Opinions on my marquee

[Veinman]

I want my cabinet to acknowledge all of my past favorite games. The cabinet itself is shaped similarly to Mortal Kombat II. The panel, as you've seen is based on Gauntlet. That left the marquee to cram in all the other games. I'm not doing side art until later.

My cabinet is call The Legend of Mame since my favorite game is The Legend of Kage. The text is based on the marquee from that game. Behind it are roughly 100 marquees of varying sizes. Most of them are very small due to low-res source.

What do you think? Of course this is a low-res version, but hopefully you can make out at least a few marquees. I'm open to suggestions on improving it.

Click the small image for the larger version.

[AmericanDemon]

Way too busy.  Thats just my opinion.  I love the concept and would use some sort of Ninja artwork.  Dunno why but I think something like out of Ninja Gaiden cutscenes would rock....

[Veinman]

I agree, it's pretty busy. The problem is the source art. I can't cut down the number of marquees, because then I would have large holes in the art. I can't blow them up because they'll look like hell.

Ninja Gaiden was not one of my favorite games, to be honest. Although I do have a funny memory about it- the first time I ever saw it was in this truckstop arcade that we always used to go to late at night.

There was this very short trucker, furiously playing Ninja Gaiden. I was blown away by its graphics at the time. He kept saying "I'm gonna open up a can of whoop ass!!!!", which was also the first time I had heard that expression. Finally, he died, and he literally jumpkicked the machine. It was absolutely hilarious.

[Veinman]

What kind of photoshop techniques could I use to blur out or otherwise obscure some small marquees if I scaled them up? That way I could lose a lot of them, and if I could still hint at what games they were, that would be good enough. For example, you wouldn't have to see the Altered Beast marquee very clearly to know what it was.

[jcroach]

What kind of photoshop techniques could I use to blur out or otherwise obscure some small marquees if I scaled them up?

You a blur filter.  Or drop the opacity.

[Fat_Trucker]

The Legend Of Mame concept and lettering is class!.

Don't think it fits together very well with the whole multiple marquee thing though which I agree is way too busy.

Perhaps go for something a little more stylised that fits with the theme of the marquee, some kind of oriental background with some carefully placed character art would probably look nice. Or a large Ninja/Assassin Face half in Shadow on the left with a few throwing stars and katana's thrown in, all on an oriental background featuring things like a pagoda and or mountains etc.

If you want to represent the whole multi-game aspect then center the wording and again mount suitable character art around it. You want the wording to be the focal point for your Marquee because if it is too busy it just gets lost in the rest of the image.

Still........love The Legend of Mame theme. Wish I'd thought of something like that before I did my dismal effort.

Keep the ideas coming.

One last idea. How about centering your lettering and just using the multiple marquee thing as a very thin border all the way around the marquee and just mount a large pair of hooded ninja eyes behind the wording on a simple black background. Should really jump out when backlit.

[Veinman]

Thanks for the compliments, and you have some interesting ideas. I'll have to dig around for some nice hi-res ninja source art.

I don't want to use anything from the actual Legend of Kage marquee, since I don't really like it. They made Kage look like a weiner.

[Veinman]

Okay, I decided to explore the ninja route. I made a simplified vectorization of Shadow Dancer, got a high-res pic of Scorpion, and found 2 nice ninja pieces on the web. What do you think? I wanted to make Shadow Dancer look more sketchy, but I'm not sure how to do that at this point.

[krion]

1000% better. good job imo.

[walls83]

there acouple complaints I have.  Mainly the transistion from picture to picture needs to be blended/faded together so you dont have the hard lines.  Also the ninja on the left looks out of place, the style of the art.


Ever heard of Rikimaru from Tenchu.  I think he would fit better with the style.  Here is just a quick on I found.

http://www.tenchu.it/images/Rikimaru.jpg

But it looks a hundred times better now.

[Veinman]

Thanks. I agree, Shadow Dancer (Ryu Hayabasa, I think?) does look out of place due to his simplicity. I'd love to give Scorpion the most prominent position, but couldn't find a picture of high enough quality to do so.

I'm going to work on a couple other ideas today.

Also, I agree, I want to fade the pictures in better.

I'll have to look for some good pics of Rikimaru, that one is devoid of color.

[walls83]

scorpion

http://www.mortalkombatdeception.com/downloads/MKD_Scorpion_HIREZ.jpg

http://mortalkombat.metropoliglobal.com/xx-scorpion.jpg

http://www.mkdeception.com/downloads/MKD_wp4_1024x768.jpg

Also what about NINJA GAIDEN or SHINOBI?

[Veinman]

Okay, for this one I pose the age-old question- Who would win in a battle of ninjas vs. zombies vs. robots? I would have added pirates but good pirate source is hard to come by.

Try to imagine the ninja-only marquee having the nice transitions that the robot-zombie-ninja one has.

[Bones]

I think the individual pictures look good, but together I feel they lose. The image as a whole is just not doing it for me. I do like the writing though.

If you are having trouble finding high res artwork could you get your hands on a poster or something similar and scan what you want at high res?

[Veinman]

You have cool ideas! But as mentioned, finding good source art is challenging when you want it print-quality. I'm sure once I come up with the right idea, I'll know it. I just hope it's soon, since I am ready to wire my cabinet up and I will be waiting on art to come back.

[Veinman]

Okay, here's two ideas, and I think I've finally got something I can live with.

First, a "fire and ice" ninja theme. And if you didn't already know, I'm an MK fan.

[Veinman]

And my personal favorite, featuring 4 different MK ninjas, and a smaller logo to make room.

[Kusanagi-sama]

Interesting marquee design.

[Navmaxlp]

I like the fire and ice one better. I think the strongest point of the marquee is the lettering and to make that smaller in order to place a couple of obstructed pictures (even if they are really cool pictures) is counterproductive. If you have a pattern in the background or even a silhouted picture with the lettering in the middle and the fire and ice ninjas bracketing the whole thing it would be a truly great marquee. Possibly have just the two ninjas but continue the fire and ice in the back ground until they meet somehow in the middle. My 2 cents.

[Veinman]

Yeah, I didn't feel very great about the "black void" between Sub Zero and Scorpion. I'll have to dig around, I'm sure I can find some nice ice/fire pic to fill in the back.

I do still really like the one that includes Reptile and Ermac, since, as you mentioned, they look really cool. Especially Reptile, that render is very detailed.

[Veinman]

Actually, I just realized a happy accident that is probably the reason I like this marquee so much. My CPO is based on Guantlet, and is divided into red, blue, green, and yellow sections.

The order in the marquee is different, but:
Sub Zero = blue
Reptile = green
Ermac = red
Scorpion = yellow