Newbie artwork critique/feedback

[bdeshazer]

Although I've played with MAME off and on for years, I've only just now taken a shot at building my first cabinet the past couple weeks based on Lusids plans. While my woodworking skills are rudimentary at best, I do now have a completed cabinet shell and control panel and just got some cheap controls from Vigo to add more realistic gameplay until I can spring for the controls I really want from Ultimarc.

I've spent the last couple days perusing the forums for ideas and while my graphic design skills are just barely above my woodworking skills I have come up with a theme/design that I kind of like. For reference I plan on painting the cabinet black (or using black laminate) with red t-molding to match my game room and pool table. I plan on eventually using the RGB-lit LED buttons and trackball from Ultimarc as well as two UltraStik 360 joysticks and their spinner.

All the artwork has been designed in Photoshop as I'm much more comfortable there than with any of the pure vector-based applications (and I don't own Illustrator). Everything is layered and all the coloring is done using adjustment layers to make it really easy to make changes and move things around, although this makes the files relatively huge (the control panel is the most complicated and is sitting at around 320MB right now...).

Both the bezel and the control panel will be covered with plexiglass of some kind, and the marquee will either be sandwiched between two pieces or printed directly on the plexiglass depending on the vendor I choose to print the artwork.

Any thoughts that those of you with more experience might have with how this will look and any adjustments that could be made would be greatly appreciated. I''ll probably be adding some additional text descriptions to the control panel controls for completeness, and creating some side panel art as well.

Thanks!

[drventure]

Damn. You sir have some impressive photoshop skills. 

The bezel seems a little large compared to the monitor opening, but maybe that's just the way you have the file setup right now.

I don't really see anything to critique at all. 8 buttons might be a little overkill, but that just depends on what you plan on playing on it.

Very nice work!

[wol-nz]

Yip - wicked as theme, looks bright, love the colours.
How does the rounded control panel (at the top of the graphic) fit in with the cabinet. Are you rounding the Control panel unit itself or just squaring it with rounds on the art work.
Any thought on the colour for tmolding?

[bdeshazer]

Damn. You sir have some impressive photoshop skills. 

lol, thanks... I owned a professional photography studio for a number of years and have also done professional-level photo retouching and am currently writing a Photoshop plug-in... Photoshop is one application I know REALLY well

The bezel seems a little large compared to the monitor opening, but maybe that's just the way you have the file setup right now.

This cab only has a 21" TV in it, so the bezel is somewhat dis-proportionately large compared to the screen I'm using...plus the bottom 3 inches actually extend below the back of my control panel where you won't normally see it.

I don't really see anything to critique at all. 8 buttons might be a little overkill, but that just depends on what you plan on playing on it.

I'm including 8 buttons just for completeness...I don't really play fighting games myself and all the games I play use at most three buttons (most just one or two), but at only $5 ea. for the RGB LED buttons I can't come up with a reason NOT to include them as the cost is minimal.

Forgot to mention, the button layout is from slagcoin, it is the "cluster365-l" layout, which I found very usable/comfortable (I printed out several of the designs to test).

Very nice work!

Thanks for the comments!

[bdeshazer]

Yip - wicked as theme, looks bright, love the colours.
How does the rounded control panel (at the top of the graphic) fit in with the cabinet. Are you rounding the Control panel unit itself or just squaring it with rounds on the art work.

The back of the control panel top was physically cut rounded, so the artwork should line up exactly. The black areas at all four corners (round in back, angled in front) will be trimmed away from the print.

Any thought on the colour for tmolding?

Was thinking a dark red. My pool table cloth is red and there is a dark red accent wall in my game room/man cave where all this is at. There is a bit more orange in the artwork than I originally intended, but when I actually shift it to be more red I don't like it nearly as much. I may try and get some samples once I print the artwork and see what looks good.

When I closed my photography studio I sold my Canon IPF5100 printer to a buddy of mine, I may have him run off a print of the CP and marquee for me to see how it looks...

[drventure]

This cab only has a 21" TV in it,

You really need to go bigger if possible. It'll balance the design out much better.

But none-the-less, nice job.

[Nephasth]

I think yellow t-molding would go great with those yellow lines...

[bdeshazer]

This cab only has a 21" TV in it,

You really need to go bigger if possible. It'll balance the design out much better.

But none-the-less, nice job.

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on craigslist for something in the 25" range, I don't think a 27" will fit comfortably... because I mounted the walls on TOP of the bottom base piece instead of on the outside of it and I used 3/4" MDF, I only have 24.5" inside the cab (doh!). The 21" barely fits horizontally with the case on so I'm hoping if I find the right 25" I can de-case. 27" is certainly more common on local CL though, and I wondered if one of them might fit vertically... we'll see!

Thanks again for the artwork comments!

[Well Fed Games]

The 21" barely fits horizontally with the case on so I'm hoping if I find the right 25" I can de-case. 27" is certainly more common on local CL though

Seriously, I never see 25" TVs with arcade-friendly features on CL, always 27"...

+1 on the art! Nice job! 

[tsaylor]

Very nice art!  That bright yellow/orange marquee should like nice when backlit.

[bdeshazer]

I think yellow t-molding would go great with those yellow lines...

Hmmm, I think I like this idea, good call! Thanks!

[bdeshazer]

Thanks again for all the feedback folks! The fact that no one said "this totally sucks" has me feeling a little better about the layouts

I've had a few PM's asking me if I would be interested in creating artwork for people, but quite frankly my graphic design skills really suck and I think you'd be much better off going with one of the regular artists that post here on the forums. My artwork is actually a bunch of ideas cobbled together from all the great examples here on the forums and elsewhere on the Internet.

I'll put together a tutorial video where I re-create the layered marquee image with commentary, and I will also post up my Photoshop .PSD files for anyone who wants them once I get my side-art designed as a way to give back to this community that has been so helpful to me.

[wol-nz]

Can you tell me the fonts being used here - cheers

[Well Fed Games]

Can you tell me the fonts being used here - cheers

looks like the Namco font? http://www.dafont.com/namco.font

[05SRT4]

lol If your the newbie then what am I!! Sick theme and artwork! :