Banncock found a map for me & it would seem its where a firestation is now. I suppose a lot could happen in 50 years that would allow a private company to buy that lot.