Phantom Array: Saga 001 - Artwork thread

[SparXalt]

Well, it's that time again.  Arcade Fever has hit.  This time it came hiding behind an income tax return.  I thought "Hmmm, what can i do with this money?" and the answer was... finish the arcade machine.  So I dug out the archive CDs and restored my artwork.  All I had was a few sketches and a finished marquee.  But the marquee was a Photo-realistic space scene and as much as liked it, and as much time as I had put into it... it wasn't right.  So I taught myself Illustrator.  Now I'm running out of things i want to do to the images so i figure I'll look to the community.  See if ya'll have any input. 

So for starters here's the marquee, tell me what you think.  Criticism is welcome.

[Malenko]

I like it alot, very professional looking. the only MINOR little thing Id do, is add some details to the green and red planets.

[SparXalt]

Thanks, i might try that see how it looks.  I'm trying to keep it some what simplistic (went overboard on the fighter.)  I'd really like to add some clouds to the planet but i can't figure out a good way of doing it in vector.  best attempt was pencil it in, drop an opacity mask, then lower the layer transparency.  but that always looks like crap.  anybody have a better way?

[Cero21]

Wow I like it!  I like the simpicity (but the complexness?  of everything all together).

I can't really think of anything to make it better.

[SparXalt]

Thanks Guys, I love the feedback.  Per Malenko's advice I spiced up the green planet.  I'm not too worried about the orange one cause I'll lose a big part of it to the retainer.  Then  I tried tackling the clouds again.  And guess what? nope they still looked like crap. So I reopened my old photo-realistic raster and traced that. Surprise, surprise i found what was missing.  I needed the clouds to follow a globe shape, like wind currents around a sphere.  A little bit of feather later. Tada, nice clouds.  Then i looked at the space dust, those blue swirls in the background, which were softened with outer/inner glows and i thought "lets try the feathering on those.  BAM 10x better.

[SparXalt]

Ok, been busy but here's the side art.  My main beef with this is that border.  It's going to go on a black cab so i need something to make it's edges pop.  I just recently stumbled across the "space duel" side art and was amazed at what can be done with only 8 colors.  I'd like to do something like that but i don't want to be a totally unoriginal copycat.  So ideas are encouraged.