Time for my annual blog post!
I finally got around to giving the site a much needed update, though I still need to upload some new entries for the portfolio… not really as important as it was before, seeing as how I’m no longer a freelancer seeking work. A lot has happened since my last post but I’m not about to reminisce - that’d take forever and I don’t have that kinda time!
But, I figured I could put this blog to use and start posting up some production reports. So here we go!
Unfortunately, it turns out not too many printers outside of China want to do, or are even capable of doing, the sequential hot foil numbering for the books… and by not too many I actually mean none! Some of them, straight up, said it was impossible… Seriously!? It’s not like it’s a particularly difficult task! You take the cover parent sheets over to an automated hot foil press machine prior to binding, that’s it.
The Japanese printers I’m talking to are able to do a 4c (CMYK) sequential numbering job, but that doesn’t give the same impression of quality and exclusivity that the stamped foil does. So I figured, fuck it, I’ll do the foil stamping manually, in-house!
So today the hot foil press machine came in. I originally placed an order on Alibaba but then found another brand of the exact same machine being sold on Amazon for much cheaper and comes with the top line model, all the bells and whistles included. One of the flimsy mounting bracket guides snapped because the packaging was atrocious but luckily some Gorilla Glue fixed that up, no problem.
The press came with no instructions, but there wasn’t too much assembly required. I still have some loose components and I have no clue what the hell they’re for. But it works, and the stamping comes out even cleaner than the job PrintNinja was able to produce. Now I just gotta wait for the automated numbering head to be delivered - the dial number head that automatically marks up with each press.
For anyone interested, here’s the Amazon link to the press I bought.
I’ve also got some acrylic standees for BMKB in the works. I’ve already approved the proof and the factory is manufacturing an initial 100 count order. I opted for the double acrylic panel option, as I feel it’s the best bet in terms of quality and sturdiness. I won a couple Macross standees from an Ichiban Kuji a few years ago - they were double panel acrylic, and so I’m hoping mine turn out to be just as good.
Then there’s also the trading card box set. I’m taking the MC2019 A and B sets, combining them and adding a couple new cards to create a boxed set that I’ll be selling up on the shop. I’ll also be inserting the left over rainbow foil cards from the 1S campaign into the boxes randomly, so they ended up becoming a chase card after all!
That just about wraps it up for this progress report!