Advice for my first marquee

[Gromet]

Let the Advice begin.....

[jakejake28]

nice, move this into artwork forum and you are good to go.  

as for the marquee, are you gonna put some text there? fill it with something, maybe some little bats or galaga dudes, but dont leave it completely empty.

[Gromet]

?  Better or worse?

[jakejake28]

much better, imho

[TalkingOctopus]

Looks good.  You may want to consider moving some of the characters further away from the bottom edge, otherwise they will be mostly covered by the retainer.

I like the second one better as well, and wish the text were even more visible.

Nice Work!

[Cisco Kid]

looks good ... I think your on the right track ... the ghost lettering is cool ... but doesn't stand out very well ... its missing something ... maybe some creative shadowing or some effect that brings it a little more to the fore front  

that quarter moon in the background brightened up with some of the light coming over the MAME lettering would do the trick  

[Generic Eric]

I like the background.  I think the moon reflecting off the text would be better.

Or, you could change the clouds in the background to write out MAME.

Also, I don't think the characters are spooky enough.  The second character from the left could go, that and the mega man looking guys could go too.   I think you could get rid of or move Mt. Bison.  Make a mirror image of Dirk and move him up to the front where Mt. Bison was.  I think Dirk should be one the main characters on your marquee.  Akuma isn't my favorite character, but he seems spooky enough to stay.  The character between wolverine and akuma can go too.  Maybe instead of the crescent moon, you can take the pacman icon from the game and make it look like a moon? You could then remove the blue ghost and make it look like a blue shaded floating cloud.  Another idea is if you could make some fog in front of you characters.  I think that would look great.

I like your idea, but I think you should make it look more spooky, think Scooby Doo and old B movies.

On the other hand, this is your idea, so take it in the direction you want it to go.  The above were just suggestions.

[Isometric Bacon]

I love the look, but just a little word of advice.

The Characters contrast against the background too much. They're far too bright. Darken them a litte via the brightness/contrast tools, and they should fit into the picture much better.

[Gromet]

darkened the characters up a bit some shadowing etc... not sure???

[Frostillicus]

It's coming along nicely.  Good choice of characters  I would contrast the 'MAME' even more, so it stands out when the light gets behind it.  Almost every marquee has one main element to draw your eye to.  Or maybe put a big glow right behind the castle and have it interact with MAME somehow.

[Gromet]

still playing with the mame logo...

[tagnetti]

Looks nice. You said you are still playing with the Mame logo so I won't comment on that.

I think what you had originally looked nice. Perhaps you can rather then just using moonlight or in addition to that Darken your characters as you go back into the image . I would definitely sharpen the characters, particularly those closer to the front. Also some of them are right ontop of each other. Increasing contrast and Saturation could help with that.

If you are going to give them moonlight then I'd give them shadows. Use your lasso and make cuts not airbrush as itis making them look muddy and just try to keep your light source consistent.

To me the focal point is the castle as far as your environmet and it appears the light is coming from overhead and to the right where yours appears to be from the left.

I hope that helps some. I had to laern that stuff as I do animation color comics digitally which really relies on following the light.

Again only you need to like it, but I hope I helped.

Tom

[Generic Eric]

Wow!

I think its coming along quite nicely.