The following Build Article has been put together with permission from John Keeler, aka SodaPopinski from the ArcadeControls Forums.

We felt that John's work was so unique and compelling that it deserved being preserved within the halls of RetroBlast!

Not only did John come up with a unique theme for an arcade cabinet, but he also went the extra mile literally "sculpting" custom pieces for his build.  

Be sure to visit his BYOAC thread to discuss further. 

Metroid Mother Brain Super Console
by John Keeler aka SodaPopinski
October 2007 

Introduction 

This past January I started coming up with ideas for a series of bar top machines and one of them was Metroid inspired. Indeed, Metroid never had its own dedicated cab but I thought it might be neat to make a cab for it... in this case a bartop and perhaps a one that may have been created in 1987? However, the idea of a vintage looking design shattered when I saw a "bubble light" made by Mutant Mods. The red style reminded me very much of the barriers in the Mother Brain stage of the original Metroid. From there I thought "Wouldn't it be kinda neat to somehow make a Mother Brain and place it inside a bartop?" Like maybe hovering inside some gelatinous goo or facsimile thereof. After much thought I browsed around and saw a few clay modeling sites and read up on Super Sculpey clay.

I decided to create the Mother Brain from this polymer clay. Two of them, one for each side and visible by plexiglass windows. I figured the Brain should be kinda powerful, she should remember everything!! So I hooked her up to an Athlon 64x2 4800, 2GB of Ram, EVGA 7800GTX KO edition card, Biostar Tforce 550 motherboard, Soundblaster eXtremeMusic and Logitech R-20 w/subwoofer for sound. I scored some good deals on some components... I took a chance because I bought them over many months hehe but good thing they all work! I got the cpu on a price mistake for $52, ram for $53 no rebate on a Memorial Day sale and $99 EVGA (refurbished) card on an anniversary sale.

Additionally, I hooked her up with 2 NES, 2 SNES and 2 Adaptoid adapters built in to the front of the cp for easy retro controller support.

• Plywood construction, MDF cp front, adjustable arcade casters w/ rubber feet
• 3 Yate Loon fans, 2 external top and back, one on the Scythe Ninja heatsink
• AMD Athlon 64x2 4800, 2gb ram, EVGA 7800GTX, Tforce550 MB, Soundblaster eXtremeMusic, Logitech R-20's
• Ultimarc MiniPac encoder
• Ultimarc Ultrastik 360 w/ Seimitsu bubble top
• Happ 2 1/4" Trackball
• Wico leaf buttons w/ o-ring mod and Knieval's leaf lighting mod
• One Ultralux button with Mamemarquees Ultimate Marquee material insert
• Happs Coin Reject button - plunger hits a Sanwa button for 1 player coin and has Mamemarquees Ult. material insert as well
• RetroUSB NES/SNES and Adaptoid adapters attached to cp front plus USB ports on front and back
• DVI-out on the back plus Optical-out for external screen/home theater
• Bits Limited Smartstrip
• 3 cold cathodes, one 15" white for the marquee, 2 non-uv "purple" Ultra cathodes above the Mother Brain
• 2 Mutant Mods bubble lights hooked up to the purple cathodes (all can be set to sound activation)
• Printing by Mamemarquees - Marquee, Bezel, CP and Side Art
• Character art by various DeviantArtists, I gave them credit in the video, but I don't know who made the Samus art... I did the rest of the art, I took pieces from in-game Metroid screens and modified them.

Video

Here's the video I made for it, it's about 15MB and runs just over a minute and a half. I originally thought "wow this came out awesome!" and then saw the file size was 959MB lol, so I got it down pretty good. It looks better when you hit the little screen on the left to minimize it.

The Build

I have a few build pics at various stages. Here's how I made the holes for the adapters, basically I just traced them with a pencil against the MDF and then I used a scroll saw with a thin blade to cut them out just a hair smaller than they should be. Then I just filed and filed until each of the adapters would fit. They fit in so tight this way that I don't have to use anything to secure them. I actually broke one of the NES adapters, well just the backside of its plastic casing trying to get it out when I was testing the fit. The Adaptoid holes required a little routing on the back side as well in order for them to jut out a bit.

The front USB port is the only thing that didn't fit too well so I braced it with a large L bracket and some velcro in the back. Below is under the cp lol, what a mess! I have a powered USB port handling all the adapters. I placed some electrical tape over some of the metal areas under the cp, just in case, so they don't interfere with any buttons or wiring. I mounted a Sanwa button on a small piece of wood in the right corner and screwed it down. I also had to route some small areas out of the top edge of the cp front for the trackball plate to fit hehe it barely made it! I was just placing the bezel to see how it fit at this point I attached it to a piece of black foamboard then cut out the inside monitor area.

Cutting the holes in the CP material was tough, the adapter holes had rough edges... so after I cut them I masked the areas around the adapters with black vinyl, carefully cut to the shapes of the adapters with Parts Express Dayton sub material.

All the black areas of the cab are parts express vinyl. Here's a view from the back, I didn't install the t molding yet here. The back fan has a long enough wire on it that the back panel opens without any problems. I left the screws alone, thought about black screws or coloring them but I like the look of them. The bottom left is the Logitech's speaker pod, I hacksawed its plastic case in half and screwed it right into the 1/4" plywood. I used 1/4" plywood for the back and top in hopes of making it lighter but the brains really take their toll on the weight lol. I drilled two holes for the volume control and headphone input. Next to that is a 2 port USB and DVI panel from DataPro. The USB ports are overkill but were already on that panel. Next to this is an LG DVD drive - masked with a Nintendo logo from some leftover space on the Mamemarquees CP order

Next to the DVD drive is a small hole where the optical out is screwed in behind the plywood. The Creative adapter that connects from the audio card was a weird shape and I took it apart to place a couple small screws through barren areas of plastic inside it to mount it. Finally the pc power button is wired up to a Happs purple pushbutton. I wanted to place a lock on the back here about an inch or so under the fan, trouble is the Video card's DVI cable is blocking that area, it's a tight fit! I don't want to have it offset... so I just secure the back panel with a little strip of velcro -each stapled to the wood to ensure it stays put. I can open the panel with a finger in the fan hole. The hinges are concealed Euro style I bought on eBay, howeever the 1/4" plywood was too thin to conceal the screws hehe, I attached them to the panel with small machine screws and washers to sturdy it up. I also covered the strips of white on the side with parts express material later on. Both the back panel and front cp are screwed/l bracketed on... I could change them in the future this way. 

Sculpting the Mother Brain

I haven't made anything with clay since my play-doh days in the early 80's so making the Mother Brain out of Super Sculpey clay was unexplored territory. I read up about modeling on some internet sites though and gave it a shot. I started with a picture of the MB blown up and aluminum foil for an "armature." I made the aluminum foil in the basic shape of the brain and with latex gloves I rolled out the polymer clay in sheets of about 3/8" and folded them around the armature. I then made the "spines" or bones seperate and baked them in the oven at 275 degrees on a small tinfoil tray. I took the cooled spines and molded them onto the body.

After that I baked the entire brains at 275 for about a half hour since they were thick in places. I made holes for her wires and a bowl shaped area on the side that fits silver painted coaxial cables perfectly hehe.

I painted the brains with "perlacryl' pearlescent paints, red and purple. I painted the spines with white acrylic and gave them some tartar stains hehe. Finally I painted this triple thick acrylic gloss over the skin areas only. The contrast is cool since the spines look and feel like bone material, while the skin is wet and disgusting looking.

The brains are attached to little square plywood enclosures (non-velcro areas covered with black foamboard) with velcro. The velcro is enough to hold them, but I went a step further and added dowels inside the silver and purple cable cover "tubes" under them. The dowels hold up a small piece of wood hidden under the brains attached with velcro as well. The aluminum wires (painted white) coming out of the brain go deep into the aluminum foil armature and also serve to secure them in place even better.

The sides are 3/4" plywood painted twice with kilz 2 primer and left to dry for 2 weeks. The side art went on very smoothly however the camera flashes bring out some bubbles I hadn't noticed! The sides look great under normal viewing conditions though. Here is a pic of a side piece I scrapped (I decided to make it bigger, boy am I glad I did) The windows in the sides were cut with a scroll saw then routed down to about 1/4" on the edges where a plexiglass window was inserted and secured by clear drying silicone.
 

The plywood enclosures that hold the brains and display them on each side have one side, the back side open and I closed this off with black foamboard stapled down. I can always get into the enclosures this way if I have to. I also cut holes in the foamboard to accommodate the purple cathodes attached above the brains with velcro.

Putting It All Together

Here's an early picture of the monitor installed. I attached the monitor to a 1x6 with the mounting screws on the back of the lcd and then used L braces to position it just so. You can see the plywood enclosures with the Mother brains in them in the back, I really think the space they took up made the build about 50% more difficult! Below is just a picture of the guts before they were installed to serve the evil purposes of the space pirates.

The Scythe Ninja heatsink is a monster but what I like about it especially is that you can position the 120mm fan on any side of it. The motherboard is secured to an mdf board with pcb feet. The board is screwed into the left Mother Brain enclosure and the pc sits vertically. The Scythe fan sits above the graphics card and shoots upward through the heatsink at the subwoofer/top fan. The back fan shoots air out just above the back of the graphics card. The subwoofer floats above everything secured with a bevy of twist ties lol. A small wooden arm from the other Brain enclosure with a pcb foot on it holds the graphics card in place better. Lots of wires for USB, Cathodes, Fans and Speakers going here and there lol. But everything works just fine, even after extended hours of usage. The Bits Smartstrip sits on top of the left brain enclosure. The sound of the three fans isn't that bad, I've found Yate Loon fans aren't too shabby considering they are fairly quiet and often priced low. 

Here's a look at the Ultralux button for Player 1 Start. I can't get a good shot of the insert when lit, you can see it better on the reflection in the bezel though. It is the "E" energy symbol in the Metroid game on some MameMarquees Ultimate Marquee material inserted in an Ultralux button. It works nicely and I also made a Nintendo style insert for the Happs coin return from this material. You can't see it in this picture but it says Insert Coin under the 25 cent symbol.

Here's a picture of some more button inserts for the Ultralux buttons I had these printed from the same material. These are for future projects. Although the Nintendo coin rejects are going on my homemade Punch-Out cab too. You can put just about any small graphic you want in the buttons this way. The inserts are illuminated extremely well in clear buttons with a 5v led, black stays black too and does not wash out, hard to capture them lit on camera though. Ultimate Marquee material is awesome, it's tough but cuts pretty easily as well with an exacto or scissors. 

 More High-Res Pics Available for Download Here (4mb zip)

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