Scooby Doo Mystery Arcade - Artwork Help

[SuperRabbit0]

I am starting with the artwork for my first cabinet.  It is going to be a mini cabinet for my kids inspred by Scooby-Doo.

I am brand new to Illustrator and have been playing around with some images.  This is inspired by the Mystery Machine as well as some vector images of the Scooby gang and Scooby letters from the movie I found at logotype.  It is also in no small way inspired by the great artwork for The Springfield Mame Station which got me excited about this whole concept.  

Anyways, I like the overall look but can't figure out how tomake the Mystery Arcade lettering look better.  

Any help for a newbie?

A better name would be a welcome idea too although I kinda like Mystery Arcade.

Thanks!

[walls83]

Change the color of the lettering thats about all you would need to do. Maybe put some fog around it or something along those lines.  As far as the name goes.  The first thing I tought of was "the Mystery Machine"  isnt the name of the van the mystery machine?  I dont know just thinking out loud

[Pixelhugger]

My unlce Charles Nichols (great uncle) directed the original Scooby Doo series along with a ton of other HB stuff.  It's always been one of my favorite cartoons and I'd LOVE to help out artistically if that's welcome. (If I'm elbowing in on your personal project just tell me to back off ) If you're interested let me know. But I do have to warn you, it'd take me some time, as I am a bit backlogged on other projects. If you're not opposed to other people working on the graphics and you can wait a bit I'll make it more than worth your while. Others on the board can vouch for my work. Or you can see the designs I've done for SlikStik's new marquee here:  

http://forums.slikstik.com/index.php?showtopic=109&st=30

I'm pixelhugger there too. Obviously those examples are tailored to SlikStik and are not as "cartoony" but you can at least get a feel for the production value of my artwork    And I wouldn't charge.  

[SuperRabbit0]

How could I possibly refuse your amazing help Pixelhugger?  

No need to point out your work, I feel confident I have seen every marquee you have posted here.  Would you be willing to tackle something so "cartoony" and kiddie?  If so, I'd be thrilled to see what you can do with it.

Neat that your Great Uncle worked on it.  It really is a timeless cartoon.  To me, that's what makes it a great theme for a cabinet.  Truth be told, I've been know to watch it when my kids aren't even around (even though I we watch it 5 times a day when they are...)  

My idea was to build on the great patterns of the Mystery Machine into the cabinet artwork but I'm open to your undoubtedly better ideas.

I finally got the laptop all tweaked and am ordering the hardware tonight  so I can certainly wait a while if you get a chance to look at this.  I'm excited to see what you can do with "cartoony" images....

What do you need from me?  How could I thank you enough for looking at it?

[menace]

man I can't wait to see this--I love(d) scooby-Doo--I have all the orginal episodes lovingly transferred to dvd--although I can usually only watch a couple of episodes per sitting as the stories are geared to a much younger audience

Are you going to have any scooby music when it starts up?  that late 60's poppy stuff that was on the shows would be a nice touch.

I think mystery machine would also be a great title for the cab!

[Zathras]

Awesome idea and I cant wait to see it!  

[dek]

Pixelhugger - Your uncle is a god! All those cartoons he worked on   I'm building a cab for my daughter as well and want in on the artwork as well if you don't mind

[Pixelhugger]

Your uncle is a god!

IMHO anyone who builds a cab for a kid is a god - or should be At least they are their kids' eyes. My daughter is still a bit young (18 mo) but she'll get one as soon as she's old enough. I'm just praying I don't have to do Barbie or Hello Kitty art for hers.   As far as being in on the art goes....do you mean getting a copy of the Scooby stuff or getting your own custom art? If it's the Scooby stuff, you'll have to ask SuperRabbit, since the work I do for people belongs to them  . If it's something custom, I'd be glad to help but you'd have to jump into the aforementioned line  

[Pixelhugger]

SuperRabbit-

Would I be willing to work on something so cartoony and kiddie? Are you kidding?? We're a bunch of adults building arcade games for crying out loud! Let's put it this way...I get jealous when my wife takes our daughter to Toys R Us without me....

I can hardly wait to get going on it. Like I said I do have to finish (or at least get close to finishing) the other projects I'm doing for people. In the mean time, if you could confirm the actual marquee dimensions (and note the area covered by the marquee retainers or trim-probably 1/2"-3/4" top and bottom) I can get a template started. If you could point me to the site where you found the Scooby vector art, that would save me huge amounts of time redrawing things.

If you're open to it I'd like to recreate the original Scooby logo, with the curvy ghouly type. If you'd prefer to use the movie logotype I understand.

When you lay out the control panel if you could do so in a way that would allow me to use your template to design CP art (around joysticks and buttons) that would be a tremendous help as well. (Assuming you want me to do a CP overlay). Laying it out in Illustrator (preferred) or even MS Word in scale would give me exact locations for buttons etc. I imagine labeling the buttons would be good for a kids cab.

So are you going to paint the sides green or use green laminate??? Will you use green/orange/violet pushbuttons? Oh, man...there's so many great possibilities with your theme.

A Scooby skinned front end (like Emulaxian) would be fantastic, especially for kids. Come to think of it, with Emulaxian's 3D arcade model support, your kids could actually walk through a Scooby themed haunted castle to find the games they want to play.   Just a question of texturing the walls will some Scooby stills. OK I'm sold....I've gotta do that too. What's another weekend anyhow.... Hmmmmm.... how fast is the laptop you'll be using?

But I digress...........  

[froggerman]

Laying it out in Illustrator (preferred) or even MS Word in scale would give me exact locations for buttons etc. I imagine labeling the buttons would be good for a kids cab.

I have also found that Visio is a very good tool for producing control panel layouts to scale. The templates (stencils) are available for most common controls and the resulting Visio drawing can be pasted into Illustrator. Just a thought.

[dek]

Hrmm, I haven't even started on her cab yet but I was thinking something more along the lines of sideart. Maybe a collage of HB characters.

Heck, I just bought her a bunch of the old cartoon booths

http://tinyurl.com/2l25j

If I had to wait in line for 6 months, I'd wait

[SuperRabbit0]

Would I be willing to work on something so cartoony and kiddie? Are you kidding?? We're a bunch of adults building arcade games for crying out loud! Let's put it this way...I get jealous when my wife takes our daughter to Toys R Us without me....

I'm the same way, what are kids for if its not an excuse to get toys.  My house is a giant toy box and I'd want it no other way.  

I can hardly wait to get going on it. Like I said I do have to finish (or at least get close to finishing) the other projects I'm doing for people. In the mean time, if you could confirm the actual marquee dimensions (and note the area covered by the marquee retainers or trim-probably 1/2"-3/4" top and bottom) I can get a template started. If you could point me to the site where you found the Scooby vector art, that would save me huge amounts of time redrawing things.

If you're open to it I'd like to recreate the original Scooby logo, with the curvy ghouly type. If you'd prefer to use the movie logotype I understand.

When you lay out the control panel if you could do so in a way that would allow me to use your template to design CP art (around joysticks and buttons) that would be a tremendous help as well. (Assuming you want me to do a CP overlay). Laying it out in Illustrator (preferred) or even MS Word in scale would give me exact locations for buttons etc. I imagine labeling the buttons would be good for a kids cab.

So are you going to paint the sides green or use green laminate??? Will you use green/orange/violet pushbuttons? Oh, man...there's so many great possibilities with your theme.

A Scooby skinned front end (like Emulaxian) would be fantastic, especially for kids. Come to think of it, with Emulaxian's 3D arcade model support, your kids could actually walk through a Scooby themed haunted castle to find the games they want to play.   Just a question of texturing the walls will some Scooby stills. OK I'm sold....I've gotta do that too. What's another weekend anyhow.... Hmmmmm.... how fast is the laptop you'll be using?

But I digress...........  

The dimensions I am planning for the exposed marque are 3 1/2" x 11 inches (or maybe 13, I'm struggling with one final design decision with respect to a possible metal control panel that you might notice me post about in another thread in a few minutes)

The original Scooby font would be very cool.  Mine included the movie font because I was able to find a vector image of that font that was far better than anything I could do with the old-style font on my own.  I found the vector image of Scooby and the gang in the Mystery Machine here:

http://web.brandsoftheworld.com/?id=112&query_id=3523781&page=1&brand_id=70431

There's a few other Scooby vector images there as well....

My original plan was to do Mystery Machine type artwork on the side of the panel.  It has to be simple because there is not much space there.  The machine is only going to be about 23" high and 8" deep at the monitor.  But now that you mention green laminate, I think I might check that out.  Might be just the ticket....

The plan is definitely for blue/green//orange theme to the buttons and joystick.  I am a little torn on the joystick (didn't finalize my order last night) because I want a green joystick but can't find that in a 4/8 way switchable.  So I'm now planning on a blue Omnistick and orange/green buttons.  Do people think that would look OK?  I'm struggling to finalize this choice?

The laptop is pretty old (a Celeron 600) but its all tricked out with Mamewah and all the games I want to play on this cabinet (mostly the classic which are simple and non-violent for the kids...)  and its working great.  I don't know much about Emulaxian as I have invested my energy in Mamewah but it sounds like that might be a little ambitious for this old laptop.

I know many on here feel the same way but this is such an exciting project.  I find it kind of amusing when I talk to other parents who complain about their kids playing video games and I am going to so much effort to try to get my kids to appreciate them!

[SuperRabbit0]

Hrmm, I haven't even started on her cab yet but I was thinking something more along the lines of sideart. Maybe a collage of HB characters.

Heck, I just bought her a bunch of the old cartoon booths

http://tinyurl.com/2l25j

If I had to wait in line for 6 months, I'd wait

I had to add a comment about that booth.  That thing is so cool.  Like a kid-sized cockpit arcade machine.  So many cool things you could do with it.  Do you just use videotapes to switch the cartoons?

As for the artwork, you are welcome to any of the work pixelhugger does for me that you would like, as long as you promise your cabinet won't be nicer than mine...    

[Pixelhugger]

As far as the joysticks go, the t-stick plus ball top from ultimarc is switchable 4-8 way and now comes in light green (color option is available on the order page).

Yeah, it sounds like Emulaxian would be a bit more than a 600mhz celeron could handle.... don't want any cabinet fires. Still though, its got me thinking.

[dek]

I had to add a comment about that booth.  That thing is so cool.  Like a kid-sized cockpit arcade machine.  So many cool things you could do with it.  Do you just use videotapes to switch the cartoons?

Well, originally they had these super 8 projectors in them that could hold 1000 feet of film, i.e. 3 to 4 cartoons. You'd pop a quarter in and it would play a 5 min short. These came without the players or the cartridges. I just bought 2 of the players on ebay for 5 bucks each and have a lead on 2 or 3 of the carts, but they are $$$$.

I sold a few to local guys in the SFBA. I know one is going to throw a tv/dvd in it and modernize it. I may end up doing the same, but want at least 1 to be original.

I bought 9 total BTW Need to sell 3 more

[SuperRabbit0]

Thanks for the info about the T-Sticks.  That is definitely what I am going to go with.

Going to order this weekend green joysticks and orange buttons and T-Molding this weekend.

Anyways, finalized my last design decision and the marquee dimensions are 3 1/2" x 12".