Delving one step deeper into the utter madness that is fighting game fandom, I started visiting the infamous Shoryuken Forums, where the hard core fighting community hangs out online.  It was there I discovered that people actually create their own templates for the face of the stick using official art, fan art and whatever other photoshop or illustrator skills they can muster to create original arcade stick templates to go on the face of the stick.  This can replace the look of the joystick from the factory.  I decided to take a crack at it and make a Capcom (street fighter) vs. SNK (king of fighters) theme stick.  I’ve always loved the artwork in these games and I wanted to capture the over-dramatic, crazy announcer feeling the games have via the text.  I chose two of my favorite characters- Gouken and Iori.

Here is what I plan to do to my Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 stick (which arrived and is awesome)  I’m still waiting on the Sanwa buttons and ball top parts in the new colors. This will be cut out, laminated, then cut again to produce a sheet that can be adhered to the joystick face.

Template (blue will be cut out)

This is a mock up of the button and joystick colors I intend to use (Sanwa parts):

Mock Up of Buttons and Joystick Colors

Since I was working with such a high res file, I took the liberty of making it into a wallpaper for your enjoyment.  This is a high res file, but it’s the right aspect to be sized down for whatever screen you are using:

Widescreen Wallpaper (Download for your desktop)

Enjoy.  I will be sure to post the finished product when I complete it!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 at 4:05 AM and is filed under Design, Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.