How Artistic

Done a few things over the past few days but nothing really worth taking a photo of. I bought some glass, one large piece of smoked glass to go in front of the TV, and two pieces of glass for the marquee. The glass looks very tasty, I'm glad I went with it instead of plexiglass, it will really improve the overall look.

I've also been working on getting the artwork nicely designed before I start printing it all out. It's been a pretty difficult job for me really, I'm not particularly artistic. No scratch that, I have no artistic talent at all. However after a lot of photoshop work these are my current designs. Any comments are welcome!

We have vision!

Things are moving along in leaps and bounds now. Shouldn't be much longer before this project is completed, and I'll be spending all day reliving arcade classics!

I've now finished painting the cabinet, I ended up putting on 5 coats of black on the outside, so you can imagine that the layer of paint is actually quite thick. Actually, I still need to put on a layer of clear varnish, but that will come after I've put the artwork on. The glossy black paint looks real nice, but the varnish should make it perfect.

I also installed the layer of covering on the control panel, and it looks (and feels) pretty sweet. I put all the buttons and joysticks in, but I've yet to wire them up.




Now, onto the major news for the day. I found the perfect TV at a second hand store. It has a nice big screen, has S-Video input, and it fits in the cabinet with only half a centimetre to spare. How good is that?? And just to add to the goodness, I got it for only $120 instead of $140 (Aussie dollars), cause they couldnt find the speakers to go with it. And since I'm providing my own sound, I wasn't fussed at all.




Last thing I've done lately is get a hold of some speaker grills, and install them. Not much involved with that, apart from cutting out some speaker holes, drilling some screw holes, and screwing them in.


I still need to organise the glass for the front, design and print off the artwork, and get the computer up and running. Not long to go now!

Coat, coat, recoat

The second layer of black went on today. I say it every time, but wow, what a difference a recoat of paint makes. It's still a little bit streaky, but so much better than before. I'm going to do at least one more coat, probably two. By that stage it should be absolutely shining. Here's some piccys:




The computer speakers that I ordered a few days ago also have arrived. I got the Creative SBS370 2.1 speakers. The reason I went with computer speakers is that they are magnetically shielded, so they wont cause the TV to do funny things. They actually sound really nice as well, very crisp and clear. Can't wait to hear some old school arcade tunes running through these :)