[opinions please] should i make a window decal or just sand it?

[rajah sulayman]

so i have a design that i've been sitting on for quite some time now:

originally, i planned on cutting it out of my side panel. i did a test run on an old case panel i had, and while it didn't come out too bad

it didn't look as nice on the case itself

and it looked downright ugly with the lights out

now that i'm about to start work on my new box, i've decided instead to just put the design on my case window. that way, i'd have a better view of the case innards, and the design would look good against the case lighting.

the thing is, i'm not quite sure if i should make my own window decal (i believe there's a guide out there that i should be able to find if i google it) or if i should just sand the design.

to sand it, i'll just draw the design on the plexi's brown protective sticker, and peel off the "negative" parts (the same parts i cut out of the test run) then sand down the exposed parts with a fine grit paper.

thing is, i only have one plexi on-hand, so i basically have one shot at it and i'm not sure which will come out looking better. my gut tells me that sanding it down will look better if i do it right, but since i haven't seen many examples of plexi sanding, i only have my gut to go on.

what do you think will look better? a home-made decal or a sanded pattern? or is there a third alternative i haven't considered?

what say you, folks?

 

[StOCK]

if you don't care about seeing the innards you could:

cut out the side panel like you did
then put a fogged window behind it; like a white lightbulb instead of clear.
with the lights on i think it might look good.