HeroGear’s Comments

I know it's been quite a while since my last blog, and their is lots of things I need to tell you about in detail, but for now I'm just doing the cliff notes version of events. I'll try to do some more detailed reports soon.

We'll go by months.

November: Sales started to pick up, and requests for Les Paul skinz started pouring in. I signed a contract for IT work with a business friend of mine to cover the costs of all the new equipment. After getting my first payment from him, I received several threatening emails from Eddie Van Halens "people" about my EVH designs, had to pull them from sale and hire a copyright attorney to find out where I stand. (separate blog on this later) I ordered my new printer for making Les Paul skinz, it will print up to 14x49 inches! Began work on patterns and the new T-shirt designs while waiting for my next check to order more equipment.

December: Sales are quite good, and lots of requests are coming in for the new stuff. Managed to get enough from my IT customer to order my larger laminator, but still can't finish the new patterns until I can get my new plotter. I have refined the T-shirt designs for all the guitar models, and will launch each one shortly after the introduction of each new skin model. Was approached by a band promoter about making skinz for the bands to sell at their concerts (more on this later)

January: I launched the Les Pauls the first week of January, even though I didn't have a plotter yet, as I was expecting another check from my IT customer. My IT customer fell through on his payments, decided he wanted to renegotiate the contract for only the amount he had payed so far...panic begins to set in. I borrowed enough money from mom to buy my new plotter, but the model I originally wanted was out of stock until late February! Purchased different plotter and had to learn how to use it. Finally finished the patterns for the Les Pauls and begin filling orders. (I am way behind)

February: I finally get orders caught up the first week, and begin preparing artwork for launching the new T-shirts. Have several new competition sponsorships lined up for the spring, things are beginning to look good. Orders are coming in fast enough that I keep finding myself running out of supplies, will have to work on my ordering. On valentines day a tragic event happened in our family. My brother-in-law committed suicide and left my sister and their six kids without a father. So I have been helping take care of all the kids, and playing soccer mom taking the kids where they need to go. I'm hoping everything will get back to normal (or as close as possible) soon.

Like I said, I'll be working on blogs with more details later, but I felt like I was way past due for an update.

RedRocker

Monday, February 18, 2008

Current mood: disappointed

I guess it's been a while, and I've been avoiding sitting down to write. Been a lot of "almosts" lately. The "big time" with MoB gaming, is more of a fizzle. First only two of their players even had guitars with them, so I scrambled and skinned some of the other players guitars, only one of which made it to the final eight. Then they back up the airing of the Dallas event until NOVEMBER! I don't know after watching the first one, if it will even amount to much. They only showed the final two, and they cut both of their songs short.

I got the t-shirt press and spent 5 days sweating my ass off at the Southern Nationals softball tournament, and only sold enough shirts and prints to pay for the supplies. So I still owe my dad $500 for the press. Then I spent the next week and a half resizing and numbering 5000 action shots, and bought another domain and set up a website because all these parents were emailing me about when the pictures would be up so they could buy a cd with the their teams pictures on it....and only one person did. The next tournament was for younger girls, so we ordered more shirts in smaller sizes, and we spent two days out at the ballpark and sold only one shirt (some lady wanted a picture of her baby) so now I have even more shirts and transfers that I've invested in just sitting around.

I'm still giving away more skinz than I'm selling, and website tracking has shown very little return from any of them. I did launch HD Pimp Skinz this week, but my press release went nowhere, not a single site I sent it to posted anything about it all week. I just finished up some mockups for all the new guitar models, they are in my pictures folder here on MySpace, and will be sending out another press release today, maybe this one will go better. What really sucks is now I will have to buy 5 guitars.

I am working on some t-shirt designs, and am planning on starting the street team very soon, hopefully that will help boost sales. Well I think I've moaned and wined enough, until next time.

Oh, one small piece of good news, I'm half way through 80's on hard!

Keep Rockin

RedRocker

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Ok, let's just start at last weekend and go from there. Last weekend I got a message from Ted at RedOctane about a new gaming chair, he said he had shown them the Boba Fett and Stormtrooper skins I had made for him, and they wanted to talk to me about making skinz for the back of their chairs. I received an email from them, but haven't had time to respond...you'll understand why in a minute. their MySpace is www.myspace.com/ugcinc

On Monday, I fired up the PC to find a email from the GodFather of MoB gaming. http://mobgaming.net/ He had been told about me by Mayowa Tomori  of www.ampedesports.com and wanted to know if I could make skinz for his GH team....for the WSVG event in Dallas (actually it's in Grapevine) that started on Thursday! He had four players, including Wulfe, who came in second at the Kentucky event last month. So after some talking and such short notice, I'd outfit the guys with some of the new HD skinz (more on that next week, stay tuned) for this event, and work up some customs before the LA event. I had already spoken to Josh before all this happened, and had made a custom skin and a HeroGear shirt for him, so I actually started the event with 5 players with my skinz on them. Two of the MoB players didn't have guitars with them, Wulfe had broken his at the last event and couldn't find another one anywhere and the other member didn't bring his. But I ended up skinning Sephi's and Micheal's guitars so I was well represented.

So Thursday morning I went to the Gaylord to see this event for myself. After getting all my skinz installed, I settled in to watch the open players try to make it into the field of 32. I must say there was a wide range of players, some even playing on hard, and were as young as eight. Though there were some who clearly needed much more practice, there were actually more good players than available slots as there were only seven spots open. My friend Michael Gross was one of the unlucky ones to be cut, he is quite good and even had the PMS girls as his backup...each one sporting a guitar and doing the "Addicted to Love" moves while he played in a suit! I must admit that the judging was not perfect, but then again this is only the second time an event of this type has ever been done. But with guys like Daniel Juarez, Eric Miller, Mike "Priest" Holmes, and even Freddy Wong coming from the open players round we knew that we were in for a hellava show.

Friday started off with another couple of hours of open round, with several trying to improve their earlier scores and then kicked off the first round of 32. After that, I don't know what else to say the rest of the day was just a blur, with one great performance after another it was truely amazing. This is what I had always thought Guitar Hero should be. Every way a guitar hero controller could be played, was done. We had players jumping off stage (even over the monitors at times) and playing in the crowd from memory, Behind the head, back, between the legs, stage slides, you name it they did it.

On Saturday the round of 16 started, and the judging changed, Sluggo himself came in to judge on accuracy, he was quite tough but I think he was much more consistant. The players now hit levels beyond anything I had ever imagined, from helicopters, and back flips, to Wulfe (in full Angus Young gear no less) who played in ways I've never seen before. It completely blew me away. I can't come up with the words to discribe the round of eight or the finals, when it was all over I felt like I had been to a full on concert, complete with ringing ears and horse from screaming! They have just posted a video of Freddy Wong playing YYZ in the round of eight (he even scored an 11!), if this is the way it will look on CBS next month this is going to be something else. You have to see it yourself to believe it.
http://www.ampedesports.com/news/3940/Freddy-Wong-Finals-Vod/

NOW, for some exclusive news only for those reading my RockBand blog!

After spending the last three days talking to all the competitors I can tell you they are all looking forward to RockBand! Many have said they won't even be buying GH3. Many of them are especially excited about playing it in competition. Sluggo told me that he's gotten to play an early build and says it is amazing. Also, the interview of Vince Neil should be very interesting to all of you as well.

http://www.ampedesports.com/news/3938/Vince-Neil-Guitar-Hero-Connoisseur/

I just don't know what else to say, make sure to check the AmpedEsports and WSVG websites

for much more info, I took lots of pictures, as soon as I get them all resized I'll be adding a slide show for it.

http://www.ampedesports.com/
http://www.thewsvg.com/

RedRocker

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Well after another trip to the emergency room less than a week after the first one, they have decided that this is all stress/depression related. So now along with the blood pressure meds and Xanax they have put me on Prozac. I still get some symptoms of an attack (tingling in arms, some chest pressure) nearly every time I try to work on anything, but they say Prozac takes 3 weeks before it really starts to work. But enough of this, on to something positive.

 Johnny Napalm, who I met last year at the MGC tournaments, will be our first A.M.P.S. member and will be competing at the WSVG here in Dallas this week, I wish him lots of luck and hope to go watch the event myself. Also, jUdY nAiLs, who also competed at MGC, will be our second A.M.P.S. member and is planning a tour around the country promoting HeroGear.

I'll be explaining A.M.P.S. here very soon, but I've got to get a few more things ready first so stay tuned.

RedRocker 

Monday, July 2, 2007

Between working on the new website design, filling orders, making and sending out sponsor packs, designing HD Pimp Skinz, A.M.P.S., GearHeads, not to mention all the normal problems/stresses of life, I guess it was inevitable. Early Monday morning I found myself with tingling limbs and a BP reading of 219/200. Monday afternoon when they finally let me go home I was feeling much better, had a brand new prescription for blood pressure medicine (and some Xanax )

After spending the rest of the week taking it easy (as much as I can) I'm doing much better. I'm trying to not let everything stress me out so much. I've decided that I'm going to finish the update to the online store, but hold off on the total redesign for now. After talking to my Dean at a Alumni function last night, I found out that I can have a team from Devry do my website redesign as their senior project. That will take one very large problem off of my plate, since on top of everything else I was trying to teach myself Dream weaver and Flash.

I hope to make an announcement in the next week or two regarding A.M.P.S. and GearHeads, and will be sending out press releases at the same time to try and get some much needed press coverage. Stat tuned.

RedRocker

Friday, June 22, 2007

As everyone here probably knows by now, we have finally seen what the new strat controller looks like. I for one am very excited about this. If you check our gallery I have made the first mock-up of what Pimp Skinz will look like for this new controller. The most exciting change will be the ability to finally skin the entire fret board, no more avoiding the top five frets. I am also looking forward to seeing the final design for the drum set, if they have a "body" like a real drum we will be making skinz for them as well. At the very least we are looking into making a false kick drum front that will allow for graphics (more importantly band names) to be added to them. Consider this you first sneak peak into our plans to support Rock Band, keep checking back for more.

RedRocker 

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

I know it's been over a month, but I've got lots of good news.

First, sales have been steadily improving, especially for customs. I've had some orders from some real Photoshop wizards. I've also changed brands of vinyl, and after some initial problems it is much better. At first all my colors had blank streaks and I thought I had just blown all that money (it costs 20% more than the Avery) but I found out I needed to change some settings. Now the skinz are looking better than ever, the colors are brighter, the image clarity is much better, and with the thicker backing paper it even cuts better.  

The event sponsorships have been great, I see a good spike in website hits after every event. The next big series coming up is the Underground Gaming Series put on by JC Media
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=149075271&MyToken=d0080152-755f-45e7-8a62-0a3ced9138d5 they are holding a series of events all over the eastern US, finishing off with a Championship event in Atlantic City! I will be sure and add slideshows of all these events as soon as I have photos. I will also be adding a list of upcoming sponsored events with links to the page in the next day or so.

Now for the future. Week before last I attended a industry show for Printing/Signmaking and saw some amazing things. First up was a new line of metallic vinyls that are printable! They make the inks look like candy paints or anodizing. I got a sample piece that has a picture of General Grievous over a silver carbon fiber vinyl, it looks like custom colored carbon! I skinned my notebook with it so I can test it's durability. Only downside to it is it requires a different type of printer that costs thousands of $. I also got to see the new fabric printers, these are really cool. Several manufacturers are making these now, and several of them can print on black. I would love to get my hands on one of these for making custom HeroGear shirts, they tell me it only uses 40 cents worth of ink to print black t-shirts problem is they want $12,000 for one of these bad boys. The coolest thing to me is still a secret for now, but just imagine the ability to offer any design custom paintjob for less than $50, stay tuned.

RedRocker

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Originally posted on 4/04/07

Wow the last month has been busy, not in sales but in new products! I have now completed all the artwork for both the RO wireless and the Nyko Frontman, and will have all the artwork completed by next week for the X-plorer. I have now found the online storefront that I'm going to use, and have gotten all my SSL certificates and merchant accounts needed to make the change. Now I have to redesign the website and upload all the new artwork!

I have also posted on both the guitar hero and the Score hero forums that I am now sponsoring tournaments. So far the response has been good, we have already done 3 events and have 3 more already in the works. I found a place to make posters for a decent price, had to order 500, so I'm now sending those out along with the prize skins. Haven't heard anything about MGC this year, need to drop them a note and see what's going on this year.

When I finally get all of this stuff done, I'm still planning on painting my RO wireless. I redid the current skin on it for a St Patty's day party I was supposed to go to that got cancelled. I'll take some picks and post them on here just so someone besides my friends will get to see it. The new paint job will combine both painting the body and a custom skin, and should look amazing.

Well, back to work

RedRocker

Monday, April 30, 2007

Originally posted on 3/09/07


After receiving requests from several people asking me to sponsor Guitar Hero events I decided to take a BIG step, I have posted on the guitar hero and ScoreHero forums that I am willing to sponsor all GHOUL tournaments! So far I am committed to three separate tournaments as well as a multi-event tournament. I haven't heard anything yet, but I expect to also be sponsoring the MGC tournaments again this year. I just designed and ordered 500 posters today to send out to events, I hope I get enough events or I'll be giving these as Christmas presents!

Monday, April 30, 2007

Originally posted 2/13/07

I just got through making up the skins for the GH2 tournament in cali, if you live anywhere near Stockton you need to go to this one. The competition will be held in medium, hard, and expert, so everyone should find a level to play in. I've provided skins for first and second place in all levels, as well as prizes from Red Octane. Several of the skins are new designs that nobody has seen yet, so this should be great. You can find out more info and sign up at

http://www.gh2.eventbrite.com

We are still adding new friends, but we need to step it up so we can give away some more skins. Make sure and tell all your myspace friends.

RedRocker

Monday, April 30, 2007

Originally posted 1/29/07

 Well as the saying goes, all bad things happen in threes. First was the root canal, which I still have to go back to get the final crown molded. Then on Thursday of last week I woke up and wandered to my computer to check my mail, but nothing came up on my main screen (I have two, it's much better when working with Photoshop and Illustrator) It seems my old friend had died. My 21" Sony Trinitron monitor had finally gone out, leaving me with only one monitor and all my programs set to use two. Since I didn't feel like undoing and redoing this setup, I just figured I'd take the weekend off and wait for my new monitor to be delivered on Monday (a Acer 20" widescreen LCD), one of my best friends just got a PS3 so I thought I'd spend the weekend playing games with him. So the third thing? I woke up Friday morning feeling like total crap, runny nose, sore throat, fever, the whole nine yards. So instead of playing games all weekend, I've spent it in bed popping pills and feeling like death warmed over. I'm finally starting to feel better, so I'm hoping to get some work done this week. I did manage to get most of the artwork done for adding the RO wireless skins to the website this weekend using my laptop, but with only 512MB of memory this was a VERY slow work. Man I didn't realize how much work this would be to add all the skins for a new product. I think I've come up with a way to use Imageready to create a more streamline page for the RO, if I can get it to work properly then I'll redo the SG pages also. One thing about it, my Photoshop skills are definitely improving, the artwork for the RO looks much better than the artwork currently on the website. I've also been asked to provide prizes for another Tournament, this one is in California, I haven't work out the details yet, but I'll post it when I know more. Well my NyQuil is starting to kick in, more on this as it develops.

RedRocker  

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Originally posted on 1/18/07

I almost forgot, I have a picture of the first winner in our friends giveaway!

Ms. Narusegawa

I also found out that she is also been filmed for the new show on MTV, so know at least two people who have been filmed for this show have my skins on their guitars! I don't know if all the footage will get used, both both women were interviewed and asked about who customized their controllers. You gotta love free advertising! Also I have been approached by the organizer of the "Frets on Ice" GH2 competition in New Mexico on January 27th, and I'm providing a custom design for the SG to be given away as the grand prize. Read more info here if you want to enter

http://forum.guitarherogame.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=12725

Several other people have approached me about prize skins for tournaments, I'll update as each one is finalized.

RedRocker

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Originally posted on 1/17/07

Well it took longer than expected, but the skins for the RO wireless are now ready! Now I just have to finish all the artwork to add to the website. I'm still considering if I want to just add them to the existing page or redesign the whole thing. I've been looking at creating a flash site, not sure if I can justify it yet. Well, back to work.

RedRocker

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Originally posted on 1/09/07

As the saying goes "Best laid plans of mice." I didn't get the cut patterns for the RO wireless this weekend, I ended up popping Tylenol all weekend to fight a tooth ache. Final outcome? I'm now the owner of a brand new root canal! So as you might have guessed that little trip cost me everything I had put aside for advertising and switching the shopping cart off of Paypal, and I'm still not done paying for it. But, I am feeling better today and I have finalized the cut patterns. So now I'm working on artwork for adding them to the website. I'm also going to redo all the artwork for the website, since I haven't heard anything else from Chris since November I'm guessing he's not interested anymore. I have been contacted by several people running GH competitions, and will be sending out skins to give away as prizes, so that should help with the advertising. Also, it turns out the winner of the first friend giveaway, Ms. Narusegawa, is being filmed for a show to be aired in February. She says she can't tell who it's for, but I think it's pretty obvious that it's for MTV. That gives me at least two people I know of who will be filmed using a controller with my skins on it! Ciji was interviewed at the CPL tournament about who did her guitar, I hope that part gets left in. Guess I'd better get back to work, will update again soon.

RedRocker 

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Originally posted 12/15/06

Well this Christmas is shaping up good so far. Sales have been the best yet this week, still not making me rich, but they are improving. My best friend Eric suprised me last night by giving me a laptop. It's not new, but it is a pretty good one, and he did a fresh format and install of XP for me. I have several new skin designs going up first of the week, and since the lightning skin is still the best seller by far I'm going back to more fantasy designs. I also did a sketch this week of my idea for painting one of the new wireless controllers. If Ted comes through with one for me Chris and I are going to fully customize it with custom paint on the body and a Pimp Skinz set color matched to the paint. My plan is to offer this as a grand prize at next years Midnight Gaming Championships, since the certificate idea didn't work (no one who won ever contacted me for their custom skin.) Chris tells me that he has been working on the new website, and it's going to be a thing of beauty, can't wait to see it. I finally found a solution for handling the shopping cart transactions that's not going to cost me more per month than I'm taking in, I'm hoping that the move away from Paypal will increase my sales. Well back to designing, more news as it develops.

RedRocker 

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Originally posted 12/05/06

Well it's that time of the year....time to buy stuff! After some long nights working in Photoshop I've finally made a big update to the site. All the fret boards to go with the lava, quilted, and virus designs are finally up. I've also removed the products page and replaced it with a gallery of customs. I've added photos of some of the best, as well as cropped images of the original artwork to show off the level of detail in the designs. Got an email from BigChris this weekend, he's getting to work on the new website design and has some fantastic ideas. Well back to work, I'm working on some new designs, hope to have them up by the end of the week.

RedRocker

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Originally posted 11/27/06


Well now that I'm done with my annual turkey coma, time to talk of new things. I know those of you who have/and or seen some of the newest designs know that the fret boards to match these aren't on the website, I know I should have got them up, but I got distracted by the MGC finals and of course Thanksgiving brought me to a halt. Also during the last three weeks I've been fighting a sinus infection which stuck around long enough to prevent me from tasting my turkey dinner But that's all over and a new week is beginning. I need to talk about the MGC finals, but I'll wait until the new slideshow is up, should be around mid week unless I end up doing some IT work first of the week. There are many exciting new things in the works, but only some I'll talk about. First up is I finally got pictures back from Ted Lange of his Boba Fett skin on his SG, and also did several new customs this last two weeks that will be added to the website on a new page of customs. If you have one of my full custom skins please send in pictures, I'm trying to email everyone but I'm not sure I have all the email addresses still. Speaking of the website, I'll be adding a lot of stuff this week, but the real news is about the redesign! Big Chris of Scarecrow Graphix has some amazing ideas, and is working on a redesign for me. Some of the ideas we talked about were 3D guitar models that can be rotated and skins changed, custom flash work, new logo design...the works! I'm doing research on shopping carts, they seem to range from a couple hundred to OH MY GOD. Think I have found a pretty good solution but I'm still looking for something better. I'm hoping the new site will be up before Christmas. Well that's all for now, I feel another stuffing induced nap coming on.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Originally posted 11/03/06


Well we survived Halloween, and had much fun, haven't cleaned up the pics yet though. Went searching the web the other day, while looking for jean photos for the McRib skin, I stumbled upon some nice high res pics of several new woodgrains. These were the right type of grain for doing Sunbursts, flamed finishes, and quilted candy designs! So after much tweaking and playing with layers I have now created 10 new designs! I'm really looking forward to seeing the Sunburst finished, think I'll print some as prizes this week for MGC and Cat Daddy. Haven't heard from McDonald's about the McRib thing, he may have lost my card, but I did come up with an great idea, Plan on printing out a copy on some photo paper to show to him this Saturday. Not using up my vinyl on something I may not sell. Been thinking about redesigning my website, would love to come up with enough money to buy a proper shopping cart system as I still think many people don't like PayPal. I've always kinda like them, and its gotten even better since they no longer require buyers to have an account. But once people hate something, the only way to come back is to change your name. Bet if they became YouPay they would be the next hot "thing"

Monday, April 23, 2007

Originally posted 10/31/06

Hope everyone will be having fun tonight, I know my daughter and I will

We are now through week six of the MGC championships, and everything is going great! The crowds are getting bigger, and the competition is getting tougher. I will be adding another slide show with pictures from this past week, as several of our friends showed up in costumes! Cat Daddy from K104 radio also gave away some SG Pimp skinz and gave us a couple shout outs on the air, very nice guy. If you get a chance say hi to him after his show, he is usually walking around checking out the competition. Got a request from a McDonald's rep to work up a skin design for the farewell tour of the McRib next month, not sure how big a deal we're talking about, but all exposure is a good thing! Especially because I can't pay $7500 dollars for ad space in the game mags! For those of you competing at MGC this week, I'll see you there.

Peace,

Jem (RedRocker)

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Originally posted 10/26/06 (offering the same contest here also)

For all you Guitar Hero fans out there, HeroGear is having a friends contest!

We are working on a friends drive with prizes at each level, so pass this on to all your friends and you might be a winner!

Starting at 100 friends, and at each 100 there after one friend will be chosen at random to receive a free SG Pimp skinz for their Guitar Hero controller! The winner will get to pick from any of the existing designs

At 1000 friends, and every 1000 after, one lucky friend will receive a custom designed SG Pimp skinz! and four other friends will receive a skin from the existing designs.

So start telling all your Guitar Hero playing friends and let's get this contest started!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Originally posted 10/23/06

With five weeks down the Midnight Gaming Championships are still in full swing and the Guitar Hero competition keeps getting better and better! I have to admit this last week at North Dallas really surprised me by how many people showed up, considering how cold it was! I must say I'm very impressed by the way Jeff and the guys run these events, within an hour of the start they had propane heaters delivered and set up, and had the tents arranged to minimize the wind.

The competition was fierce, the level of players has gotten better every week, and the female players are starting to make themselves known. I counted four female players this week, and one young lady (sorry I don't have her name) made it to the finals! She played very well, but couldn't overcome the winner who posted a perfect score on Unsung in the final round. Living Dead Girl was out in true rock star fashion despite the cold, and I'm sure she'll win one before this tournament is over. I am still seeing a lot of interest in SG Pimp Skinz and talk to more people each week, I think this sponsorship was a very good idea, now I'm trying to think of something special to do for the Finale, more on that later.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

 Originally posted 10/06/06


Well after the two good things that happened last month, this month starts off with another good thing falling into my lap. The last weekend in September I stumbled upon a listing in the GH group for a video game tournament here in Dallas/Ft. Worth. And one of the games being played was Guitar Hero. So I went down to Greenville Ave. on the 30th to see the first one of these events, and I must say I was impressed. The event is called the Midnight Gamers Championships (you can find them as a friend on my page), and is being put on by McDonald's and the Video Gamers League. They are holding eight weekly competitions followed by a final championship. There are three games open for competition, Tekken 4, NCAA football 07, and Guitar Hero. The weekly prizes are great, and the grand champ in Guitar Hero gets an autographed SG controller, signed by all the guys at Red Octane! I never had any intention of competing, hell I'm not that good, but I did put a fresh coat of wax on my flamed SG and bring it with me. When things started to wind down around 1:00 I hooked up and made like a rock star on one of the stages they were no longer using, and everybody had to check out my controller. This all led to an introduction to the people in charge of the event, and after some talking and a contract later, HeroGear is now one of the official partners in the events! I am providing skins for all the competition controllers as well as giving away skins to first, second, and third places. And have a table set up at each event with controllers on display. Check out the slide show on my page to see pictures from last weeks event.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Originally posted 9/03/06

Well just got the latest list of songs, must say I'm really looking forward to GH2. I just have to be careful not to spend all my time playing it, I've still got lots of work to do. I've recently sent out a lot of new friend invites, and got back some interesting results. It seems that several people listed as "friends" of GH2 are actually people who work at Red Octane, and after seeing what I'm doing have gotten very excited about it. I must say that helped a lot in convincing me this was a good idea. The other thing that really boosted my ego was an email from EGM, which I actually got several weeks ago, but was asked not to speak about it. Since from what I've read in the GH forums it looks like the subscribers already have copy in hand, I think it's safe to reveal it now. My flamed guitar and my website will be included in a sidebar article in the October issue, nothing helps a new business more than a little free press! In the meantime I've been working on some new designs which should be going up on the website soon, some more traditional ideas like sunbursts and flamed finishes. The hardest part about designs like this is trying to get the proper mix on transparency when creating them in Photoshop, it takes quite a bit of trial and error (and a lot of ink) to get the look just right. I am also adding options for different pearl inlays for the frets, and since I've done several several customs with pearl inlaid lettering I think I'll add some options for lettering also. Well, since it is a holiday weekend, think I'll blow off working today and go play a little GH with my friends.

Remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

RedRocker

Friday, April 20, 2007

Originally posted 8/23/06 


Well after much hard work the hero gear website is now up and running. Sales have been slower than expected, but since the only exposure so far has been the myspace page and the guitar hero forums I'm not entirely disappointed. From the email I received the other day it looks like our exposure is about to get a boost, a picture of my SG (the flamed one) has been requested by Electronic Gaming Monthly. According to the email from the editor my SG and website will be featured in the October issue along with the story on Guitar Hero 2. I have also made up a couple special skinz and sent off to Red Octane last week, no response yet from them but they were just sent out on Friday. Now that the site is up I'm working on more new designs and looking forward to some GHOUL announcements, hopefully we can get involved in some of these tournaments.

Friday, April 20, 2007

As most of you have figured out by now, this page is for my company HeroGear.net. What many of you don't know is who I am or how this company got start. My name is Jem Stephens, and I'm the guy who thought up the idea of "skinning" the guitar hero controllers. Several others have followed in my footsteps, but none of these are ever going to go beyond making skins. My plans are much more ambitious than that, Pimp skinz is just the first product of what I hope to be many. My ultimate goal is to offer a wide range of products to allow an unlimited ability to customize ones' controller. Rock Band will be another amazing game created by Harmonix which I plan to fully support. Some of you may have read my continuing blog on the HeroGear MySpace page, I will be reposting them here so that you may follow along with my adventure from the beginning. Welcome to my blog....hope you enjoy the ride!

RedRocker 

Friday, April 20, 2007