Artwork for a Modular Panel?

[weisshaupt]

I was hoping that some folks here might have some really clever ideas on artwork for a modular panel. I plan to to an etched design like I did with my first machine, but the difficult part is coming up with a theme that works well no matter what order the panels are placed in. The CAD drawing of what I am contemplating is in this project thread:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76824.msg800118#msg800118

On my first machine, the underlying panel was  just black Vinyl, but it could have something cooler printed there if someone has a neat idea of how to combine the two. I am contemplating an Armor attack theme , where I have widely spaced "armor attack-like" buildings placed on regular printed vinyl (where none of the buildings overlap the edge of a panel)  and etched vehicles, either just from armor attack, or possbily stealing some from other games (ripoff etc)  I am contemplating having the etching done by lazer this time, so both Raster and Vector images could be accomodated...

Any ideas?

[ironpoet]

First of all, I love the design.  Your original "Ghost in the Machine" inspired my own (highly theoretical) control panel design.  (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=79114.0)

One idea I had for my own "Iron Poet" machine was to individualize each panel (possibly by putting a famous poem on each panel).  That way everybody could fight over who got to use the "Walden" joystick or the "Keats" trackball.  You might be able to do something similar.

With a name like "Ghost in the Machine", you could have a running line across the top of your panels, similar to this:
  (The result of a quick Google Image search). 

Four ghosts, Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, cherries, and maybe a few guest stars, all along a line of dots.  So putting the panels together would create a random chase scene, depending on the order of controls.