ART help - CoryCade

[CoryBee]

I can't for the life of me get the nerve to do something about the art for my cab. I want to move on but I don't want to rush this part.

I have decided to go with a pac man game themed black cab. I did a marquee for my first bartop that I really liked. Now I need to re-do it in High Rez, which I don't know how to do.



I would like the side art to be similar too, where pac-man, ghosts, and the dots trace around the cab. With maybe a graphic or text in the middle.

No idea for the control panel. Any advice at all will be grateful. I don't know how to input my cab measurements into a graphic program to get my prints perfect either. I have photoshop but not very skilled with it.

Thanks all.

[dfmaverick]

I don't know your end size, so I just quickly recreated what you had with what I could find off the arcadeartlibrary (font isn't correct). I made the size 8 x 27 as a starting place.

A preview jpg of the Illustrator file I created is attached.

If this is what you want, I can send you the Illustrator file.

[CoryBee]

I don't know your end size, so I just quickly recreated what you had with what I could find off the arcadeartlibrary (font isn't correct). I made the size 8 x 27 as a starting place.

A preview jpg of the Illustrator file I created is attached.

If this is what you want, I can send you the Illustrator file.

WTF? That was quick, and bloody awesome!

Since I posted this thread I made a little mock up in paint of the cab side. What do you think of the idea?

I figure I would add a logo or something in the middle......not sure.

[Drnick]

I used gimp and downloaded pacmaze from the arcadeartlibrary a fair old chunk of editing and I had something I was happy with.

It would probably be fairly easy for you to edit as the original art is designed for a full sized cabinet



As for the artwork,  OK the first thing you will want to do is draw the cab to scale.  Take the measurements in Inches, hardest bit will be any angles etc. (I drew mine as a rectangle first and then using measurements from where angles start and end etc was able to use guide lines to remove the bits that I didn't need)  To make things slightly easier I created the template for mine in gimp at 100DPI My cab is approx 30" x 24" which came out at 2400 x 3000 (Give or take).  (You would then scale that image up to 300DPI) this would give you an image of aprox 7200 x 9000 (if machine was same size as mine then this would be fairly close to the real size of the machine.  You will probably want to make it slightly bigger to allow for bleed. Whatever you do, do not do what I did and do all the edits at 100DPI and then scale art up to 300, Unless you want a slightly blurred artwork. To keep it sharp you want to use 300 DPI for the artwork from the off. 

You could take this template and have it printed out on many sheets of A4 stick them together and then put on side of machine, make edits accordingly, rinse and repeat until the template is perfect.

Alternatively create the machine template to exact size at 100dpi and use that as the template to cut the wood, voila artwork guaranteed to fit.

Attached the pacman vector I modified using Inkscape and Gimp.

[PL1]

I like the thumbs-up PacMan from Drnick's suggestion, with the "Pac-Man" changed to "CORY-CADE" like in the first post marquee.  Drnick's 25th anniversary attachment above is a great starting point for this.

Drop the maze background since you mentioned wanting more of a minimalist approach.

Use larger ghosts and pellets around the perimeter and on the front center a stair-step pattern for the pellets instead of curve since PacMan mazes aren't curved.

You may want to print several sizes of figures (2" - 6"?) and tape them on the side of the cab to see how they look scale-wise before you choose a final size.

If you move the pellets and figures a little further in from the outer edge, you are less likely to notice if you are a little off when you put on the side art.


Scott

[CoryBee]

Thank you guys for the suggestions, I really need to learn how to use Photoshop properly and not just for simple photo touching.

Dr Nick, I am having a hard time figuring out how to measure and plot the front of curve of my arcade. It is not a perfect circle. I am going to attempt to do this today but I still am not sure how I will go about it. Thinking now that tracing the side might be a bad idea unless I can figure out how to do this. Although I have no other ideas of how I will go about choosing the art. Thanks nick, I will try and come up with something.

Pl1 I appreciate your inputs as well in our correspondence, the stair approach to the side is a good idea. Making them bigger is definitely a good idea, I made the side art image in paint and doesn't help for sizing. I am coming up with some images to put on the side as I type. I need to get an image done to scale in photoshop or gimp or something so I can mess around with it and when I get it right I don't want to have to do it over in a different scale like Dr nick said.

Any tutorials out there on this process? 

[drventure]

I like PS, but for a lot of stuff, I find Adobe FireWorks (part of the adobe suite) to be really handy. I think it's much easier to use, it saves natively to PNG (including any vector objects you might create in the file), but yet still has a fairly significant range of functionality both for vector and bitmap graphics.

PS can definitely do more, but FW is great for a large range of image stuff.

[PL1]

Any tutorials out there on this process? 

Frosty can get you started with this.


Scott

[Drnick]

Someone here may be able to assist you more with the curve, But If the bottom/back are exactly 90 degrees then I would once again start with a rectangle that is maximum width/height of cabinet. First find the deepest part of the curve and make a note of it's height from top and bottom and distance from back and start from there. This gives you your starting x/y co-ordinates. Then take measurements from back of cab to curve every 1/2 inch both up and down. (This equates to 50 Pixels on the base artwork at 100 dpi)   (For more accuracy you could even do the measurements every 1/4". Once you have plotted all these into the artwork. You can then create a curve that takes all these points into consideration. 

I cannot really think of an easier way of doing this if the curve is elliptical rather then circular.

[CoryBee]

Awesome tutorial! I love you for this, keep me posted on the pinball setup as well Scotty. I want to see if my idea will work, I have a ton of reed switches laying around.

Dr Nick, will do some measuring tonight using the method you described. My issue will be bending PS or FW to my will and have it make sense to me. I want to just hire someone but, teach a man to fish thing. Plan on making more arcade machines as I acquire some decent skills. Haven't gone over the tutorial fully yet but will report back if it goes over inputting dimensions and ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

 

[CoryBee]

I like this a lot. Having another arcade with "Cade" at the end bothers me but just can't think of another theme or name that is personal to me or doesn't conflict.

Still working with maverick to plot my side art properly. 

[CoryBee]

I asked someone for an idea to add to my pac-man(ish) theme. I suggested I liked Clyde, they came up with this.



Creepy Clyde theme.....I laughed but not a bad idea. Not so much creepy as evil clyde arcade or something. Not sure, just bouncing ideas.

Figure can add something to the marquee, control panel and a big version of creepy Clyde in the middle of the side art

Edit: Maybe having Clyde peek around corners or something.......

[CoryBee]

Courtesy of Mr. Maverick

[PL1]

The steps look great.

Any chance that Junior or the Baby will show up on the sideart?

 

Junior art files.



Baby art files.

I might be able to extract the baby carriage from the VP table bezel if you'd like that image.



Scott

[CoryBee]

Scotty, not a bad idea but my favorite character has to be Clyde. If there is to be a character I would have to go with him or Pac-Man.





Also, where is your V-Pin!

[PL1]

Scotty, not a bad idea but my favorite character has to be Clyde. If there is to be a character I would have to go with him or Pac-Man.

I was thinking sized like the current Pac, Mrs., and ghosts, rather than a large centerpiece.

Also, where is your V-Pin!

That question can take two forms:

1. Where do I play it now? - On the same screen as MAME and web browser -- hence the portable/modular nature of my current projects.

2. Where is my 3 screen fullsized (40" - 46" playfield) VPin build? - Between my ears, in my browser bookmarks, and somewhat on PowerPoint -- I'm definitely more than a year away from buying parts and making sawdust on this one.  This is one build that I don't mind taking the time to be sure it's fully planned and properly executed.


Scott

[CoryBee]

( Double posted this, meant to just put it on the Art Post.  )

Made some small changes to the side art, got rid of some cherries and added other fruits and some pretzels 

Also, I wanted to give it ago at adding some clyde to fill in some space. Just through him in the and made him transparent.





I attached the .AI files if anyone wants to take a shot at helping me out. Any ideas welcomed!