Alright, I've been holding off on giving an update on the Cobra Base. I'll say it like this, with the way things were, the expenses were going to push the price over $100 each. I wasn't happy with that and I've been trying to figure out a way to get the cost down. One vital part is what was causing the price to be higher. I was working with someone I know to get certain parts, and the price was just a little too high. So to solve that issue, I bought something so I can do it myself.

Within the next 3 weeks I should have something up to show some ideas of what type of stuff will be offered from the start. You all already know about the Cobra Base. I'm still hammering down a price so I'm not yet ready to name anything. It will be below $100 now for sure.

Something I've been asked about for quite some time too will now become a reality. I'm going to soon be offering stickers. Not repro stickers since that ground is covered, but custom stickers. I might even do requests. I'm not sure yet and that'll depend on the time I have. I'll probably even offer repro stickers on request too, but I haven't decided that yet either.

There will be more too coming sometime next year. For now it'll be all about the Cobra Base, another base that I can't name yet, and stickers. Next year I have a few items that I think everyone will like. I'll being doing some prototypes toward the end of the year and should be able to show that. One of the items has actually been attempted by one company but it didn't look good and was canceled. That's all I'll say for now on that, but I think people will like this idea.

Anyway I figured I'd make a post to update everyone. CabanaJack is still 100% involved in this but he's been even more busy than me, so he hasn't had a chance to post. I'm just pretty hyped cause I just made a really cool looking Cobra La poster earlier tonight and I wanted to make a post. I'll be showing some pictures of that poster too soon after I make a frame for it. Yeah that ties into all of this too in a way. Just keep an eye out for updates in this thread. I wanted to make a new one since the other one was more about talks on how to make all of this happen. This thread is more of the idea about what's to come and progress. Once CJack and I are ready to start offering up stuff I'll do a thread in the market place section.

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J, that's great news, and I can hardly wait to see what you have planned. Thanks for the update!

Nice to hear that you're making progress, even though the description of what was happening was a little confusing for my Fried-ay brain.

- R

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I will start saving now, even cutting my 25th budget a bit in the interest of a base

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cool! I was really impressed bu what I saw at the con.

Custom stickers would be GREAT!!!!

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I've been watching the progress of this since it was first announced. I'm very glad its near completion. I'm so looking forward to getting one as soon as they are available.

Hehe, yeah it's been a confusing road actually trying to get to the end. Tons of walls that keep going up everytime things are almost there. I just try and find the compromise when problems come up to make it work.

I just wanted to do a follow up post here to show something. I did this with a heavy card stock poster material. It's in the same quality you find when you by artist proofs. Very high quality and perfect reproduction. Of course it's a lot larger too than what was eventually put on the comic. I threw Umaga and Breaker in the photo so you get an idea of scale.



So yeah, custom stickers will be in as high of quality as well. I'm sure as all of these projects get off the ground, more stuff will be offered. I need to figure out how to make my website look like something worth looking at so I can just put stuff up there...

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I had the pleasure of going over Joes prototype at the JoeCon with a fine-toothed comb, and it is mind blowingly well done.

Everyone will be pleased with the final copy of it.

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I appreciate that. It does mean a lot to me for you to say that. Most of all since that one shown was the first one and I didn't have everything worked out on the build. The actual one now doesn't even have the "slots" since everything is being glued together. I've reworked the art and took away the "cut out" areas so it's solid art. One other thing that some people were worried about, I didn't add the "reproduction" to all the parts since there's no real point. It's plastic so it will not even be mistaken for the original at all. I still will have some minor differences but nothing that will make much of any difference.

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*Suppressing Excitement Over Base*

I'm thinking the Con Dio customizers can be your first custom sticker customers!

Cobra logos and "JC" logos galore!

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***************UPDATE***************


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STICKERS
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I got some premium stock material finally that looks really great for stickers. I did a single sheet to test and it does look really nice. I'll cut some out and apply them to various things over the weekend for photos.

I do have a plotter but I haven't tested the idea of cutting out the individual stickers. Chances are it's not going to work. My plotter is an older model. So for now all I can offer is uncut sheets. These will be 12" wide and the length will be anywhere from 9" to 12". It will depend on the images of the custom stickers. I'll be offering these stock designs for $8 a sheet. You'll be getting a LOT of stickers on a single sheet. I'll have examples soon for what will be offered.

For custom sheets that YOU have designed, I'll do them for $10 a sheet. Same size as above, so keep in mind an idea of 12" x 12" and pack in as many stickers as you'd like. Smaller prints, take $1 an inch off the price.

Stickers will be offered in matte finish or gloss! For now I'll stay away from the full repro sticker idea since there are many others already doing that. If I buy a new plotter and can start individually cutting each sticker out, then I might start offering those too.

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CAR STICKERS
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These stickers can be put on cars. Yeah they are fully able to hold up to weather and everyday situations. I'll soon be offering a few car logos. No price is set yet, but I'll be keeping them low. $5 and under.

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COBRA BASE
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Ok, this is the one everyone wants to know. I've been hammering the prices and trying to bring the price down as low as I can. The materials to make a high quality item such as this just isn't cheap. I can keep on sitting back and waiting, but I don't think costs will be going down. Plastic cost, ink costs, and other material costs are what's factoring in. I'm going to hand build these. They'll come fully assembled and I'm not including a "labor cost" at all. I never had any goal to do so anyway. Above everything it's the print cost that's the driving factor. A few months ago the only way I was going to be able to offer it is if it were $110 each. I actually had talked with people about that and they were actually fine with the cost. I wasn't though. I know I wouldn't pay that.

Ok, so now we're at the price that I'll have to go with. That cost is $70. I was able to cut a full $40 off the cost. Believe me, I will make sure each one is as high of quality as if it were made by a toy company directly. There's a few things in the works too that will make this even more attractive. I'll have to wait to say what that is exactly until I hear from someone. It's a surprise addition to this project however. It'll be made known before I start taking orders and any other details left out will also be made available.

Give me some feeback on what you think. To bring the cost down more, I'd have to say it could be more than a year or 2. It would be a matter of having to locate lower cost materials that just isn't currently there. That or settling on some crappy materials that will not give a high quality product and probably wouldn't hold up for a number of years.

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FUTURE PROJECTS
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If this all does well, there will be more offerings. I do have many things that will be made available. Many of these items will be of lower costs. Several high quality items. One such item is a battle bunker. Complete with sculpted sandbags and cust out to pose your favorite figures. Another bunker item will have the look of concrete. Then as CabanaJack has mentioned, Destro's castle will be made. That item is unknown what price range it will be.

Pretty much this venture is a "CabanaJack/J_man toy company" so to speak. We've both got a lot of ideas that we've gathered from the lists over the years. Many thoughts and ideas exist, but we will have to get up off the ground first.

Feedback on any of this is welcome!

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This was just something I thought of the other day... any chance that you will be exploring the venue of Joe-scale silk screening? You could EASILY do repros of Mindbender's cape (shifty) or Raptor's wings I would think (this coming from one who knows nothing of the medium), or even do custom capes and the like...

Just a thought. I'm working on getting set up to make my own capes for my Mindcrime customs anyway, but I know those two items especially are often hard to replace with good quality replacements because of their age and the fragility of the arm holes.

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Why are you hand building them? Is it any cheaper? It can't be that hard that you'd doubt people's abilities to put one together is it? It really just seems like it's way more work on your part than needed...and I'd think it'd cost more to ship built than as flat panels.

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Several reasons for hand building actually:

1) The cost wouldn't be any different due to material cost, so people will get more for their dollar if I donate my time hand building them.

2) These do not have tabs or inserts like the original so there is nothing to line up the parts to when building. Some people might have difficulty with it when putting it together if it was sent in parts.

3) Shipping cost isn't any different due to weight. So due to that, it may as well ship fully assembled.

The rocket will not be attached. It's put together with a screw so I'll leave that off because it could get damaged in shipping. The elevator will be attached, but loose. It'll be better for shipping for the screws to have some give. I'll recommend dropping supper glue on the nut when it's tightened. I've just found it's better done that way since nuts and bolts do have a tendancy to slip sometimes.

But yeah, I'm not charging for my time. If someone just wants to build it for whatever reason, I guess I can just send it in pieces. I don't know why someone would want that option, but it can be offered. I don't know, I'd hate to do that and still have to sell it at the same price.

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I can do that for you to help make your items the way you'd want them. I'll PM you.


EDIT: Well, I can't PM you due the board messing up the way it is. Shoot me an email and I'll email you back. J_Man_La at yahoo (I figured I'd type it that way so no bots will sign me up on a mailing list).

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