Steampunk MAME!

Doug writes:

I thought I'd pass on a project I've been working on for a couple weeks. I am a Steampunk fan, to be sure…but also a fan of old horror films.  I thought it would be fun to take both and combine them for a "MAME" arcade cabinet. You probably know what that is, but put simply it's an application that allows you to play arcade games (pac-man, donkey kong, etc) on a pc.  By building a cabinet, you can get some of the feel and fun of the old days of playing video games at the local arcade.  My cabinet combines some of the victorian elements found in steampunk with electrical mad-scientist designs from the man behind Karloff's Frankenstein lab(Strickfaden).  I'm finishing up the Marquee (the machine name plate usually found at the top of a cabinet) and will post pictures of that soon….

The details are amazing! I love the vintage panel meters on the control panel!

The book hides the power switch and you can see the PC motherboard that runs the whole thing in the background lit with blue light – I am a total sucker for blue LED lighting.

For me the most amazing part of Doug's work are the side panel cut into corian with a CNC carving machine and back-lit, Doug explains:

I own a carving machine….I can convert a photo to grey scale, then carve the photo as a lithopane. I carve in 1/4" corian (the stuff they make counter tops from). Once the carving it back-lit, it appears as a grey-scale photo…It's backlit with a green low watt bulb. These are on the side of the cabinet. This image was originally created by Rick Baker (special effects Davinci).

Doug really did a great job with the patina!

For more information and pictures click through to Doug's blog at: http://frankencade.blogspot.com/