[Groop] Xbox 360 Theme images

[Tone]

For those Xbox 360 Groopie Gamers,

	I was messing around with my digital camera and Xbox 360...
playing around with some Groo background theme images. I came up with
three Groo related images appropriately laid out to fit the 360's
menu-bars/side-panels, etc. I thought I would share them with the Groop
in case anyone wants to use them on their own Xbox 360. :)

Please note: I have a 720p HD TV, so the images I made are all at
1280x720 resolution, which is a widescreen 16:9 aspect ration. I figure
the images might get expanded without too much pixilation or distortion
for any of the higher resolution HD widescreen formats. However, I can
not guarantee how they will display on standard NTSC 4:3 aspect ratio
screens at 640x480 resolution.

---
http://www.moon-shine.net/groo/WhiteGrooMontage.jpg
	This is a white-background "montage" of several smaller Groo
images in various poses. It includes a fairly centralized larger
blue-ink image of Groo slashing a soldier, which I scanned off of my own
sketch card. A little Rufferto image, which is almost always visible
without any overlay from the 360 menus, walks at the bottom of the
screen looking up at the blue-ink carnage. A golden oval with Groo
standing within gets cut off most of the time by the right
side-scrolling menus on the Xbox 360. On the left side, the image of
Groo crawling out of a computer monitor also gets masked most of the
time by the side-scrolling menu-tabs. Two other small images of Groo
stand to the left of the blue-ink sketch and are usually visible in some
form or another behind the selections, but never hidden by the
side-panels.

http://www.moon-shine.net/groo/GrooFriendsGoodBye.jpg
	This is an image of Groo and most of the predominant Groo
characters walking away with Groo waving good-bye. I forget where this
image originates from, possibly one of the later Marvel comics. It has
an all white background. The Sage's dog, Mulch, tends to get cut off by
the left side-scrolling tabs while the tip of Chakaal's sword and some
of Sergio's signature gets cut off by the right side-scrolling tabs.

http://www.moon-shine.net/groo/GrooGamingSanta.jpg
	This is the predominantly dark blue image from the Xmas card
Sergio drew for the video game company, Stray Bullet, where Sergio's
Nephew worked at. It was inked by Sergio, but colored by his nephew
before being used by the company as Xmas cards. I ABSOLUTELY wish I had
one of these cards in my own collection, but as far as I know only Gary
has one.
	The image on the card is of a family sneaking down the stairs at
sunrise on Christmas morning to find Santa sitting on the floor of their
living room playing a "what-I-wish-could-be-real" Groo video game. I
digitally expanded this image with matching smooth flowing blue
background colors on either side so it would not get distorted in the
wide screen format and to make sure the central image would not get cut
off by the Xbox 360's side-scrolling menus.
---

	The Santa image is the one I love the most and is naturally the
one I use on my own Xbox 360. I highly recommend Groo fans choosing the
"Tangerine" dashboard/menu color choice along with whatever of these
Groo image you might like to use. The "Tangerine" offers a nice vivid
orange color, which is obviously appropriate for Groo in that it matches
his tunic. However, within the tangerine pattern there seem to be little
squares/diamonds, which also seem reminiscent of cheese chunks to me. I
find the blue Santa image goes especially well with the tangerine menu
choice because of the blue-orange contrasting colors.
	I would REALLY love it if I could figure out how to set up an
Xbox 360 theme, which uses four separate images. The way things seem to
be set up for end users now is they can only apply a single image to all
of the backgrounds of the side-scrolling menus. However, when
downloading and using "professionally" produced Xbox 360 themes many of
them clearly have multiple images where a different image will appear
for each of the backgrounds of the four side-scrolling menu sections.
	Does anyone know how to set up a four-image theme? If I new how,
I would definitely create one or more extra Groo-related images to have
a full-featured Groo theme. In the same respect, is there anyone out
there, who knows how to create and install their own gamer pics? I
really do not see the point in spending any money on purchasing silly
gamer-pics for Xbox Live. There are of course tons of free gamer pics
out there, but they are usually pretty cheesy and/or
commercial/promotion related. It would be super cool to generate and use
my own Groo Gamer Pics. As it is my Xbox Live profile (Tone 8) has the
motto, "The Power of Cheese!" :)

Take care everyone,
_TONE_