The horror!

[orchidius]

Hello everybody,

At long last, after a year of research, I finally started on my first ever build project. My very own arcade. I had some ideas I wanted to incorporate in there, and mixed together with some cool things I saw here on the forum I came up with the design of the cab.

I gave myself roughly 3 weeks to complete the woodworking section of the build. 3 weeks turned out to be more like 3 months, but now the entire project is coming together nicely. All elements are complete, and I'm in the middle of the final stage now: the final assembly. The cab still lacks one very, véry important aspect though... Artwork!

I am not very creative at ŕll, and my graphic design skills are also non existent (let alone my photoshop skillz), which of course poses a problem now that the arcade is nearing completion... Therefor I thought maybe you, the artwork community, could maybe get some ideas or possibly even help me to work those ideas out into something usable.

What did I have in mind? Nothing. Really, I don't have any real ideas. What I don't want it to turn into is a hall of fame with a bunch of retro-game characters. I've only took up playing console games when I was a little older, so I don't really have any game characters that really pop out. I did however used to play a lot of "magic the gathering", which is a fantasy trading cardgame. Maybe something fantasy related? Dragons? Goblins? I'm open to any suggestions really. The name of the arcade is going to be "Arcadius" (all my game aliases end in "ius", hence Arcadius), maybe that helps.

Not knowing any artwork details before getting into a project means you have to be careful in what colors you use (they have to match the artwork of course), so I went the safe route and picked black for my cabinet and chrome for the T-molding and other details. That should fit any colourscheme. There's also going to be a lot of lighting on the cab. The cp is going to have lit buttons, the sides have lit artwork circles (like knievel's builds) and the bottom portion of the cab will be lit (more details later). For the lighting I've opted for full RGB. So everything can be lit in any color. So whatever the artwork turns into, I can match the light colours to it.

Now, what will I be needing:

*CP overlay
*Marquee containing the name
*2 circles that will be backlit Knievel style (either the same artwork on both sides or two different ones)

The cab design uses the same curves as the following build http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=96465.0

PS: I built the entire cab so that it would be easy and quick to switch artwork. So all ideas are welcome, and if I like it, I can print it to try it out on there and post a pic.

Thanks a bunch guys!!!

[orchidius]

Nobody has any ideas or has seen any pics/themes that would fit here?

[Vigo]

Well, the name Arcadius, to me, invokes ancient greek or roman feel. Maybe you could go with some sort of roman empire feel. Deep reds and golds.

I guess here is a pc game that looks like it invokes the theme i am thinking:



I think even this kind of font would be cool.