Sideart first go.

[Fat_Trucker]

This is the first draft of my sideart. Feedback positive and negative is very wlecome.



*update*

Also playing with ideas around this

Thought about what mahuti said about relating the artwork to the cab. Anyone got any suggestions about how best to display this on the side of the cab (i.e. looking through a hole or dimensional portal etc)

Hit me with comments nasty and nice please.

*Updated pics sent for final print. Cab is black, red moulding and controls. Should look fairly nasty.*





Sideart remains as above.

[walls83]

Is it going to cover the whole side of your cab or just look like a poster on there?

I really like the face in the background looks good, castle looks good bats look good.

I dont like the color purple on there.  It needs to be alot darker I think.

I think the background could be a darker blue also.

what is the purple at the bottom of the screen.  is that like fog or mist coming off the top of the hill.?  I would get rid of it.


but remember this is your cab and your the one playing it and you need to like what it looks like.  So do your thing Fat_Trucker

[Fat_Trucker]

Thanks. This is a first draft (and my first cab) so wanted to get feedback from people as there may be loads of potential ideas i've missed.

The actual artwork when finished is actually going to be in the upper centre of the side panel. The edges are all going to be re-worked so it fades to black to merge with the surrounding case.

I am going to look at the design with varying hues of blue and purple to see what is most effective. Darker may be the way to go.

Still working on the Marquee and CP art.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Daniel270]

First impression....

where's Scooby?

[Fat_Trucker]

Heh, now that you mention it, it is a bit isn't it  .

Ah well. Lots still to do. We'll see how it turns out once its tweaked a little.

Perhaps I should have called it Scoobycade. I think the wife would object to shagcade somehow  .

[Daniel270]

I didn't mean anything in a bad way 

It's just that Scooby was the first thing I thought of when I saw the artwork, which is indeed impressive!

[Fat_Trucker]

No worries mate. Any feedback is good feedback.

[Havoc]

I think its fine, its going to add a personal touch to ur cab. I always like original artwork on cabs not just a standard cookie cutter type JMO

[Fat_Trucker]

Thanks.

A friend of mine is doing the technical stuff (due to my lack of exp with imaging). Will bang the completed stuff up once its done.

[fredster]

I like it better than my buddy who just finished his.

He sat there and looked at it for 3 days and then finally painted question marks all over it.  He made a marquee that said "any game".

Mine is just painted with stickers that say mame.

It's lame. I'm gonna make another one.

[mahuti]

A few notes. I think you're design is short on the "dark" part of darkade. I think a few parts of the design undersell the dark theme. As another poster mentioned; Scooby. Right now this art suggests saturday morning cartoon scary, unfortunately, not in a way that is clever or intended. It's a watered down version of "dark" a Nancy Drew primer on the subject, but not truly dark.

I have a few suggestions to increase the intensity of the image, without altering the overall theme.

1. Pick a new font that isn't a "script" font. This font suggests "Black Beauty" or some other campy 70's story. Script fonts rarely provide any good design. It takes a very talented designer to use a script font in a clever / interesting way, and this use of it does not enhance your theme.

2. Dont' ues the swirl. Right now it is a distraction from the overall imagery. Less is more. The wispy swirl just lessens the impact of "dark." It adds "camp" to the image... not in a good way.

3. The use of the purple fades at the bottom is very arbitrary. Why is it there? It currently is doing nothing, other than acting as a purple foof on top of a blue field. My only guess is that it is there to break up the blue field. I don't think it is working in its current form... it's just a distraction. Use the color judiciously to add intensity to the overall image.. to enhance your theme. Right now it is just not working. I don't have any concrete suggestions, other than to suggest that the purple needs purpose.

4. I would suggest making the pattern in the background more graphic. Get rid of the cheesy emboss effect, simply use color to define the pattern. I would also suggest making the pattern much more faint in its current form, the abstractness of it will give it greater impact OR use a pattern of runes instead, ones that connote ancient secrets, magic, lore... that kind of thing. If the current pattern is based on something, I can't discern what it is.. it just feels like wallpaper. The repitition is too obvious, and that needs to be toned down.

5. The face in the background. Dump the left eye, or make it more graphic. Eyes are windows to the soul...the larger they are, the better we can see to the soul. There is a reason a lot of bad guys in movies and comics have weird eyes. It's unsettling. The left eye currently does not carry enough menace.

6. If you are going to use something to set the edges to black, I would not suggest a fade. Create something to view the imagery through. Make the black outline look like a whole in an ancient, large blocked brick wall. Your imagery is already cliche, you might as well just dive fully into the cliche and explore it. A fade will suggest lack of interest in designing this fully, lack of thought. Explore the theme of how the cabinet art should connect to he cabinet.

When I initially looked at this, I reserved my comments. I did not want to poison the well with my first impressions. I DO think you have some good elements to work with and some good ideas. Intense eyes, cool / spooky castly elements.. I like the idea of a castle just as the sun goes down, which you've started to capture. The time absolutely furthest from the next day. That's good stuff. However, using graphic elements set against patterns and semi-photographic imagery is a rather ambitious start to your side art. Right now this has too many cliched visual elements thrown together with a hodge-podge of photoshop effects. Overall, I guess I can sum up my comments with; If you are going for cliche / camp, go ALL the way. If not, sit and think about what DARK is, do some reasearch, take a look at some of the great artists work on the subject, look through the horror section of a bookseller, rent a few of the stranger movies about darkness (the Wicker Man, for instance)

All of that being said, please note, I think what you've attempted here is much more different / difficult than most of the subjects / themes usually posted & discussed here, and I give you props for that. Part of my job is to be very critical; especially when people ask for it. Please don't take this

[Fat_Trucker]

Thanks Mahuti, thats exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for.

A design guru I'm not, so constructive criticism and assistance with direction is very, very welcome.

Will post updated pics later.

[Fat_Trucker]

*updated* see first post.

[mahuti]

Red t-molding. Red bat-handled joysticks. Dark buttons, or odd-colored buttons.... maybe red, orange, black & white.

[pmc]

Your second version is dark and creepy which I realize is on purpose. A far cry from PacMan, Donkey Kong, and Bubble Bobble. My child would have nightmares if I put a 4 foot tall version of that in my house!

[Fat_Trucker]

I'm hoping it will keep mine away from the cab most of the time. 

Once I'm finished with this one I'm hoping to build a cut down upright for the kids that will be nice and cuddly.

[Daniel270]

With the new artwork design, now I've got the impressions of Ginger Snaps, Resident Evil and Silent Hill 4.....

Nice Job!!!

[walls83]

Hey Fat Trucker have you ever seen Broms website.  He has some crazy art.


http://www.bromart.com/


It fits the theme of your second attempt.

[Fat_Trucker]

Hey Fat Trucker have you ever seen Broms website.

[Patent Doc]

Did you get the clown face from Kiss' Psycho Circus.  Man that face is creepy. Whether you did or didn't pick the idea from Psycho Circus...that's what pops in my head...or maybe Twisted Metal: Black

[Fat_Trucker]

*bump*

Updated pics in the original post.

[Nocturnaloner]

I think it's looking great.  As you can tell, I'm a fan of black cabs with red t-molding and buttons 

Mahuti also gave a great critique.  The only thing I would add is that I'm not a fan of Bevel and Emboss for logos.  To me, it just looks plastic-y and draws the eye in a bad way.  If you're really going for the wet bloody look, you'd be better off hand-drawing the highlights, possibly using the emboss as a guide.

Just my two cents.  Good job!

[DaemonCollector]

Wow, the second version looks really good . The only thing I can say is take the word MAME off the Bezel, and use that space more constructivly, put instructions of something to that effect there.

[Fat_Trucker]

Thanks Guys.

My Skills and resources are fairly limited so I think this is probably the best I am going to achieve. Will post a couple of 'on cab' pics once the work is printed to see if it looks right.