LiquidMame marquee - please critique

[fiscap]

Hi all - I've been slacking on the construction of my cabinet as of late and putting more time into enjoyment of the summer, but I have put a little work into my marquee. Please take a look at what I've got so far and let me know what you think, but more importantly if you see areas that I can improve and also any additional ideas you may have.

Oh yeah - it's called LiquidMame because I'm planning on implementing the first liquid-cooled MAME cabinet. Yes, I know what you're thinking - overkill for a MAME cabinet. I'm implementing the liquid-cooling because of the aesthetic factor and not so much for the performance factor. I have two liquid-cooled systems at home and they look very cool, so I thought how cool would it look to implement the same thing in an arcade cabinet

[horseboy]

Looks good, but you need Mario swimming around in there.

[fiscap]

I've got Mario and Luigi in the sub cruising around, but it may be kind of hard to make them out. I was thinking of putting Bart Simpson in the marquee swimming around, but it might make more sense to take Mario out of the sub.

If I pull Mario and Luigi out of the sub, any ideas on who I can throw in there? Maybe Popeye and Olive Oil?

[Sprucemoose]

Love the theme.  The liquid mame part looks good.  Very simple.  The character and sub don't mesh well with everything else.  I am envisioning a sub that has more of a cartoon feel to it.  Maybe not as long, but larger and with round edges.  Kinda like Nintendo artwork. 

[fiscap]

Thanks for the kudos and suggestions Sprucemoose.

You're right about the sub and it needing to be more cartoon-like. I was looking for a sub that would be recognizable from a classic game, but couldn't come up with any ideas. While looking for a font that looked kind of aquatic I came across the Yellow Submarine font (the one being used). I then got the idea - hey why not use the Beatles Yellow Submarine. I agree it's not a great fit, but it did look cartoon-like at the time.

Anyone have ideas on another sub I can try?

[fatfingers]

Anyone have ideas on another sub I can try?

Are you looking for something like these?

I'm sure they're not in the format you want, but I would think they're easily vectorable (yeah, like I have a clue what I'm talking about) so that you can resize them, etc. like you would need to.

Good luck!

Edit: I found these via a Google images search, so they may or may not be wise to use. 

[gamecreature]

What about the Metal Slug sub?

[fiscap]

Love the ideas guys - these are great!

I really like the Metal Slug sub Gamecreature. It never occurred to me that there was a sub in the game - but maybe I just stink at it and never got that far 

I'll have to see if I can find a bigger artwork version of the sub somewhere. It looks like it might be a bit difficult to vectorize from the smaller version.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

[BamBam]

I love it.  I vote for the Metal Slug Sub as indicated by Game Creature.  Try putting QBert on the round part of the "d" rather than on top.  I found my eye drawn to this spot every time I looked at it.
The liquid theme looks great.

John