Mini Review: MAMEMarquees Ultimate Marquee (and a peek at my marquee design)

[Aurich]

Scott @ http://mamemarquees.com/ was nice enough to send over a sample of his Ultimate Marquee backlit film for me, so in return I thought I'd do a quick review for anyone who wants to know if the extra expense is worth it.

Short answer: Yes. If you like washed out marquees (been there done that) then go with someone else or choose the cheaper option, but IMHO spending a little extra here is well worth it.

My upcoming cab, Deep6, has a lot of rich colors in the marquee, CPO, and side art designs, and I was concerned they wouldn't translate over to print very well. I was also worried the polycarbonate layer would dull the colors. Both fears have been allayed. Unlight, the marquee with coating looks nearly screen perfect. Colors are rich and vibrant. I sent Scott low rez art for the sample to keep things easy, so the sharpness isn't as good as it will be in the final, but he also printed a smaller size for me so I could see what native rez looks like (sharp and defined).

I've been keeping my art under wraps until the cab is closer to completion, but I always like to see the original file to compare a photo against for these kind of reviews, so I'll share.

Anyways, on to the perty pictures. First shot is a direct jpeg from Photoshop of the my artwork for reference, the second is a photo of the design backlit by a fluorescent light under ambient light conditions. Keep in mind the photo is only so-so, my point and shoot camera shifted the colors and washed things out quite a bit, it's much better looking in person. You can see though, the colors aren't washed out and the black isn't grey. Somewhere in between the two images is what you see in person. The upper right corner is subtly blue in real life for instance, not black.

Original art:


Backlit photo:

[MovingTarget]

Looks awesome, thanks for the review.  I'm anxious to see your art work.  As an avid scuba diver I toyed with the idea of doing a scuba or fish themed cabinet but an alien theme won out because I wanted to do fiber optic stars.

Anyway, I've got some pictures I took with a 5 megpix camera on my last trip to Key Largo and you're welcome to any of the images if you want them.

I've also got some nice shots from a night dive I did Caymans June 2005 of 2 octopuses fighting (I think, there was some debate on the boat if it was a fight or sweet lovin but I think it was a fight after some serious Discovery channel watching).

Just let me know what kind of stuff you're looking for and I can see if I've got anything that may fit the bill.

[Aurich]

The cab has an octopus theme on all the art. In theory the artwork is all complete, but if you have more octopus shots I certainly wouldn't mind seeing them.