!!UPDATE: All Artwork Available for Download - 07/19/07!! Futurama Cab

[Joystick Jerk]

The last cab I completed, I wanted to do a Futurama theme for it. Because of time constraints and lack of source material, I scaled it back to a Bendercade. Focusing on one character was easier and cheaper at the time. For my next cab though, I want to go back and do a full Futurama theme. I've updated some old concepts, added some new, so I need your guys opinion on it. These are all mockups and not indicative of final quality.


Marquee




Side Art




These are four options I'm considering for the CP overlay. I'm leaning towards the first or second image, but it could go any way. What do you guys think would be the best image for the overlay?

[Organic Jerk]

Holy crap.


THIS. IS. AWESOME.



My CPO choice is 3., as it seems the least busy, and "maybe" won't bury the buttons in it's confusion (if I were just looking at the images themselves without CPO consideration, I would choose 1 for it's more general use of the characters)...

Either way, all of them seem way too busy among the GREAT simplicity of your marquee and sideart...



You rock, dude.   Excellent theme choice. 

[shardian]

You've probably seen this before, but figured I'd post it anyways. I was kinda let down with the OCC custom pin in Gameroom magazine so I felt a revisit to this one was warranted.
http://members.aol.com/specialwhenlit/CustomPinball/index.html

[ChadTower]

I like it all except using Zoidberg as the sideart image.  He is easily the worst part of the show.

[shardian]

I also think your title should be a play on the Futurama title. The Planet arcade logo looks out of place.

[ChadTower]

That's a good point.  The artwork quality is so high that the title marquee just isn't nearly the same.

With how busy those CP possibilities are, I'd say take one of them, strip out a couple of those background images, and put them on the marquee with a catchier title.  Simplicity and high quality is almost always better than hugely busy with high quality.

[horseboy]

I like it all except using Zoidberg as the sideart image.  He is easily the worst part of the show.

 

[ChadTower]

Sorry, man, I watch the show a couple times a week.  I have yet to see anything funny involving Zoidberg and the episodes specifically about him are all the worst ones.  The rest of the show is pretty good, he is their Jar Jar.

[Joystick Jerk]

I also think your title should be a play on the Futurama title.

Uhh, it is.

The Planet arcade logo looks out of place.

And if you mean the Planet Arcade logo on the Zoidberg side, I may remove the purple glass behind him so that the logo on his side is surrounded by black like on the Fry side.


I might also change the marquee. Raise the title a little and put small collage of Fry, Bender, and Leela underneath.

[shardian]

I also think your title should be a play on the Futurama title.

Uhh, it is.

Sorry, I was thinking about the Planet Arcade Logo when I typed that. The fact that your marquee is Arcadeorama, makes the Planet Arcade logo even more out of place.

[Joystick Jerk]

"Planet Arcade" is also a play on Futurama. They all work for the Planet Express company.

[Joystick Jerk]

EDIT: A newer image of the CP overlay as of todays progress. I replaced the small versions of Leela and Bender with images of Kif and the Professor so there weren't any doubles in the image and to provide more character variety.

(click it for a huge version)

[Joystick Jerk]

Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ

[melarky]

Looks like you picked the cpo you are going to use.  I was going to say I pick number 2 because number 1 had a bunch of repeat characters, but it looks like you're taking care of that.

I'm very interested to see this project finished, I love this show (and that includes Zoidberg who has tons of great lines and parts).  Good luck and keep us updated.

[Joystick Jerk]

I should be completed the CP overlay by tomorrow, if not tonight. I may add in a border and some borders around the control placements to pull it all together, but I'm not finalized on that part yet.

[Organic Jerk]

There's alot of acitivity on the left side with only one major character on the right, so it feels very left-heavy. 

The art is obviously extremely strong, so the last thing you'd want is placement to take away from it..

Also, are you going to point out the buttons in any way on the art itself?  It still seems really busy in the places where buttons would sit..

[Joystick Jerk]

I'm probably going to place the art so the left is a bit more central and Leela is just in frame. You did see the original base art though, right? There is stuff behind Leela, I just haven't got to that part yet in my last update image. And I'll probably be putting some sort of border around the button clusters. I made up this quick mockup in Slikstiks designer, just to see how this concept worked. Opinions?

[ignore the big trackball plate, that'll be flush and underneath the image]

[Joystick Jerk]

Main artwork done! Minus any borders I may add later though.

(Click for big)

[javeryh]

That looks amazing!!

[melarky]

I think you should definately flush mount your trackball (not sure if you already planned on doing that, but the mountin plate hides way too much artwork).  I flush moutned my first trackball on our last project, and will be doing the same on all future projects (it just looks so much better).

The artwork is looking great, I like the latest cpo, looks much better and more balanced.  Keep the updates coming...

[ChadTower]

I think you should definately flush mount your trackball (not sure if you already planned on doing that, but the mountin plate hides way too much artwork). 

Agreed, having the mount plate on top of the artwork really hurts here.

[shardian]

I think it would be cool if you could incorporate the trackball into the artwork somehow.

Definitely flush mount that trackball plate. There is absolutely zero point to doing awesome custom art if you are going to put that honking piece of black real-estate right in the middle.

[horseboy]

[ignore the big trackball plate, that'll be flush and underneath the image]

[Joystick Jerk]

Update! Here's what I'm thinking will be my finished marquee. I tweaked the lettering, light beams, and added in the characters in front.

(click for big)

[Organic Jerk]

The marquee is looking pretty good!  I like the new changes to the text as it gives it much more color and brightness bang for your buck... 

not sure about the character placement, though...  their placement makes them look like they're holding the text up, even though they're in front of it...

How did you do the light beams?

[melarky]

I think it's looking great.  Much better than the first mock marquee (I know it was just concept so I didn't mention anything, but the final marquee fixed all of the little things from the first concept one).  Keep the updates coming.

[horseboy]

Update! Here's what I'm thinking will be my finished marquee. I tweaked the lettering, light beams, and added in the characters in front.

(click for big)

You need to add the professor and Zoidberg.

[Joystick Jerk]

Hey, Zoidberg is getting one whole side of the cab just to himself, so he's well taken care already. But yeah, I do want to put the professor in somewhere, but I'm struggling to find a way to put him in that doesn't look like he was tacked on as an afterthought.

Heh, maybe on the rear of the cab, so he's never really seen until one day a friend peeks behind the cab and sees him, and then I can say, "Hey, he must've got lost.".

[Joystick Jerk]

How did you do the light beams?

Used a few of the steps detailed here:

http://www.voidix.com/starburst.html

[BradC]

I would put the professor off to one side, facing away from the other three. If he has the right expression on his face, it will look like he's confused and sort of wandering around... just like the real professor probably would be.

[Organic Jerk]

I would put the professor off to one side, facing away from the other three. If he has the right expression on his face, it will look like he's confused and sort of wandering around... just like the real professor probably would be.

That's a hilarious idea! ... seconded.

[crashwg]

Two thumbs up for the Joystick Jerk! 

I third the idea of the Professor being confused wandering somewhere on the marquee.

[Joystick Jerk]

I thought of that too, and I really like the idea, but then it kind of unbalances the symmetry of the marquee. It's good as a joke a few times, but then after that I'm left with a marquee with a character off to one side.

I'm still toying with ideas on how to incorporate him, so we'll see where things take me.

[ChadTower]

That marquee is great.   

[Joystick Jerk]

Here's an interesting image. This is a mockup of one of the concepts I was originally thinking of for my CP overlay. Before I found the scanned images of the DVD case covers that I used for the overlay, I was going to go with a tongue in cheek rendition of Futurama via The Usual Suspects.

[BradC]

If you still need some artwork to make into your ideas, I remembered that I have some Futurama merchandising CD's at home. They have a lot of vector artwork from one of the Futurama DVD's (I think it's from the first season.)

If you're interested let me know and I'll look through to see what artwork I have.

[Joystick Jerk]

Nice!

Artwork is on hold now while I'm waiting on my CP parts, and then all the little things to finish up the cab. When it comes time to revisit the artwork for the outside of the cab though, I'll definitely keep you in mind. Thanks!

[BradC]

No prob.

[Joystick Jerk]

Quick update!

Just recieved my control panel blank from Arcades-R-Fun (excellent work Jack!), measured everything up, and now I can finally lay out the control borders and shading. This is what the final CP overlay image will look like. The grey/white circles won't be in the final image, they just denote where the controls are.

(click image for giant size)

[shardian]

looks good!