Crowquill's "Vortex" Marquee/theme

[Crowquill]

Now that I finally have my cab, I started getting artwork together. The cab's a clone of the old Sega cabs (Frogger, Carnival,etc). I really don't want a black cabinet and finally decided on red for the sides and main front panel.

[dphirschler]

Great theme.  Nice Marquee too.  I only recommend changing the font for "GAME" which looks kinda generic.


Darryl

[Felsir]

Yep, I like it. The "vortex" looks very ...uhm.. catchy

I agree with dphischler: change the game font. Colourwise: how does it look when changing the purple with blue? Or maybe alternating the "swirl" with lightblue and dark blue (a bit like in the opening sequence of Day of the Tentacle)?

[Chris]

You could even drop the word "GAME" and just leave it as "Vortex".

[Crowquill]

The word game will be removed totally. It's either just Vortex or possibly The Vortex. I was determined to get something in there with a mac-centric font as the cabinet is going to be powered by a mac (blue & white G3). That's why the word ended up in Myriad (font used in Apple's ads and most anything to do with MacOS X). It just ended up ugly though.

I guess I didn't make it clear in the first post. That's what happens when I start rambling

Once I get it things a bit more final i'll do the mandatory Photoshop mock-up to see how funky the red and purple look together. Watch for it soon. My wife decided that if I'm going to do this it should look "fun" and that black or even my original choice of blue are out the window for the color of the cabinet. I'd considered doing the Vortex background in blue and that may happen yet.

Thanks for the feedback. I should get some work done on it tomorrow. I'll be sure to post the updates. I'll probably just print the marquee in several colors and see how it looks lit. I work at Kinko's so it'll cost me $4.20 each with my discount.

[Crowquill]

I think the marquee is pretty much finalized in terms of the artwork itself. Now I just have to decide on colors

Which one?

This is to go on a red cabinet.

[Dire Radiant]

I like the purple. The red cab will pick out the red in that one nicely (No really I'm straight, honest!)

[Crowquill]

It's OK to have opinions about color theory on the artwork board. Just don't try it on the Video/Monitors board

Besides, you weren't the one walking around comparing paint chips at Lowe's the other day. In case anyone is wondering, Olympic-brand Gumball Red is going to be the color of my cab.

[Crowquill]

I printed the marquee in both purple and blue, but the purple just stands out a lot more.

Here's the CP overlay (with controls added in to show placement/color). I need to touch up the stars in the background (too much empty space). Other than that I think it's done. The "vortex" wraps around my trackball. All other controls are placed as usual. I'm kind of digging the button color the way they are here.

With that done, I added both it and the marquee to the mandatory Photoshop mock-up. It's not really my cab, but it's a Frogger cab that's identical in shape to mine. It's not my best Photoshop work, but it gets the point across. It seems silly to spend a lot of time making a pretty picture of something that will be a reality in less than a week.

I'm probably just going to skip the sideart for now. I just don't have the money to print it right now and I'm not sure it's really that big of a deal. My current plans were to just have the logo over a background square of the purple swirls and stars. Maybe I'll come up with something better later. Any suggestions?

[Tiger-Heli]

Hey,

I like the way the vortex swirls into the trackball.  Might be cool to get a red translucent trackball and backlight it (or not).

One suggestion is not put the dust washers under the overlay (maybe you planned to but couldn't do it in Photoshop).

Here's a link to what I am talking about: http://www.oscarcontrols.com/sinistar/index.shtml (under Control Panel)

[Crowquill]

I replaced the 2-1/4" trackball in my sega unit with one from an old Kensington trackball. It's basically clear with a slight teal tint. If you sit it on a paper you can actually read the text through it. It also lights up really well with any color. Red LEDs will be used in the final panel.

I've debated the dust-washer thing. The biggest determining factor is how clean I can cut the holes in the overlay. I'd like to keep it underneath. Realistically it'll probably end up on top.

I can't route out the top like Oscar did as I'm using a metal panel. Since I AM using a metal panel I can make use of the nice recessed area built into most joysticks.