Haha yup. I've done this before myself with The Shadow. Half the time I see nothing in the notes area, and then get a PM from a nice Pinsider sheepishly admitting they forgot a minute later.

I keep everything organized in Excel by Pinside name, makes it easy to track people and PM if there's a problem or anything.

Just let me know! We're already gonna be good for the minimum order, so this is happening, but I'm going to leave the first run open until the order pace slows down, I hate having to tell someone "too late, should have PM'd me a few hours ago". But at some point obviously I need to just shut it down and put the order in, don't want to leave everyone hanging for too long. That's why I don't collect money until it ships to me, don't like holding people's cash longer than necessary.

Just ran the test print of translite over to a friend's house since I don't have any Sterns right now. He doesn't have AC/DC, so stuck it on his WPT. Not exactly the same, but gives you an idea of what it looks like on a machine at least for now. Just a camera phone shot, so not exactly what it looks like it person, the phone sensor tends to make the florescent tube's uneven lighting exaggerated, so it's a little blown out in the middle, and a little dark at the top and bottom compared to real life.

This is an older version of the design, so don't pay too much attention to anything that seems different (like the missing fishnet sleeves for an obvious example) but the colors and design are virtually the same, close enough for this kind of testing.

wpt-test.jpg

Honestly I'm a little leery of using AC/DC's logo, so this was a way to do the design with a compromise. That's all done with a font, never touched their logo, which is rendered a little different. It's a bit of a dodge, but it makes me more comfortable, and I think it's visually interesting.

I'm happy with the design as is, the scale and balance feels good to me in person, once I got the test print I was happy. After people start ordering something I basically don't want to mess with things overmuch anyways, this forum knows all about pre-ordering something and then having it change, and no one likes that.

A couple people told me they actually did that! I consider it the highest compliment someone could give me. Thanks!

Dude, she looks kinda devilish too!

You're welcome. It's all a trick to make you fall in love with Helen and buy my translite of course!

Seriously, since I rarely play AC/DC I can never remember the song/shot connections, so I figured a card that made it easy to look up would be a cool thing. For guests if not for yourself. I'd use it at your house!

My pleasure. I was gonna charge for doing custom ones just because it's a pain and I wanted to discourage too many people from asking me, but when I realized I could do it this way and give it away instead I was much happier. It's always nice to be appreciated though, so thanks!

I do make money off my translites, but they're a ton more work, not mention have a lot more actual costs associated with them. The apron cards are just fun, I'll keep doing them even for games I don't own. I just posted my JP cards recently for instance, I don't own that one either, did them for a friend.

Tell you what, I'll post something tomorrow. I need to go pack Shadow translites tonight, no time to get images ready. I don't want to build them up too much.

Anything is possible.

I think it's a great idea actually. This is where not having a machine really hampers me though, they're odd shapes, I'd really need to scan them to be able to duplicate.

Tell you what though, if you can put down a credit card over one of them (blank out the numbers of course) and take a picture from as directly overhead as you can manage, so they're dead on in the camera view, not from an angle, I could work with that. The credit card is for scale and to allow me to square up against any lens distortion.

Sure, that would work too. Credit card is just close by hand for most people, work just as well, it's a known size and squared off.

Shadow packed, calling it a night, thanks everyone for the great response today.

Done! Thanks for the extra effort, I'll try and figure out something to do with those since you went through all that trouble.

The response from people I leaked it to early like yourself was what made me feel good about starting this thread.

I've been getting some PMs asking about when people pay, and do they have to monitor this thread etc. Well if you are still reading this thread here's how it works:

I'll send out a mass PM to everyone when it's time, but I don't do that until after I've ordered the prints and my printer tells me they're about to ship to me. Then I collect the money while they're in transit and break down the package and send out to everyone.

So you'll get a message from me, no need to do anything, and I don't ask for money until the product exists.

I won't intentionally limit it, but I do have minimum print runs, so at some point there aren't enough people interested and something is "done". With The Shadow it looks like this 3rd run is possibly the last one. Who knows with this. Could be a do a few runs, could be this first one is it and done. So it's not an artificial LE model, but if you think you can just pick one up later you might be disappointed is all.

These are photographic translites, printed on a glossy stock, with a diffuser layer behind. They're more like the old Williams tranlites than the Stern ones, they're a heavier weight stock. That's one reason I ship them flat instead of rolled in a tube.

They light up really nice, not like some of the cheapo eBay ones that wash out when you stick a light behind them. Everyone who bought my Shadow translite was really happy with the way they looked, and this is the same material, so I would expect people to be pleased this time too. I stand by my product if there are any issues though.

To be honest that's not really my style, I like aprons cleaner and simpler, so not really something I'd do. If someone wants to develop an apron wrap that matches they totally have my blessing.

Okay, as I've told a few people I realized that I needed to weigh some things, my international shipping extra charge was based on my experience with the Shadow translite, but that package had a speaker panel in it. The good news is without the speaker panel it drops under 2 pounds, and that shaves a little off the shipping. So I've lowered it by $5, now it's $150. Best I can do, but hey, $5 less isn't nothing I guess.

Edited opening post to reflect the new cost too.

The only thing I'd say is when these translites aren't lit they're a little dark, they really need the backlight to pop. So if anyone actually wants to do that I would recommend a Swap Box or something else that is lit up.

You're the second person to say they're using this as phone wallpaper by the way, that's awesome, glad you like it.

Hmm, the decal stuff I'm messing with now is removable, it's like a Fathead, sticky but only mildly so, it seems to peel off a playfield with no problems at least. I honestly don't know how it would do over a sticker though.