Artwork Questions + Price Inquiry

[EmPuLSe]

I am making a Matrix themed cabinet, using the MameRoom Designs plans for their Ultimate Arcade II cabinet.  I was hoping to luck out, and find a bunch of "public property" Matrix stuff available, and havent had any luck.  So I was planning on doing my own graphics work in Photoshop, until I read an article that mentioned something about Photoshop files not printing well.  Something about Photoshop being used for computer viewed stuff.  Illustrator, of course, being the prefered application for this sort of work.

I would call myself an average Photoshop user.  I absolutely can follow directions.  Google and some time, and I can do some pretty awesome stuff in PS.  On the other hand, I have never done anything with Illustrator.  I have a copy, and have just never learned how to do anything with it.  Needless to say, I am concerned it will be a beast, and I'll create an abortion of an artistic attempt to paste on the side of my cabinet.

Can anyone verify that my PS results will not print well?  If I have average PS experiance, what are my chances of being successful with Illustrator?

The Marquee, and center point for the entire cabinet, was found at http://www.emdkay.net/, it is actually the Marquee used on the original Mametrix Cabinet ( http://www.the-mametrix.com/index2.htm ). 

It is available for purchase at emdkay.net, which I very well may end up doing.  However, before I do anything hasty, I thought I'd post here and see what you all had to say.

Are there any starving artists that may be interested in doing some work for me?  I'm on a fairly tight budget, and not sure what a CPO, and some Sideart would cost. . . . I'm curious what some of you all would charge.  Maybe I can figure out a way to squeeze it into my budget.

(Sorry if the post lacks focus. . . . I am at work, and have wrote this over 40 minutes. . . Broken into about 4 sessions.)

Thanks,
EmPuLSe

[gamecreature]

There is no problem with using Photoshop files as long as your artwork is at least 300 dpi. That's what I used on my cabinet. Anything less is going to look fuzzy or raggedy when printed out. What looks good on your monitor at 72 dpi is going to look awful when blown up to 300 dpi. A quick look at your 300 dpi image at 100% will tell you what parts will look like when printed.

I'd volunteer my services, but I'm already up to my neck in other projects. You might give Motorfish or Snaake a query and see if they're interested.

[motorfish]

The sample you posted would print out just fine in CMYK, even though the greens are a wee bit out of gamut. You might lose a tiny bit of color saturation, but noting to be concerned about. Printing it in RGB would be even better, but you'd be safe either way.

As far as pricing goes, it guess it would depend on what you wanted to have done and the extensiveness of the project. Gimee an idea of exactly what you're looking to do, and I can give you an honest qoute of what it would cost to do, as well as some samples of stuff I've already done. ^_^

[SNAAKE]

yeah you need to post what kind of theme you are looking for and one of us can probly hook you up. as for print quility, you can always check how it will loook in CMYK in photoshop. the difference is usually not that noticable. and always...ALWAYS have mamemarquees.com print your artwork. I think Scott uses RGB printer because all the prints I got from him look very accurate.

[EmPuLSe]

My ideas are rather simple.  Majority of what I want is Matrix code. . . . Here is my ideas.  Again, keep in mind my cabinet is the Mame Room Designs Ultimate Arcade 2 (I believe Snaake has the same Cabinet in his sig). On the sides, I will only be putting artwork on the top half of the cabinet.  The bottom half will remain black.

Marquee: Shown above.  That one will work nicely.

Right Side of Cabinet: Scenes from the Movie, seperated by a "matrixy" border.  I assume I can pop the DVD in my computer, and take screencaps, then import them into whatever graphics program is used (Correct me if I am wrong!). I'm basically stealing this idea from the absolutely outstanding Heavy Metal Cabinet. You can see what I mean, here: http://www.mindspring.com/~chrisnewsome/fin002.html

Left Side of Cabinet: Undecided, though i was thinking about doing nothing more than an entire panel of Matrix Code. Maybe a quote from the movie, in the matrix font.  "Free your mind" or something of the sort.  If I can find a Trinity picture that I like, I'd consider putting it there. .. . but, I'm sorta undecided about this side.

Control Panel Overlay:  I have a few ideas here. . . Some Matrix code falling from the top of the CPO towards the front of the cabinet.  I wanted to box in the bottons with the "Red and Blue Pill" from the movie.  Maybe have Player 1 all with red Buttons/Sticks, with the artwork of a pill surrounding them, then the Player 2 stuff all in red, with the blue pill surrounding them. 

Some of my ideas =)

[SNAAKE]

I can probly do this since I worked on many UA2 projects in the past. PM sent !