That sounds like a very wise move, no point in trying to nail the details when you might have to rethink some basic approaches after real world testing.

Agreed, that's going to potentially be much more fruitful. Look at that Terminator T-Rex! You should wire up LEDs into the eyes.

Nice job. Love seeing your progress, with video no less, thanks for updating us as you go.

Looking awesome. I'm super curious how you're going to make it work for other people's machines though.

Oh I was still thinking you were trying to make a "skin" like you had talked about before. This sounds more like straight up replacement parts now? It's looking great, hope it all works out.

Comet is doing them, with a flame shaped bulb too, should be perfect for the JP gates.

Man, I tell people who are doing even that kind of mass producible mod to make sure they're charging properly for it, because just managing orders is a lot of work. You might be surprised how much time I spend on my translite stuff even though I don't have to hand print each one myself.

I love making pinball people happy, but you hit a point where it's a second job, you're constantly answering emails, updating spreadsheets, taping up boxes and packing them, going to the post office, etc etc. Not bitching! Just saying, you're dead on saying you've got to cover your time, charge what your time and effort is worth and let people decide if that's the right price for them or not.

Obviously the key point is your creative efforts, just saying, don't forget the 'grunt work' part counts too, on top of the actual hand production process you have to manage.

Take your time, it makes me feel better about how long this Star Trek translite has been taking me.

(Seriously, we do these things for fun, you can't feel pressured or rushed, gotta just go with the flow.)

Oh snap. Congrats man, that's a big milestone.

I've got a friend who does stop motion (he's a Pinsider even) and there's still work out there. But it's obviously not a super high demand field. I think the new Spongebob movie has stop motion in it that they did.

That's a really solid first pass man, this is looking incredible. You really stepped up and took this from to beginning to end with great consistency.

And honestly I wouldn't tone the pink down too much. You're right, it's pretty strong now, but once it's under glass, with the lights and everything around it you almost want a stage makeup style, make it a little bold to work from a distance and competing with so much.

Also, am I the only one thinking about a tongue decal for the metal armature inside?

Did you get your key to the executive washroom yet? Just make sure to take some dollar bills with you, we like to tip centerflank when he hands us a towel.

Eyes looks great, and the pink on the mouth is solid now too. Don't have a JP anymore, but I hope you sell these until you're sick of making them!

The only problem with this mod is it looks so good it's going to lead to wanting to upgrade other parts of the game just to keep up with the quality.

I remember when you first started this, I'll admit I was a little skeptical. So many projects start out with good intentions and then slowly get abandoned. You even walked away for a while yourself, and I thought maybe we'd never see the light of day on it.

Not only did you follow through, you knocked it out of the park. I love seeing original work that strives to put true creative effort into upgrading things that were done on commercial schedules, and never meant for the kind of scrutiny home collectors give to games.

I'm not a lawyer or an accountant, this isn't legal advice, blah blah. But I can tell you what I do.

I take money via Paypal, haven't had a single person try and screw me or anything. I've refunded a couple payments for various reasons (some were my fault) and that's painless. I've heard the nightmare stories, but my experience is the pinball collector community is full of solid people, haven't run into a bad egg yet.

I will say though that Paypal can be tricky, if they notice a sudden spike of money coming into your account they can lock it down, demand to know what you're selling, who your supplier is, proof that you're shipping it, etc. I had to deal with that. First person I talked to wasn't helpful, second one when I explained it was just hobby stuff on a forum totally got it and bypassed the BS, just asked for shipping numbers so they could see I was actually sending people what they paid for. Once I provided that my account was unlocked, no problems since. Something to keep in mind.

I report all my earnings to the IRS and pay taxes on them. I deduct all my expenses from that, the cost of printing, shipping, buying boxes and labels, supplies for prototyping etc.

Technically Paypal won't report anything to the IRS as long as you bring in under $20,000 a year, but I believe in keeping everything above board and legit. My books aren't necessarily organized, but I really do pay all my taxes, and I'd survive an audit (I hope I never have to test that!)

I'm already incorporated, so I just report the earnings as part of my corporate profit, my CPA handles all that. I don't know what your situation is, if you're filing under self employed income there's some crap you have to deal with, but it's not that hard, I did that for years before I got serious enough to incorporate. Not for pinball mods, my design company, just to be clear.

My real advice though? Charge as much as you need to. Don't worry about the price. If it's too much money for some people they can not buy it. I definitely don't look to gouge anyone on my projects, I feel like they're priced fairly for the market, but I factor everything into my price. Not just the cost of materials, and shipping, but all the time I have to spend managing orders, printing labels, folding boxes etc. It can seriously be a full time thing some days. And that's not factoring in the #1 cost: the time to develop things. I spend hours and hours getting the art right so I'm happy with it. And I know you feel me on that one! That time is precious, it's what makes the mod count.

I honestly don't think I've had a single person complain to me about my prices. But if they did I'd basically shrug. I wouldn't be a dick or anything, but if it's not worth it to you then don't buy it, these are just for fun. I'm not selling water in the middle of a desert.

I'm working on something new right now that's more ambitious than my previous projects. It will require multiple vendors and assembly and more prototyping and research than usual; if I end up offering it to people it will probably not be cheap. If people think it's too expensive I simply won't make it, I'll enjoy it on my personal machine (only hint I'm dropping!) and life will go on.

So figure out what you think you should charge. And then add 25% to that because you're probably being too conservative.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Notice my use of the very technical "blah blah", that's the sure sign.

I don't, and I'm honestly ignorant of that whole side of things. I guess if you're set up right that you can get a resale license, and then not pay sales tax on the materials you need to buy to sell? I dunno.

I'm used to running a business and paying taxes, but I'm not any kind of retail expert, my income is a service/consultant driven thing. This is just a hobby, it was never meant to be any kind of job or make serious money. I'm paying the IRS and that's about as far as my crazy advanced scheming goes.

Lies, that's obviously the new Crying T-Rex mod!

Can you tint the silicone before molding it?

For this level of custom work it's a solid price. I don't know what people were hoping for, or willing to pay, but you're doing it right, congrats on making it to the finish line, and with such a kick ass result too. Good luck!

I think we all know by now the way to keep people happy is to just communicate with them. It's amazing how much happier people are when you just tell them what's going on.

I would definitely use primer. That's the whole job of primer, to penetrate and bond with the subsurface and provide a stable base for the paint. What are you painting with? Acrylics? When I did my Sparky I used Brite Touch grey automotive primer, and acrylics over that. You could probably use a black primer even and then start your drybrushing and other layers over it, let it stay semi exposed in the recesses.

You said earlier something about some matte vs glossy divisions, are you sealing with a matte poly or anything? I would do that and then do any hand applied gloss coats over that.

IMO trying to go down in layer height like that just gives you basically the same thing, in more time. Hit it with a quality filler primer and call it a day at the standard .2mm.

I like Rustoleum, but any filler primer will do. It doesn't fill that much, it's not gonna wash out details, or magically fix all the layer lines, but I think your model's surface already hides a lot of that.

But really, do a few test prints with different layer heights and see for yourself. I think there's a point where you're just raising your print time without getting any appreciable benefit. No need to print the whole model, just isolate a little section to test so you don't have to wait days.