DANMAKU- vertical shooter cabinet *finished*

[XYXZYZ]

I love shooters (Shmups!) and I wanted a vertical cabinet to play them on. I already have a verical TV setup for them, but I gotta have that arcade feel you only get with a cabinet, right? I wound up with a really nice Dynamo that had a Strikers 1999 kit in it. Fantastic monitor too, I can't believe it. I won't bore you with the details about the hardware, just a PC with a J-Pac, Matrox G400, Power Strip, MAME, etc.

I call it "Danmaku" which is the "maniac" genre of shooters. (DoDonPachi, Batsugun) Converting the hardware didn't offer any more challenges than usual, but the most difficult part was the artwork- took about a month to get it all together. This cabinet looked so drab and boring,  I wanted this one to be like the old 80s machines that had cartoons all over them. And I went with the 80s Japanese style artwork because I love it, and I think the old style mecha designs are perfect for a shooter oriented machine.


Anyway, I made the marquee from scratch, designed the logo myself and used hi res pictures from Gradius, and a hi res scan of the Japanese Megadrive game "Gaiares" cover.(Which was scanned and given to me by a really nice guy over on DigitPress)  The bezel was going to be a crappy upscaled version of the Xevious bezel, which I like very much. But then I remembered a Famicom illustration for Game Soft by Japanese artist Kenichi Sonoda in 1987,  I really liked it and I always thought it would make great arcade art. So I scanned it from a Kenichi Sonoda artbook, cleaned it up and did a little cut and paste onto an original background. (I had to move stuff around to get the screen in the middle of the bezel) The control panel was difficult, It took me forever to come up with a design that I liked. I wanted it to look like spaceship controls, like many of the classic space game CPOs. Had Mamemarquees.com print it up, Scott did an outstanding job as usual. I'm shocked at how good the bezel turned out, I did have some upscaling there. I cleaned it up, but it still didn't look so hot on my computer. But the bezel looks wonderful.

All that's left to do is change the joysticks, I don't like the American style bat sticks for shooters. I want to replace them with Seimitsu LS32s, but I can't find any in the US.

Anyway, here it is-

Before... (On location)




After.


Marquee


CPO





What do you think, sirs?

[Strokemouth]

Looks great, the marquee and bezel really go together well. Any plans for side art?

[pmc]

Man, it really "pops" now! Very sharp look. I like the way the CP grid continues into the bezel.

Did you have the Dyanmo CP overlay cut in advance, or is it printed square with the corners cut off at the time of application?

-pmc

[XYXZYZ]

Yeah, it was square. Cutting it right was kinda difficult.

[BobA]

Great looking cab.   Artwork really goes together well.  Control panel graphics and bezel graphics are very well thought out.

BobA

[TOK]

I also have a vert cab dedicated to shooters. If you can find them, check out the Suzo inductives. They are incredible sticks for shooters. I made my machine all black to look kind of imposing, but seeing the vibrant control panel colors on yours makes me think about changing it up.

Very nice work!

[Aurich]

Nice.

I always like to see people going hardcore and doing proper vertical cabs, there aren't enough of them. What's the game in the last shot with the giant head?

[danny_galaga]

excellent graphics (",)

[tetsu96]

Nice.

I always like to see people going hardcore and doing proper vertical cabs, there aren't enough of them. What's the game in the last shot with the giant head?

Looks like ESPRade to me.  And the other looks like DoDonPachi.  Very "Danmaki" games if any would be...

Great job with the artwork - a lot of cabs with the custom artwork try to hard and don't look as good as they should, but I really dig your example here.  A little bit of anime, a whole lot of space and ship artwork...  good stuff.

[XYXZYZ]

Thanks to everyone with the compliments, I appreciate it.

Looks like ESPRade to me.  And the other looks like DoDonPachi.  Very "Danmaki" games if any would be...

Yep, it's ESP Ra.De., (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=E&game_id=7684) and the other is DoDonpachi.

Great job with the artwork - a lot of cabs with the custom artwork try to hard and don't look as good as they should, but I really dig your example here.  A little bit of anime, a whole lot of space and ship artwork...  good stuff.

That's exactly what I was going for, I'm glad you noticed!