Help needed for Commando themed arcade cab artwork

[whitmanpricehaddad]

Long time no post on here sorry.

I've been building myself a mame based arcade machine over the last few weeks and it's getting near to the decoration stage.

The construction is pretty much done, so now I need to start prepping it for covering with cheesy black wood effect 80s style vinyl and so on. It features a 7" touchscreen monitor above the main 19" one so it can do stuff like play the best scenes from Commando endlessly on loop to keep me happy forever.

Once that is done, I need to do artwork for it. I've decided to do a Commando themed cab because I love it so much, but the problem is I'm shit at photoshop artwork.

Here's the cab at this stage:


Complete with stealth folding steering wheel for driving games like outrun:


Now it's gone (folds inside front):


I've kinda worked on a test version of the marquee at the top and it looks ok but a little washed out:


Sooooo, what I'm looking for help with is a couple of things really.

Mainly, I want the marquee artwork to be a collage of classic moments from Commando, merged together with say an explosion, perhaps the chopper/canoe with wings/arnie swinging like tarzan etc. Lots of Bennett of course and Cooke/Sully/Enriquez etc, and "Commando" across the middle.

Yeah I know - not much then!
The marquee size is 65cm x 10.5cm.

No idea if anyone wants to help with this and no worries if not, but would be cool! To save potential effort, I don't mind badly bodged primitive scenes done in MS Paint, which if they look right to me, I can then try myself in CS5.

The other thing I really want, for the side of the cab is the classic space invaders monster (the shaggy artwork one with glowing outline, not the pixelated one you see in the game), but with bennett's face subtley blended in, and ideally his vest & dogtags. This is the fella:


Appreciate any assistance here and don't forget this could be your chance to make your mark on what will one day be a family heirloom for my 6 month old boy.

Thanks in advance for any efforts, no matter how good or shit they are! ;D


One other thing if anyone knows how to do this sort of shiz, is I want it to play wav files every now and then (samples of you know what) but to also flash up different sets of LEDs at the same time, so that I can have a Bennett with red LED eyes that glow or flash when he says stuff, and so on. Anyone know how to control the lights to work at the same time as sounds playing?

[whitmanpricehaddad]

Here's a crude starter for the kind of thing I'm after:


Or with logo as well:

[whitmanpricehaddad]

Here's the tidied version:

[SteamingPipe]

Damn that is nice......Where do you sit your beer tho?

[whitmanpricehaddad]

I forgot but I never actually updated this thread to show pics of the (almost) finished arcade cab:




Lower section closed:


Note the hidden gaming wheel which flips up and locks against the front of the cab, then the door closes again below it:


Go go Gadget hidden keyboard:



Not sure why the marquee pic isn't there in those pics though....

[Kimble]

I was meaning to ask you how this was coming along. Looks pretty rad!

[milo]

That does look great!.