Need advice on mala theme

[ragnar]

My system died so I decided to start anew.  I am redoing everything but this time I am doing it as a more serious build with less learning and experimentation.

I'm trying to come up with a theme for mala.  I want one common background image.  For each emulator, I will tint the color of the background.  So, MAME might be tinted blue and Nintendo might be tinted grey.  Etc etc etc.

Of course, I need room for other visual cues such as famous characters from each system type (Sonic, Pac- Man, etc), a picture of the system (Sega, NES, generic arcade cabinet, etc).

My signature has an image of my marquee.  I want something that fits the theme.
I like the one attached to this thread but I don't know where I would place items such as characters, game list, screen shot, etc.  It might just be to busy to be usable.  But it's monotone nature would make it easy to tint.

UPDATE:
Be sure to read the next few posts.  I think I got something cool worked out.

[ragnar]

A good source for interesting desktops:
http://www.wallpapers4desktop.net/photo/abstract/2-2-0-0-2

Attached, something more abstract.

[ragnar]

I think I am going a diffrent route.  I am going to do the Mala theme and then I might change out my marquee to soemthing else.

[ragnar]

If you look around enough, you'll find something cool.

How about these as the basis?  Then I have to add more things like a spot for screens and game selection.

The first image is the original image.  The red and blue images were done with some playing around in GIMP.

[ragnar]

I'm liking this theme more and more.  Check out what I whipped together for Mame!  Not totally done but pretty close.  This is good for a 16x9 monitor.  I think mine is that but it might be 16:10.