McLaren MP4/5 laser etched artwork

[Kozy]

Fancied a bit of wall art for the man cave, so I drew up some blueprints for the McLaren MP4/5 from the sketches in a Tamiya model kit and had the artwork laser etched onto an anodised aluminium plate.

[Holm86]

Thats freaking beautiful!! I wan't it!!

[Kozy]

Thanks!

Going to hang it on the wall like this one I done of an E30 M3:

[astracrazy]

i want one too lol

you should look at selling them on ebay or something.

[Kozy]

Well, I was thinking about it.

I have been doing some market research, but the results aren't all that promising really. To do them at an affordable price I need my own laser equipment, which is a significant investment and I've not really had enough positive feedback to give me confidence in it.

I can most certainly create these for practically any vehicle, but it'll be very much on a one off basis (and rather expensive).

[hollus]

I can most certainly create these for practically any vehicle, but it'll be very much on a one off basis (and rather expensive).

Looks to me like you do have a business plan already! If they look as good in person as they do in your pics, some people would be willing to pay for one of their XYZ000 $ car, I am sure.

[FoxHound]

Very nice kozy.

Would be interesting to know what you would charge for something like this.
Give us all a figure

[Kozy]

Well, if I had a machine, a regular production vehicle but customised with things like registration/VIN numbers, custom tech spec, aftermarket visual changes like wheels, ride height, exhausts etc, would be around the £100 mark delivered with a hanging kit to mount it on the wall as I have done in the picture above.

If I don't have the machine, and continue outsourcing, then the cost increases to around the £150 mark.

For more custom requests, where I don't expect to be able to reuse the base model drawing, the cost goes up, but it depends on what exactly is wanted and how easy it is to do as to how much exactly.

Here's a piece I had done to show some of the customisation options:






If you are interested, you can have a look at my 'market research' project which is running right now and up until May 5th here. Basically if I get enough pre-orders, 'she's a go-er', if I don't then then it's not really worth me investing in the expensive manufacturing equipment I need to make them.

[Writinglife]

Beautiful piece of artwork, but considering that the plans are probably copyrighted, it might fall afoul of McLaren's or Tamiya's legal teams. Personally, I'd ask them what their stance is before spending any money.

[Kozy]

There are no issues with the drawing, but I have purposefully not used the McLaren logo on it for that reason.

[jayeshrc]

i really like what you've done there.. if you can try making a large quantity of drawings on a big hseet of aluminum it still should work out, cost wise i think? of course you need to orders to do so, but still..

even otherwise, it would be really nice to have as a desktop wallpaper if you are willing to upload an image of it head on

[Kozy]

i really like what you've done there.. if you can try making a large quantity of drawings on a big sheet of aluminum it still should work out, cost wise i think? of course you need to orders to do so, but still..

That's what I did for the first couple of runs, but the trouble is I need 6 on each one and even then it's still a bit costly. The cost to buyer and lead time in getting 6 ready when they're all made to order means it's not a viable way to produce them. That was actually the advice from the guys at the Ariel factory who had taken interest in selling Atom artwork as official merchandise after I gave them a prototype piece at the Autosport show in January.

The cost involved in outsourcing also leaves me wide open for other people to undercut me, which I've already seen a couple of people attempting/offering to do. Ideally to make it a viable business and reduce the opportunity for cheaper versions to usurp my work, I need to be able to do single pieces at base cost, so getting my own laser machine is high on the agenda!

I will be keeping the artwork on the metal format only for the time being however. Exclusivity and all that jazz.

[jayeshrc]

i really like what you've done there.. if you can try making a large quantity of drawings on a big sheet of aluminum it still should work out, cost wise i think? of course you need to orders to do so, but still..

That's what I did for the first couple of runs, but the trouble is I need 6 on each one and even then it's still a bit costly. The cost to buyer and lead time in getting 6 ready when they're all made to order means it's not a viable way to produce them. That was actually the advice from the guys at the Ariel factory who had taken interest in selling Atom artwork as official merchandise after I gave them a prototype piece at the Autosport show in January.

The cost involved in outsourcing also leaves me wide open for other people to undercut me, which I've already seen a couple of people attempting/offering to do. Ideally to make it a viable business and reduce the opportunity for cheaper versions to usurp my work, I need to be able to do single pieces at base cost, so getting my own laser machine is high on the agenda!

I will be keeping the artwork on the metal format only for the time being however. Exclusivity and all that jazz.

all that you said makes sense, but i want to clarify - youre saying doing single pieces at base cost is going to be a 100 pounds?

[Kozy]

That's the retail price, so inclusive of the materials, postage/packing, hanging kit and income tax on my labour.

[jayeshrc]

hmm, ok. i guess if youve figured it all out well then its all good.

just to get an idea - what is the thickness of that sheet? i'm guessing youve hung it on a nail, so i'm trying to understanf how you got the necessary mount on the back of the sheet