Dave Zucal posted:
Thanks Allen. I'm sure the manufactures would shy away from the legal hoops that they would have to jump through in order to do it. The movie company would probably expect royalties for each unit sold. I would love seeing this scheme on my layout, but the cost is very high to have a shell professionally done. Knowing my luck, they would appear on the market a few months after shelling out the cash to do it.
The price is not high , it is a very complex process to do correct . Laying out the art work for starters which would involve having the locomotive to measure and make paper layout of stripes to see how to correctly get them on in the right place and proportions ,size up the lettering of the side emblem , a trial and error process .To do that you would need a lot of photos and research to actually do the decals , I am sure that would take 2 or 3 minutes tops . Now lets get into prepping the body for painting , take the locomotive apart ,then reassemble it . What kills me is a lot of people on this forum think every thing is so easy . If your plumbing stops up in your house and you call a plumber , he says its 50-75 bucks an hour , you don't tell him his price is high when your bathtub is backed up full of sh-t , he has a skill just like a person who can layout computer graphics , has the talent to design the graphics and patience to paint something the needs to be completely disassembled and involves electrical connections when doing so and needs to go back together and function like it did before you started .And have it stand up to the critique of looking like the real thing from various people on this forum who could not color in a coloring book and stay inside the lines . Some how you disconnect on what someone skills set is worth . Why don't you just dive in and do it yourself and see how easy it is before claiming a price is high. I suppose you would go into the Ford dealer and say you want a new F150 and the sale guy says they are $42,500 and you say that is too high , you expect him to sell it to you for what you think you ought to pay .
