That's cool, I've never seen my T1000 mod with lights in it before! Someone modded my mod! Lol! I dig it.

I'm staying out of this fire but I will say that every artist is a little different, throwing their own flair into the mix.

I've been asked to send blank mods to Modfather in the past simply because they wanted the paint job to match their other parts. No harm on my end, I'm still being paid for the mod mayerials and time and it's one less thing for me to paint lol

I'll say this... as one of the longest running mod-makers in the hobby (since 2008), I've seen my share of funny business. For example, there are a lot of different takes on my original T-1000 design out there these days..

Just listened to the Kaneda podcast.. what I don't get is, this is nothing new. As mentioned, I've been doing mods for 8-9 years now and I've been through many bumps in the road when it comes to licensing, right back to when Wayne Gillard was sending C+D's to everyone and their grandmothers (btw, I kinda caused the closure of the Balls of Steel website.. long story, ask me in person). At any rate, the hobby has been kinda fighting this for quite some time. Now, with the resurgence of pinball, Stern has started to see the potential revenue in Pinball mods.. and while it's frustrating as a mod maker, I really can't blame them. I think the best thing the mod community can do is try to work with these license holders to meet a compromise solution. I mean quite frankly, mod making is what I do for a living now -- it quite literally pays the bills, and so I'm sad to say that I really have no choice but to evolve with the times.

That said, I must also say that it's 110% unfair to make the Mezels the martyr in this situation. They just happen to be one of the fastest growing mod makers out there, and have caught a lot of attention so it's only natural that they're being forced to evolve sooner than most.

I hope that makes sense.. it's late, I'm tired and my newborn is keeping us up all night lol

- B

Fwiw, my pricing is generally based on cost of materials + cost of my time (which I charge $20 per hour for) + cost of shipping (which is always included in my prices because I hate getting shipping quotes). So for example, if a shooter rod takes me ~2hrs to make from start to finish, and costs me $15 to ship.. well you do the math

Now consider that pricing on hand-made goodness vs. someone who simply glues a $5 toy or belt buckle to the end of a rod and charges the same amount. Which would you rather own?

Well then, it would appear I'm doing things the hard way!