Updated Pics

Pictures...

Well here is the cabinet in black, although the pic doesn't show it, it looks very dark and glossy in person... I thought it turned out very nice.

All it took was 3 coats of primer, and 4 coats of black. Very easy.

I thought this was going to be the toughest part of the control panel... turns out it wasn't that bad, I was able to layout the buttons rather painless.














Continuing with my theme of "no fucking space", I was able to do most of the wood work on a beautiful Saturday. In true redneck fashion I hung an extension cord out my front room window. Very classy.

















For recessing the trackball plate, I borrowed my dads router... turns out, it was complicated, and I just didn't care... so I took a chisel and a hammer and went to town... in no time I had my 1/16" of an inch. Victory.












My artwork, and Plexiglas... turns out my artwork was bigger than what Gimp was telling me... oh well. I kind of like it big. Anyway... I got the plexi from Ace hardware for $18, they cut all of the holes for free!














I took the template from BYOAC and edited it a bit in Gimp... then added "Ian's Arcade" in a font I found online called "Astro Boy". It looks pretty similar to the font in the mame logo. I lucked out again.











Here is a better view.













With the buttons added...














Another view... however as you can tell my artwork is producing a wrinkled effect, I took out all the buttons and started over, and over until this was minimized.













Bottom view...














Now I measured and remeasured where the holes were supposed to go for the plexi, but two of the Joysticks were off by mere millimeters... you would think it should be fine (like me) but it turned out the joystick was hitting the wood. So I lined it up best I could and Gorilla Glued the bastards on... Looks good now.








The wiring is a mess... half of it was mine and half was Drew's.. since I redid the controller wires were not the same size.. blah blah blah, I don't care it works.... :)












Starting to look real good, now for some finishing touches...

I wanted to glue quarters on the credit buttons, but found old arcade tokens I never used as a teenager... I polished them up the best I could, and glued them on..... Looks damn nice.

And here is my recessed track ball... doesn't look to bad if you ask me....

This arcade is now my bitch... Arcade 2 Ian 20,000

And here is what it will look like when it is all attached... notice my wife holding it up while I take a picture.... did I mention she rocks?

Artwork....

I figured if I have superior artwork, it would make up for my many (and I mean MANY) short comings when it comes to handy work/general man stuff. The wife is supportive, so I got a shot.

http://www.mamemarquees.com/
I first went here... found out there is a lot of options... expensive or really expensive..... shit.

Since I am on a budget I really didn't want to spend that much on art. Then I realized my local Kinkos would print anything I wanted... FOR $80! F-that. I settled for an internal compromise to settle my internal struggle regarding arcade artwork (it happens more times than you would think!)

I decided to go all out on the Marquee and semi out on the control panel, and zero out on the side art.

For the Marquee I went for this stunning number:




Which I liked despite all of the Nintendo Characters.. some of which have never had their own arcade game... sigh. But it looks nice. So that is a plus.

For my control panel I ripped off the artwork at http://www.jakobud.com/, well it was inspired by jakobud to tell you the truth.

I like it... simple and straight to the point.... and 100% mine... I recreated it with my own skilz (with a z).

But like everything I did more problems popped up... Where the hell am I going to print this? How am I going to figure out button layout? How the hell am I going to label the buttons? Am I going to have the arrows for the joysticks?????

Fast forward a couple days, and found out there is a huge printer at my work right below me... (I didn't know it was there because I have never needed to print huge ass documents okay?)

I asked my boss if I could use it, he gave me the thumbs up... the next person I had to talk to was my graphic artist... let's call him Bill. Bill printed it out and it looked great.. however it was printed on glossy paper which when sandwiched with Plexiglas it looks all wet. I figured hell it was free I can live with it... I then taped button wholes and arrows to it haphazardly because frankly I just didn't care about it....

More about that later.