The Neon MAME has enormous draw for me personally, but also just might have enough shiny glowy stuff on it to get my wife motivated about this project as well. Although Neon MAME features a lot of LED button lighting, that isn't something I've found to be especially unique to their design. However, the way the designer implemented illuminated side art definitely is different and had a ton of impact on how I drew out my own plans.
I didn't find the Modern Cocktail example to be a necessarily huge influence for me as far as design. This is mostly because I avoided playing games on cocktail cabinets if at all possible. I mean no one is ever forced to play a video game, but if you're in an arcade you are likely there to play games. If the game you want to play is a cocktail, then the game still gets played... Right? Anyway, I was never quite able to fit my knees comfortably under the tables, and the glare on those screens always seemed to put my game off. But in the case of the Modern Cocktail, before I saw the paint finish on that cabinet I had not even considered the standard they achieved even a possibility. The thing looks like the genetic coupling of sports car and a baby grand piano. And that my friends... Is awesome...
The plan for my cabinet's marquee is very traditional in function if not in design. Similar to the rest of the cabinet, I'm sticking to a arced shape for the actual marquee frame. I've also canted the angle of the marquee slightly down to give it greater depth of appearance when standing below it. I'm uncertain if this angling will detract from the cabinet's appearance at a flat perspective or across the space of a room. If I find that it does, I'll simple remove the Plexiglas and recut the lightbox to a flat angle. My intent is to have the 'Lost Childhood' logo I've developed printed professionally and then adhered to a translucent cut of Plexiglas. That will in turn be back-lit with a simple single-bulb fluorescent light fixture.
The logo itself has been on the drawing table for a couple years now. I have to make some assumptions when I write about these images, because interpretation of artistic work can be completely opinionated. I think the end result of my design looks pretty good, but I know there are graphic designers out there who would look at my designs and scoff. I wish I could say that I freehanded these in a super-complicated art-design program that rasterizes my images on the fly, but the truth is they were all complied in something much less sexy. I of course had to figure out some Photoshop Adobe to apply the plaster and lens-flare effects, but the images themselves are built from grouped polygons inside Microsoft Powerpoint. Throughout my career, I've been deeply immersed and indoctrinated in the toils of the office suite, and sadly I wear the crown of he whom is best of all at that is slide shows. So instead of learning a new system, I just stuck with what I know and built the images you see now.
All that said, I can appreciate the fact that many people won't recognize some of the icons I've chosen to include in my artwork. I've done my best to bring out some of my favorite items and avatars from classic arcade and console games. Included in that list (if I've failed to make their appearance obvious) are:
- the Hylian Shield, Master Sword, Gale Boomerang, bombs and bow from 'The Legend of Zelda'
- one of Samus Aran's baddies: the Metroid
- Pac-Man and the Ghosts
- Galaga's Space Fighter and liberated side ship
- one of the nefarious Space Invaders
- Dig Dug and his goggle-wearing baddie Pooka
- one of the most dangerous clowns I know - Mr. Do!
The side art will also use a similar Plexiglas-backlighting concept. However this fixture has a routed out cylinder surrounding the actual lighting tunnel. My intent is to wrap the cylinder in either LED studded bands or Light Tape and create another bluish glow effect on the outside. If both these ideas come together like I imagine, the logo art will be back-lit through the semi-translucent white areas of the design by the fluorescent bulb mounted on the inside of the wall and given a glow effect from the illuminated side routing wrapped with the external blue LED bands. I believe this will replicate my favorite glow effects on the Neon Mame cabinet and create a striking 'look' to the cabinet on whole.
