So...I'm doing something bad. As with what seems to be 90% of my artwork/sculpts/electronic projects, I'm setting something aside (in this case my red dreamcast expansion unit) for a bit.

This usually means I loose interest in the sat-aside project, but I'll defiantly be finishing it very soon.


Money I shouldn't be spending went out for two dreamcast shells, mainly due to me having a hard time actually locating these things. This is also money I should have probably saved, or at least, put into the wireless keyboard on my aforementioned red unit so I can finish the darn thing.

Here is a pic of them, just a mere start on their soon-to-be-epicness.

When I first saw the clear shells I always assumed that they were like the American color controller,s and had the official gray underside/cradle. I was surprised to actually find that they came with a clear bottom as well (just the controller port & buttons were the gray color). I've here taken the parts from my two extra sega sports systems and swapped out the plastics.



I've had the idea and want to do do this for a while, and decided to keep one with the black underside, since that was what I assumed it would always look like. I'm wanting to call this one the "Unreal Engine" and make it a complete Unreal Tournament tribute, with the dreamcast sticker logo being replaced with a custom "Unreal" + "U" logo once I can get my guy I usually rely on to find the time.

This one will also have a (highly) modified clear madkatz controller with an extra analog stick, built in 4x memory card, and I'm going to try and split the rumble from a pur pur pack into two separate motors (to give that duel-shock feel). I'm using the clear mad katz controller simply because I'm not willing to sacrifice a legit official all clear dreamcast controller.

Finally I'm wanting to give this guy little LED treatment with UV colored LED's (black-light like). I don't' want to give it far too many, more for a tasteful look. I'm going to try and keep them closer to the center of the inside, to give it an internally-glowing look. Hopefully the controller will have the same LED's.



The other will be my "Clearcast" (obviously with the clear undercarriage).

I'm going to give it an LED treatment too, but am going to see just how many RGB (slow color changing) led's I can stuff in the darn thing. It's going to be gaudy and horribly bright and cause headaches, just because it can!

I'm also going to make it a single-player system, with (hopefully) a built in wireless xbox logitech controller.

I was wanting to make a wired controller for this, but I wanted the RGB color rotation to be exactly the same for the entire unit + controller, which just doesnt work with the power from the controller ports. I could add an RGB led to the wireless controller, but it will never sync up right.

Also I was thinking of adding the flashing activity led from the wireless controllers receiver on the system, but again, it won't sync up, so it will have to be forgotten.


A very clever idea I have for the Clearcast, which I'm not sure if I can pull off or not, is to have the four controller ports on the front of the system replaced with four VMU screens. I've found how I can micromanage a VMU into the port directly, but I still need to figure out how to remove the screen from the vmu for relocating it (for a more attractive look), or at least how much of the VMU I can chop off for internal insertion.

The screen would have a nice back-lighting from the LED's in the system, and with four of them I could spell out SEGA on the front of the system :mrgreen:










edit; I should probably mention, this shell mod was a little rough. These clear shells are all non-sega / non-official, so the power / open buttons needed some work to fit, as well as the clear shell on the black undercarriage. The modem connection is especially tight and my official black modems just barely fit in there. I do now have two clear modems with no purpose, so I might give them away, or hold on to them and try some ridiculous mod (like that one computer connection mod).


Most people think my favorite color is red, due to most of what I have being red & black. Actually my favorite color is purple, and I've been searching for the purple clear shell for YEARS.

I'm aware of these unofficial clear shells; clear, yellow, green, redish-pink, purple, & smoke. I was interested in the redish-pink until I saw quality pictures of it...its mostly pink.

I also like the idea of getting the yellow one and filling it with white + green LED's, and putting a toxic waste logo on the lid. The yellow one is much more of a neon plastic, and I think that it would look great with that sort of look. It also appears to be, by far, the most expensive shell. Why I'm not sure, as all of these "replacement" unofficial shells were made in the same quantity.

...I would kill for the damn purple shell.

Official shells were only released with specific systems (like the very sexy dark blood red shell on the resident evil Clair edition, but this is just the top clear shell, the bottom of the system has a darker gray undercarriage).