I think instead of character themed patches like in the picture, I would rather have military sized patches that are similar to the pins.

I would love something like this so I can be tacticool.

No Lucchini patch?

>>4320
What that guy said.

>>4320
>>4321
>>4325
What they said
Also, national flag patches in colors and subdued will be great
And maybe even LNAF patch

>>4321
These are what I was talking about.

I ordered the other patches for Lucchini and Hartmann recently so they should arrive at my house soon. Here's my jacket already.

Don't have a picture of the back.

this is what I was talking about. These were the official patches that cost ￥4000 a piece.

Ideal: Patches that come with velcro, logos of the squadron and personal logos from the S2 ED

>>4331
Velcro would be fine, I guess. I'd like to have permanent attachments to my tactigear, but beggars can't be choosers.

>>4327
Dat is some awesome swag you got there.

>>4331
>>4332
You can velcro patches yourself easily
Just but industrial valcro roll and stick it in the back of the patch
considering that, I'd like non-velcro patches if possible so I can sew them onto non-velcro clothing like WWII stuff.
But that's just me being picky.

>>4334
I'd like non-velcro as well.

So I've decided that once I break even on the pins, I'll be thinking about doing the patches on the premise of no one else starting them. However, I'm not sure I'll be able to do so without a job. If I don't get a job in the next month, I'll scrap my own idea, but if someone wants to start at least getting vectors and designs put together, it'd make it easier on someone else later-on.

>>4340
How are the pins going?

>>4324
From amazon.

>>4341
I just got a message from the pin-makers and they're starting the process of remaking the old and busted ones to get new hotness. Roughly 50 sets have already been sent out, but there's not many undamaged Liberion pins, so I'm unable to send out more until I get those remakes since so many people got a Liberion pin outside of their set.

>>4343
Undamaged? Did I miss something?

>>4330
I might be able to fish out more money for some awesome patches... And shit, I didn't realise that Liberon had a big blotch on it till a few days ago ;-;

>>4351
Your Liberion has a bloch on it? Did you try rubbing it off with your hands? That sometimes works for the issue, but I thought I'd looked over every one of the pins before sending them out. I apologize for sending you one of the faulty ones. I feel bad about that.

>>4345
You didn't really MISS anything, more like I kind of didn't publish anything big about it. There were quite a few pins that I received from the company that had blemishes of any sort. I tried to keep from sending those out and the pin-company is remaking the number that are damaged. I don't know if they are going to be requesting the damaged pins, but I haven't had to send them back. They're taking my word on it so if I get these new pins for free, I might throw out the old and busted for half-price. It's not much MAJOR damage, but more blotches of one color section being on the white or a bit of warping that catches the light and makes it look a little "off." I tried to make sure none of the bad pins got sent out, but I guess that didn't happen.

>>4330
>>4321
Glad to see there's still interest! I actually just got done making a few patches for Upotte, and with the movie coming out soon it seems a perfect time to start with a few Strike Witches squadron patches. I'm vectoring right now and it would be a huge help if someone could post a larger version of the patch on the far right in the third row and far left in the 4th row.

Now, I will be making some of these for certain, the question is which ones and at what price; both tie together.

The more designs I make the harder it'll be for each patch to sell enough units to meet the minimum selling point and the lower the minimum selling point the more expensive each patch will be. So, here are my questions: Would you really want all of these made and do you think I can sell 50 of each design minimum if I do make all of them? I can drop the price per patch by a dollar or so if I use 50 patches as my minimum instead of the more conservative 25. Personally I'm thinking I should have you all choose six designs or so and shoot for a 50 patch minimum. What do you all think?

>>4377
Oh, and backing. Looking through the thread I'm not seeing much of a concensus; I can do either
a)no backing
b)iron on
c)velcro

I have a few velcro patches and I lke the idea of being able to swap things out easily but iron on does have its appeal as well. No backing has been a pain in my experience, but if that's your thing it can be done. The trick is that each design has to have the same backing, no special ordering some with a different kind.

>>4378
Hey Patch-Kun, glad you found the thread.
My own jacket has no velcro and Iron-on is crap. If it ends up being velcro as consensus, I'll still buy them and figure out what to do on my own side, but I'd say for now I'm on the fence for that matter.
Depending on the cost, I might throw down for 2-3 sets of patches, but definitely two because I know how much work goes into commissioning physical objects like my pins.

As far as which patches, I'd prefer all of the main JFW groups, 501-508th and the Night Witches patch. I never harbored too much love for the Africa witches, but I'll pay for those as well depending on the group.

Once again, I'd like to thank you for putting your hat in the ring for this project as well.]
Here's a thread that's alive right now for you to put your info on. I'm sure people on /a/ will love to join:
http://boards.4chan.org/a/res/71801501

>>4377
>>4378
Niice
I'd personally be getting two full sets of whatever patches you'd make, plus extra set for my friend, if this project works out.
Also, it'd be nice if you could also make LNAF patch and reverse Liberion flag patch.
I vote for no backing because >>4334

>>4379
I'm actually thinking that if we do end up with velcro I might be able to set things up so the border hangs over so you can still sew them on. Just cover the velcro so it doesn't damage anything and you're set.

I also just found a vectorable image for for the night witches, just one more picture I need now.

I think I'll avoid /a/ until I have my ducks more in a row, so to speak; there will be questions if anything I say is important enough to draw attention away from the image dump, and I may not be able to answer all of them right now.

>>4381
>The image dump
At least we're being honest.

So in general as I went through companies to do the pins, I had a series of things I had to ask them before even talking about cost, and that was the "quality."
I started off with whether they could replicate the pins exactly to detail, use the glitter, and what the backs and materials were.
For this, I'd probably say that we would need to contact a lot of companies to see how close to the vectors they can get. They'll say "we can duplicate them," but that needs to be taken with a grain of salt because they want the business. I'd ask if you can see "the most detailed patch they've ever done that [they] can disclose" after telling them that you've got a possibility of 50x(6to9) patches that need to be perfectly made. Pins aren't as detailed as something like this, so a question of detail is the most important.
That should answer your inquiry about whether the company is going to be able to pull something off like the Night Witches patch once we get that vectored.

What do you think?

>>4383
I think you've got a good idea. The trick is that the best they've ever done isn't necessarily what I'll get; every company posts galleries of their best work for display without anyone asking and they all look spectacular. You can't really get a good idea of their average quality when you only look at the best.

The last company I worked with was crazy busy so they made sloppy mistakes, I'll definitely ask about current work load. I'll also want to know about their turnaround time for samples and, if possible, how many new hires they've picked up. It'd also be great if I could get myself a free sample of one of the most complicated patches before I dedicate myself but that seems unlikely. I'll ask anyway.

>>4384
All great things. I've actually worked out things with the pin company and the minor mistakes on each pin are being made up by the company at their cost. They aren't even having me send in the slightly damaged pins, so they're going to sit in my room and be poster-board pins for most of their 50+ year lifespan.
If you can inquire about "returns" on faulty patches that aren't perfect, you'll probably also have the impact of "I don't want bullshit, give it to me good the first time."

>>4384
I'd like to say once again that I'm proud of /a/'s endeavors to be the best around and not let anybody keep us down. I think this makes 4 or 5 /a/ projects that will have come about in the year of 2012. Korbo's mugs, the Upotte! patches, my pins, another project I forgot about, and then this.

>>4386
Were those Accelerator shirts this year? There's also all of /ak/ which is amazing.

>>4387
Group projects in general are fucking awesome as of recently. This is 2 patch projects, but who cares, it's all good shit. I'm getting my mugs tomorrow in person from Korbo.

>>4387
Hey Patch-Kun, you should join our Vent. We're looking for regulars to join and you're a pretty cool dude.

I'm looking forward to how this patch project is coming along. You'll have at least 2 sets sold thanks to me. One for me and the other for a friend.

Maybe a third. I'm not sure. I'll worry about prices later.

I gotta get my hands on some of these patches. I be glade to help with anything.

I vectored the night witches patch if anyone is interested and if you want anything changed on it just let me know.

>>4389
Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass. I couldn't get Vent working last time I tried and I'm not really in the mood right now.

>>4390
Absolute best case you're going to end up with Nine or so patches at $5-7 each if you live in the US. That's $45-63 per set. I doubt anyone's going to buy three full sets; two is pushing it.

>>4393
The patches from K-supply was 2,400yen each, and that's even not counting the movie ticket price.
Yet a lot of people bought full sets of 10 patches for 240,000yen (400,000 if you include the ticket price)
Never underestimate the money sucking power of the franchise

>>4393
$5-7 EACH?
Holy crap that's a lot. That's 3x the cost of my pins dog. Hope you can find the cheapest without sacrificing professionalism here. I thought we'd end up with $4 a piece max, but $5-7? How big were we going to make these?

>>4395
The Upotte patches I sold last time around were $7 each shipped, yeah. That's the highest price, lowest reasonable unit (25) THESE FUCKERS ABSOLUTELY MUST GET MADE price though. The figure I threw out for these SW patches was the sandbagging don't-feel-like-looking-at-prices price.

Now actually looking at prices if we assume I aim to sell 50 units of a 3" patch with velcro backing the price would be $4 per patch. Ish. The price drops if I assume we use iron-on backing or I sell more but the choice of backing is up to you guys. As for the number of units I plan to push I can tweak that, but with a Kickstarter if I don't meet or nearly meet that goal for each design the design won't get printed; at some point I need to find a balance between low price and low unit requirements.

I'm the guy who mooted the idea of having Velcro mainly because my vest has velcro areas. If everybody is vehement I will just DIY it on.

>>4402
Velcro costs about 25 cents more than iron-on which costs about five cents more than nothing. It's not an issue of price at least, only preference. I like velcro as well but we'll see how the final vote turns out.

>>4393
Well shit. I'm hoping they won't be made anytime soon because i won't be able to spare that much I don't think. Patches are nice, but I'd much rather have enough dosh for the film, and various other SW figs coming out this and next month.

Sorry mate... ;_;

>>4405
I'm personally for no velcro. Without velcro, even though it might end up more work, I like the idea that if I really "want" velcro afterwords, I can apply it myself later. If the cost ends up not being too high, I'll order 2 sets.

>>4406
Hang with me here, these prices are far from final. You've gotta keep in mind that right now I'm using price estimates from a company I know I WON'T be buying patches from because their estimates are quick and easy and they have an incredibly simple system.

At this point a lot is in the air.
If Mikan sold 200 pins should I up my expected unit number?
Is 3" going to be big enough for these patches? (pic related)
How am I even going to bundle the things? etc.

Just don't give up hope yet.

Oh, and where did you do your advertising, Mikan?

>>4410
Where did I do my advertising? I went to /a/ and posted in buyfag threads, Witch threads, and just kind of pissed around for a while in general hoping someone would smell it. Someone found it here on /Helma/ and brought it here, so I saw that in my statistics page and came here.

I've actually sold about 500 so far. I've kind of lost my real stock numbers because of all of the on-the-side stuff I've been doing as far as people I know in real life.
500 translates to roughly 60 sets sold and I'm thinking even more people will order the pins now that there's more for me to advertise about. That includes a lot of petty-sales though because I made it very vocal that I want to get rid of them and get my money back. I didn't do any kind of kick-start. I just dropped $1450 and HOPED people would buy them after the positive reactions I got in threads back in March.

>>4410
On another note Patch-Kun, could you supply me with the high-res vectors so I can work on these wallpapers? Ive already got a few requests as far as JFW walls.

>>4412
Well I won't be dropping $1400 on anything, there WILL be a Kickstarter, but those numbers are reassuring. I guess I can do a little advertising on MAL and a cosplay site or two, raise my minimum unit count to 100 and sell the patches for 3-4 bucks. Complete set prices won't be too bad with individual prices like that.

I'll post the vectors as I finish them, I need to hop on that so I can get quotes going anyway.

http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=30285121

MAKE IT HAPPEN

>>4430
You could probably do that yourself. They provided a fairly large image and screen printing isn't hard or expensive to have done.

>>4430
Speaking of, what other designs or pictures would be awesome for tshirts? I'd seriously consider using cafe press or something to make one. For reals.

Hey Patch-Kun, I got banned from 4chan for "replying to shitposting" and that's for 2 days. Can you post the vectors here?

>>4438
>banned from 4chan for "replying to shitposting" and that's for 2 days

..Seriously? Well at least that will never happen here.

>>4438
No problem.

Also, all of these are working versions of what I intend to use for patch production, so if you see any errors please tell me about them.

I haven't updated the Night Withes patch, I'm not quite done with the 504th and I haven't started the 506th yet, so that's all for now.

>>4440
502nd and 503rd need a little more work besides that all of them are perfect.

>>4448
There's three out of five issues addressed.

As for the short talon, I'm going to leave that as-is. At the length of the other talons you'd barely be able to see it, if at all, pass the lightning bolt's outline and there's a decent chance something like that would get messed up when these are stitched.

And the extra talon... the official patches can't into bird anatomy. There should realistically and anatomically be three talons there so I left it that way for now. Do you you really want that third one snipped out?

I also sharpened the left wing tips a bit while I was at it.

>>4449
Are we good with this?

>>4450
From the pictures I've been looking at I see 2 talons in the front one in the back but if you want to leave them that way go ahead. Just sharpen them up a bit.

>>4451

>>4451
That looks good as it is. The lines are kind of... disturbing to the image.

>>4452
What was wrong with the vector I used for this? Why don't you just go with this one? I think it looks better. Especially when you put that huge bulge on the back talon on it's left leg. What are you doin' man? All these awkward bulges that aren't in the original.

I'll wait until I see the 2 talons without the bulge, but until then, I like this one better.

>>4455
However, for consideration of the patch sizes, I think that's why they only had 2 in the first place. Try making the legs less bulgy to compensate, but the way the feet are now, I can see that the talons won't be good as they are now.

Keep up the good work though. The 503rd looks fine. It's simplicity is compensated by the intense lines on the mountain and the bright colors. There's no need to draw more attention to the broom-blob.

>>4456
>for consideration of the patch sizes, I think that's why they only had 2 in the first place
Probably, but considering the stupid amounts of detail they put into the 501st's brooms that doesn't make much sense. I'll keep playing with the talons and make the call myself.

>>4453
You're killing me! I'll try stroking two lines in that area, but I'm placing them a bit farther apart.

Reporting back.

The patches looks awesome!

>>4463
>>4464
Very Nice!

>>4464
I just wanna say that if we have the Afrika patch, I'm not sure I'll end up buying that one. I've never really been a huge fan of the Afrika witches, so paying an extra $8 for something I'm not interested in isn't really something I'd want to do. The only reason I like the Night Witches one as a 9th patch is because I like the way it looks.

>>4484
I said not to take those numbers as final, remember? It's looking like they'll be between $3 and $4 each unless I find some hidden Kickstarter fees. The problem now is that getting nine patches made at once is already going to be a ton of work and make me more likely to slip up. It'd also raise the price of a set more, but at the price I'm shooting for that shouldn't be too big a deal.

And with the 506th I'm done. All that's left to do is work out how I'll do things on Kickstarter and see if I can't weasel an early sample out of a salesman. I'm also pretty confident I can sell the patches for $3 a pop, so $27 per set. A much more agreeable number, no?

>>4488
Much.

>>4488
Uh... Where's the Ardor Witches?

>>4493
Nevermind. It was already done on the wiki.

>>4494
It was, but I also forgot to finish my copy. There are just a few details left to complete so I filed it away as done in my head. I'll take care of it sometime this weekend.

And here we go.

>>4321

any chances for a OD green/tan recolor run? I would pick up standard color set anyways, I got one done for my backpack while deployed but the qual was pretty sub par, would love a high quality set like this next time.

I am awaiting the kickstarter project with trepidation. I'll definitely send some cash in.

>>4518
I hope a bunch of other people are too; for things to work out at that three dollar price point I've got to sell eighty-odd sets of these or around 750 patches. Yay.

I'll be sending out some more feelers later today to finalize the backing and edging type, then I can work on getting a sample and putting up the kickstarter.

I hate it! After looking up the patch prices and shipping on these it looks like I'd have to sell them at $5 each or a small break on the sets at $41 each if I set my minimum at fifty patches. That is entirely too much money.

I think I'm just gonna have to suck it up and pray I sell 100 of these. Looking at the support I've seen so far that number seems to be way too large though. Basically I've got three options here:

1. Set minimum to fifty and prices at $5/$41
2. Pray, set minimum to one hundred and prices at $3/$25
3. Decrease the number of patches I offer to decrease the price of a set

All of my options suck.

>>4582
Well honestly I wouldn't worry too much about selling them at a price like that. You also have the future growth due to the movie coming out and an increased chance of S3. If you can get the price down and go to 100, I'll, without fail, order 2 sets.

I do have one question though, what was the deal with the backing on the patches?

>>4640
I could just do a ton of advertising, I suppose.
>Backing
I'm going with Velcro. I think what I'll do though is offer the option to have it removed before the patches are sent out, that way if something goes wrong and the patch gets cut the damage is on me instead of you. All they do when they attach the Velcro is sew through the patch with clear thread, I've experimented with a few of my patches and it comes right off leaving you with a normal patch with no backing.

>>4646
Thanks Buddy. I hope you can get it through.
Let me know when you start the kick-start.

>>4646
thanks for the hard work man. I will ask my friends if they are interested.

>>4646
why not just ebay off leftovers at a increased markup? that way anything that you cant sell will be paid for by the ones that you made profit from? I'd pickup any leftovers because I'm pretty sure you could move tons of these at like $20+ a pop at a con or ebay, but your doing all the work to get these made so I wouldn't wanna be making money off your hard work.

>>4654
I'm doing this through Kickstarter, before I decide what to do with the leftovers I have to get the things made first, you know? The problem is to get the initial batch made at a reasonable price I HAVE to buy at least one hundred of each design and that's friggin' expensive, far more than I can put out by myself. I'd like to use something like your idea, but it's not viable with this many patchs in a set.

I don't really care who does what with their patches if the project succeeds so long as I get my set or three, but a fifteen+ dollar markup on something like this is highway robbery. You would make a great businessman.

>>4648
I submitted the project for approval early this morning, hopefully it'll be cleared by Wednesday or so. I've also got a job interview this Tuesday, and if that goes well I'll be able to soak up some more of the cost myself and lower the minimum backing to make the project more likely to succeed. Here's hoping.

Anyway, I'm going to be depending primarily on word of mouth a lot for advertising, so please tell whatever corners of the internet you post on about this once it goes live.

>Your project, Strike Witches patches, has been accepted!
Gentlemen, the time has come. I'm going to make a blogspot or something, finalize prices and upload images of my last work, take a look at this link and tell me if I need anything else. This thing is going live this time tomorrow at the latest, so get in here.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/patch-kun/305807745?token=ec9cbc04

I'm also confirmed for not poorfag in the near future,so I'll lower the project goal a bit.

>>4657
waiting in anticipation.

>>4657
Grats on the job. I'm still looking for one.

>>4657
Just checked the kickstarter page, and dude, you live in Sacramento?
That's where my hometown is. What are you doing this Saturday so I can rap- I mean meet the man behind the patches.