Arcade Button surrounds Decals advice

[Jimd0586]

Building a bartop arcade and it's coming along nicely. Included a pic of what I have and what I want to emulate (my current arcade is obviously the unpainted one)... But in a nutshell I want to replicate a neo geo. I have the four colored buttons but two more white buttons as well so I can play games requiring more buttons. I bought the paint and am about to put the base coats of red and black. I figured attempting to mask and paint on the control layout won't be as tight and good as I want it. I want a slick neo geo like decal to cover the panel. Any idea where to look or how to design one? I'm not particularly artsy, creative, or engineering minded.

[Jimd0586]

What I'm looking for is a mix of the two pics below on my panel. Setup for six buttons. I color coordinated for a reason when I set this up... The four colored buttons to correspond to the neo get controls. The two white buttons as extras. I'd like to have the lettering in there too like the neo geo had.

[Ramakers]

If you provide me the dimensions of your controle panel, including position of your buttons, I can make you a vector file you can get printen locally.
I can also make you a matching marquee if you like.

Just a suggestion, I would change order of the buttons so they are like on a real NeoGeo. So top row: Yellow-Green-Bleu and bottom row: Red-white-white.

[Jimd0586]

@Ramakers,

Wow thanks. I appreciate that! Everyone on here has been very friendly and helpful. I'll do my part down the road and pay it forward.

I didn't build the cabinet myself, I admit I bought it off ebay for like $80. (I don't have the woodworking tools to make something like that)

I can measure the layout myself but I am worried that if I don't get it quite right, it's ruined. So, I emailed the seller on ebay and asked him if he can provide me a schematic of the button/joystick layout. If he gets back to me and sends me the schematic I will forward it on to you. If he doesn't, I'll measure it the best I can tonight.

I ordered the marquee already. I am trying to figure out the plexiglass side of it now. I emailed a plexi shop but I am not sure how you mount a marquee to plexiglass. Thanks for the offer though on the marquee.

When you say vector file, do you mean you'd do the artwork to match the neo geo pics I provided? That's awesome. I'm so bad with art, I just have no creative eye. I imagine I need to take the vector file and find a company that prints decals?

[Ramakers]

I made my own mame cabinet from scratch and used the Neo Geo theme. So I have the vector file on hand. I'm not a designer myself but reproducing and vectorising is kind of a hobby. Adjusting it to your CPO is easy.
If you don't get the dimensions a hires picture will do, I will send you a PM with more details on how to make it and sent it to me.

below a picture of my first DIY mame cabinet: (the one on the right )

[Jimd0586]

@Ramakers,

Thanks! I appreciate the help. And your cabinet looks great! Good work. I have really taken this project in baby steps and now that the cabinet is up and running, I really want it to look polished. One day I hope to have a full size like yours. Yes, if you're willing to help I would like to PM you.

I just put a base red coat and black coat on the outside of the cabinet last night. The paint is satin acrylic if I remember correctly. The color is spot on but it isn't glossy. So I may need to try a different paint and just treat the coats I put on as a base coat. I want this thing to really shine.

Hopefully an overlay with your help will be the finishing touch! I will rearrange my buttons as well to better mimic the neo geo.

[Jimd0586]

Here it is! Special Thanks to Ramakers for helping with the overlay.

I personally made some errors on this on this that keep it from truly shining, but in all I am happy with it. You can see I didn't line up the overlay for the controls quite right and didn't notice after making my second cut on the upper row for the buttons. Additionally, the marquee is larger than the top of the arcade, but that was the best I could do. Backlights for the marquee are on the way.

[Ramakers]

Doesn't look bad to me!
for the marquee you van maybe construct some topper. Like namco did for his Soul Edge: