The Graphics

Fortunately for me I have a bit of a leg up in this area. I am a graphic designer by trade, so I could deal with the look of the machine without a problem. Those of you who do not know graphics software, you need not surrender, there are plenty of alternatives for you on the web. You may be hindered in the since that you can't make your design exactly the way you want. But then you could always pay someone to do this too.

Super Sweet Screen saver - I found a neat way to create 3D rendered screen savers so I made the classic 4 Pacman ghosts who will spin around your desktop for you. The file is an .exe so Windows may warn you. Trust me, it's ok. I made it with a little demo program called Screenswift.

Cabinet Art

The Marquee - The marquee is the lit up sign at the top of an arcade cabinet. SO even if there were hundreds of kids standing around it you could still see the game you couldn't play. I have gone through three different designs since I started this hobby about 5 years ago. The image on the left is the first marquee I made. My machine at the time didn't have an overall feel to it at all so that's what I made. Then I realized no one knew what MAME was so I decided to make a new one. After everyone started to refer to this cab as "The Arcade" I changed the title. Then finally I decided to redo the control top and go for a pixilated style.

Control Top - For the first one, I wasn't sure what I should do to the control top. I knew early on what the layout of the buttons, sticks, and trackball were going to be, but I just didn't know what to put in the background. So I was cruising the internet and found the Arcade Art Library. This is a great site to grab graphics from and special thanks to whomever traced Yun. I placed him behind the control layout and found that his length made him perfect for center stage.
What I later discovered is that people normally think that hitting random buttons will make a game work as opposed to killing the machine. So for the new design I thought some labels would be helpful. I really like how this design came out. All my favorite characters are representing here.

Side Art - The side art started out with Akuma and Bison that I grabbed from Arcade Art Library placed behind my MAME logo. It was fine but was a bit too square. The second one is still a favorite of mine. I grabbed my X-acto knife and sliced around the graphic and ended up looking great. For the later cabs I stayed with the pixilated look and made it much larger.

All of this fantastic art was printed from Mame Marquees. These guys did a fantastic job making my baby look good. They were printed on self adhesive vinyl (except the marquee) and so far its been just fine. The only thing that bugged me was that there was some kind of scrape on one of the control top graphics. Looks like it was done while handling it after the print.

Interface Art - I have moved over to Maximus Arcade from having used Mala for a long time. MA was just a little more rock solid and crash proof where Mala had more options and freedom. I haven't posted any of the MA art just yet but I might in the future. You can see some of it on the home page with the Youtube links.
Below are my older Mala creations and are free for anyone to download although not all of it is complete. PS I didn't not create any of these, I only composited them.

Wallpaper - Here are a few of my favorite desktop backgrounds or wallpaper that I use for my arcade. I created a box for all my icons to make i look a little more organized. These have a box for anyone who likes to have icons on their desktop. I have since moved all icons to the start menu so I don't use these as much anymore.

Wisdom - Do a rough trim on the control top graphic then stick it on the wood. My graphic shrunk about 2-3 millimeters after I removed the backing. After it's stuck on you can trim it better with an X-ACTO knife.