Fdf's WIP & Finished Custom Accessories

Awesome again fdf. 1000% improved over just the factory version.

Hell yeah! I love that death ball! Nice work!

I think since you're making all of these by hand with the intention to sell that you're putting in a lot of effort for a low return on time investment compared to another option available to you. I don't know your process, but I imagine you're basically knife sculpting a semi-liquid material onto acrylic rods, which has got to take... gosh... I'm sure 0.75 to 4 hours each blast.

If you made one really perfect blast, why not invest in the time, materials, and equipment so you can produce a reusable silicone mold and cast clear resin copies? That way, with a lot of time spent on making molds, you could just pour clear resin, wait for about 20 of them to harden, and then paint them (or in the case of the special beam cannons, assemble the rings, then paint them). That would both improve the appearance of the final product (the clarity of the clear acrylic rod portion would match the blast/flame portions) and speed things up for you massively. Pop 20 blasts out of a mold and paint them, rather than sculpt them all by hand.

If I was doing what you're doing (don't worry, I have exactly 0% interest in making blasts for other people), and I wasn't just doing it for myself, that's probably how I'd do it. Because, well, think about it:

• you're not having to deal with articulation, so pretty much everything but the special beam cannon can all be molded and cast all at one time without complications
  
• you'd be able to offer the product at a similar quality (if not better since you'd be able to eliminate differences in clarity)
• you wouldn't have to work so hard on each one
• and most importantly, you'd be able to offer them at a much lower price, as I know that's the reason your sales aren't as high as they cool be. There's probably 30 people on here who collect Figuarts and I think you've only sold to two (?). People just aren't seeing them as being $16 + shipping value, they're seeing them as $5 to $8 + shipping value

I can tell, just from 12 years of customizing experience how much work must go into what you're doing, and how you're probably not even profiting off your time (heck, I never profit off of custom figure commissions, they usually end up being about $4/hr by the time I finish them), so I understand your price, but the overall market doesn't. Your reasoning for $16 is the same as the probably $800 I'd want to make another Burter similar to mine (freakin' ton of hours!!!), so I get it. If you start producing cast copies, and you're able to make 5 to 10 of nearly the same exact product for the time you spend (currently) making just one... and you are able to lower your price, you'll be selling out of these so fast that you won't be able to keep up!


I'd even buy a special beam cannon from you if it was like 8 bucks, and I don't even own any Figuarts! I'd probably have you make me a Sokidan too... and Kamehameha... and Kienzan... Dodompa... Death Ball... if they were just 5 bucks each.

fdf I seriously want one of each of your effects!!! The only suggestion I have is to consider the method that Bran mentioned. That way you could mass produce your products (easier for you), and it would be easier for fans like myself to afford them. I think your current pricing is agreeable because you hand make each effect, but for people like me that want all of them and don't really have a ton of spare cash, it's kinda pricey. I honestly think if you mass produced all of your current DBZ effects and put them all together in a set, you could make some serious money

Either way, I look forward to one day owning some of these effects!

I agree, that death ball is awesome. I hope he starts casting these so he can make more, cheaper, and at more profit. Hey fdf, have you experimented with doing ki auras yet? I'm sure those will look cool!

Unless he did them like the SS3 Goku figuarts ones, he'd probably just want to make it something that sets behind the figure...? Not sure.

I don't really think this is a solution:


Maybe some inspiration here:





I'm thinking something that would go behind the character, be taller than the character, and be kind of like a crazy crystal formation more like the show when they have the aura around them.

Orange Scolecite can look like an explosion of power

That's a great figure I was looking at getting him but ended up puting $ towards other things in life. U have to be very careful if ur going to get one as there r more fake ones out there than real ones and the fake ones r pretty well done even the boxes r faked and well done heck I even think they faked the sticker on some of them plus there not cheap for ko's either around $75-85 I think