Makin' Progress

The arcade cabinet is really coming along! I'm knee deep in creating the artwork for the cabinet, starting with the control panel. I'm sticking with Cave Story artwork for the control panel only. Below the blue buttons will be a blue shaded Balrog with arms thrown up yelling "Huzzah!", Balrog's catch phrase. Missiles will be flying underneath the trackball toward the red button side, where a red Balrog will be in pain yelling, "Ouch!" My kids are huge fans of Balrog, calling him Lunchbox due to his lunchbox-like shape. Up above the Player 1 start button will be a small picture of Quote, the main character of Cave Story. Above the Player 2 start button will be a small picture of Quote with Curly on his back, a reference to the harrowing last level of the game. Finally, the background of the control panel overlay will be a cave and have various characters hidden in the background, including the two last bosses hiding in the top corners.
I'm also busy with wiring the buttons to the keyboard encoder, attaching the control panel latches, installing the T-Molding (which is already attached to the control panel), installing the speakers and subwoofer, and mounting the marquee backlight. I may install the coin door tomorrow, seeing as how it shouldn't get in the way of anything at this point. I really enjoyed mounting the buttons, trackball and joysticks. It really beings a bit of finality to this project. Granted, I still have a fair amount of work to do, but it is really neat to know that I am nearly done! Oh, I also found a spot that needs some touch up paint on the speaker panel. That sucks!