Thanks Ond, I might take you up on that!
I pretty much have free reign on this, as long as it is cool in the end, lol.
I just met with my friend who this is for, and we went to my parent's house to look at Nostalgia and to try to get more direction. He is actually perfectly OK with the whole "conflict" part of star wars, so lightsaber fights or space battles are on the table.. What he wants to avoid is the fantasy side of things, like D&D type art.
His older son has read a bunch of the books, seen the movies, watched the animated stuff, and is really into everything star wars. His younger son has watched the movies with dad and likes it because of that. So Star Wars is definitely the theme to go with.
So now I have to make a decision on one of 3 general ideas:
1) Starship Wylie. Sides done up in some kind of space ship art, the "starship wyle" stenciled on like Vigo suggested. Control Panel done up like a pilot dashboard. Maybe even some front art too, to carry the theme around the whole cab. Probably won't go so far as to light up different parts of the marquee, although I might consider trying to control the marquee lights with the ipac UIO.
I do like this idea, just not sure I could pull it off to really look great and be distinctively "star wars". Like I said, I might take up Ond on a little help on the detail work, or anyone else willing to help out.
2) Star Wars art, no particularly cohesive design. Big space battle on one side, Jedi fight on the other (mostly recycle whatever hi-res art I can find on the interweb and shoot for something only unique in the layout). Safe and relatively easy.
3) Star Wars: Rebels vs Empire. Probably overdone but still cool: Rebel theme on one side, Empire on the other. Thinking the symbols as a centerpiece on each side, some kind of yet undecided style to give it a battleworn machine-like feel, and maybe on that big lower part of the cab maybe a silhouette of a well known character. Carry it around to the lower front of the cab where a blue and green lightsaber cross... Control panel and Marquee could also be where the two sides clash.
2&3 I still don't have a good name though. Might have to settle for the old standby "Wylie's Arcade"..
Soon as I decide on the theme, I will start a project thread with all the build details.