New Marquee Image, opinions??

[Games001]

If anyone has any tips or suggestions about my pitiful art skils, please.. throw um out there. 

Thanks for the opinions, feedback and the like so I can improve on this very basic image.

[TelcoLou]

I like it .. it has neither "cade" or "MAME" in it, so it's very original

... I have no idea what it means, but if it's significant to you, then all the better Good job 

[Games001]

No idea what it means.. that's just what I was going for. 

If anyone can suggest how to improve the overall image, be it dimensions, color, etc then please fill me in.  I know there are some amazing artistic types on this forum and I would appreciate any input from them and others.

[rotheblog]

I think the fact that you are asking about how to improve your marquee speaks louder than words.  It sounds like there are some insecurities about the design, which is within reason.  The marquee is pretty basic, and straightforward, nothing to write home about.  I don't personally care for the blue granite, or however you want to describe the texture in back.  But, I do agree with the comment above, I commend you highly for staying away from using "cade" in the text, original idea.

Why not look up some of your favorite arcade game marquee and pull in pieces, or fully emulate the design from those?  Your design skills may not be much at this point, but any professional designer will tell you it is all about time and practice.

That would be my suggestion.  Give the rest of us some context on which to suggest some design ideas.  Pick some games that you love the artwork to narrow it down and list them here...

Jeff
http://www.rotheblog.com - Classic arcade news and information

[Games001]

I appreciate the words of wisdom.

I actually was going to stick with the background because the texture of my cab is a bit 'rough' and it's a dark blue/black cab.

The interest I have in making the marquee 'better' is in the font mainly.  I dont have any idea how to 3D or raise the letting to give it a nice seperate feel from the background.

I guess that's step one.

[waveryder]

The interest I have in making the marquee 'better' is in the font mainly.  I dont have any idea how to 3D or raise the letting to give it a nice seperate feel from the background.

Thats the easy part. Is this a fighters cab? Got a picture of your cab to show the colours shape etc; from there making some fitting dynamic 3D text should be easy.

[Games001]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=75795.msg796965#msg796965

That's the last update I did on the cab I refit.  It's a tiny bit more cleaned up now, but the colors are the same, as is the shape.

As to the type of cab.. it's a rounded machine.  Does fighters, gun, track, spin, etc.  So I don't have a way to define it's class.

[waveryder]

How about applying the style of your original marquee character to the text? Excuse the quick work but it might give you an idea or set you off in a new direction.

[Games001]

Now the question would be.. how did you do that?

I like the effect and would like to see if I can play with that idea a bit.  Just need to know where to start.

[waveryder]

A direct extrude is not something that you find in PShop or any other paint program. For any kind of vector extrude (fonts included) I use XARA and then throw it back into illustartor for enlargement then to Pshop for decoration. I know it might seem a little round about but I have never created a single piece of graphics work using just one program. Pshop doesnt natively support any kind of real extrusion although you can fake it to some degree with the viewpoint tool. If you tell me the size you need it I can knock you up a plain colour transparent background PNG to work on. If you sketch out the angle etc; I can post it up for you and you can paint it in Pshop or whatever your using. Hopefully that helps. 

[Games001]

How's this look now...? 

Still unable to make a long 'droped emboss' so I just made a few shadows and worked them all to the same gradient.

And my background image is really low res, so that's got to be worked on.

I took a bit of faith in my skills and started moving stuff around and onto of each other