John,
I already do a similar thing here - backglass is scanned, knitted together and file repaired. This is then double printed in reverse onto clear and applied to glass. White diffuser applied over the top of this. Then backing stencil is applied and block out sprayed on. Then a protective coating of clear applied and score windows cut out by hand.
Results are very very good - but its a huge amount of work to make just one BG... if i include the time to prepare the files then the amount of work is massive.
To have files prepared for screening glass which im doing also in the hope that Australia will get SOME licencing to reproduce, then each component colour is vectorised by hand and files overlayed to ensure registratiopn is 100% - some of the glasses i am doing have 8 colours NOT including black... it takes hours and hours of tedious work to achieve this... its a HUGE undertaking with absolutely NO guarantee of being able to use them legally at the end. Were i to pay someone to do this work to the level required, then only titles like FLASH etc would get done as they guarantee good sales.... in other words.. this work aint cheap
Am i prepared to hand these files over?? Sorry - no.
And im NOT being rude here.. my main reason is that there would not be much benefit to Australian restorers/ owners... the reason im doing this and pushing hard for some licencing is because after initial purchase of backglass and then cost of shipping... backglasses are VERY expensive to buy with no guarantee of their safe arrival here.
In Australia we NEED an outlet for glasses manufactured here - my hope is to supply SCREENED glasses to Australian pinball owners for around $350 inc shipping, these are all handled by hand from door to door... at the moment we can pay up to AUS$800 inc shipping and take a huge risk on its safe arrival.
IF persons come to the table and allow licencing of sorts in Australia, then id be prepared to share certain files with you... but at the moment my focus is solely on providing for the Australian market which so often gets overlooked... i do however wish you all the luck in the world.. the end result is that it all benefits pinballers to some degree.. and if people like myself and certain others who also frequent this site dont sit down in front of computers night after night vectorising files, then we are going to lose some pinball artwork eventually.
One day we will turn around and realise that there are no more good examples of certain titles and no one ever bothered to make files of the artwork because we were all scared that certain persons were going to sue us. Well, i can legally recreate, but i cannot supply.... the obstacles will come down one day and the work of many of us will be there for all to benefit from.
Best of luck mate...
Retropin
