Tempest CPO

Well, I received my Tempest CPOs from Steve Gregory the other day and I have
to say I was disappointed.

The materials he used are great (I don't know about the glue as I didn't
apply it) and they were die-cut just like the original. All in all, very
high quality.

I knew in advance about the incorrect font (as mentioned here on the VL) and
although that bothered me a little I could live with it. The detail of all
the little blobs is lacking a bit, but if you havent been staring at the
blobs at 8,000% of their original size (like I did when redrawing each and
every one of them) you probably wouldn't notice or care.

The color match is ok, but a little off. The pink was a much brighter pink
than on my original Tempest.

The thing that really bothered me is that on my original CPO and an NOS one,
where the pink overlaps the blue a deep purple color is created. On his
repros you just get a slightly darker shade of pink. It's like on the
originals the two colors mixed when wet to created a third where on his it
looks like the colors were dry between coats and didn't mix at all.

This to me creates a very pink and detail-less image. Where a whole new 3rd
set of colored blobs appears on my original CPO you can barely make out the
overlap and instead just see a lot of pink.

This to me was unacceptable and I wondered how he (or FabFan) could have
allowed this to occur.

Today, however, I went to the Pennsauken auction (in NJ) and there were 2
Tempests there that *both* had original CPOs that were colored almost
exactly the same way as his repros. This caught me completely by surprise!

I looked for version numbers on each of these machine's CPOs and found none.
The CPOs I had been using for my models were Rev. B and Rev C. Each of these
had the merged/mixed color (purple).

So, does anyone out there have and original, non-rev'ed version and a later
rev'ed version CPO that can make the comparison?

I truly prefer the coloration and the increased detail of the later
versions, so I think I will in fact finish my reproduction. They will be
more expensive than Steve's and will not be die cut, but the colors and
details will be spot on. I plan to do this for myself, but if anyone is
interested I will post when I am about to go into production.

Interested in your thoughts/comments.
-roy-

p.s. - I finished the art for the Gravitar CPO and will take pre-orders
soon. All dedicated Major Havoc CPOs (that I've received payment for :) will
go out this week. Thanks all!
Received on Sat Nov 27 22:34:17 1999