IC/feedback on small runs of Hand made Resin keycap SETS

[punkonjunk]

Hi!
So I recently started making keycaps in december. I tend to turn everything up to 11, and this satisfied a ton of my desires - playing with goopy stuff, making small plastic things that are as fun as legos, saving money, and doing something no one else is doing. I quickly ramped up to a complete keycap mold of some SA grab bag stuff, and then did these:

http://imgur.com/gallery/RKumX - gold, metallic red, and black resin
http://imgur.com/gallery/eUJnn - Pimento and Olive colorway, with floating legends. (I need a better camera, that's on the list)

As you can see, these are bubbly. This is difficult to avoid, and with all the experimentation, heat treating, etc, I can't get bubbles to go away completely. HOWEVER, all I need is a couple of things - vacuum chamber, vacuum motor, and a pressure pot to start doing this REALLY right, bubble free, clean designs and good bottoms.

Right now, it costs about 700 bucks to get most of a key set from hotkeys project. They are beautiful keys (and obviously accidentally inspired me at some point with the clear cappings) but that cost is bananas. The heat treatment I'm doing makes these caps crazy hard, and I can't scratch them with PBT keycaps, so thats at least a kind of scientific pointer that they are at least about that hard.

I don't want to do any crazy taking orders super early - this is a rough IC, to get an idea of how I should proceed from here. Equipment will be some expense, so it'll be a month or two before I start getting ramped up.

As you can see, these are ROUGH. the first set, gold and red, even has crooked caps. I shot the stems and the clear part at once, but the stems I domed FAR too high, which resulted in some being too tall, some being crooked, etc. I worked this out in the second set effectively, but bubbles and a rough bottom are still an issue - this will be resolved rapidly with better molds, and man, do I have a plan. a crazy plan. I'll film it, because it's going to be awesome.

So, my plan will be, once I'm assembled for production, and happy with my new method - I will produce a set, then run an IC on that set specifically, with pricing fixed, good photos (gotta get a good DSLR) and any other options available. (I might offer a couple colorways depending on how many runs I do at once)
I plan to start with SA fully sculpted blanks, because that's what I like the most for keycap style, and because I just spent 183 dollars on SA blanks with 7bit. (he was so helpful and awesome with my specific needs)


So what do I want to know now?

Any input you have - besides "those are crooked and bubbly" (I know, fix is possible with better equipment)

What would you pay for a set of these for a 40%, 60%, TKL and 100% key set? Or, what would you expect them to cost?

Do you like the idea of limited runs of keycaps, instead of a giant pile of individually orderable keys? (Overruns/inevitable cancellations will be available for sale afterwards, individually, on my website)
I like this idea because 1: it's awesome to type on, and lets me offer something totally new, totally original, and I think a lot of fun. Ideally, I'll eventually also offer commissions to help folks make their perfect endgame. I have plans for mine - crystal clear caps with floating, cursive legends in crimson, with embedded blood spatter on them.

Do you think colorways like this would sell? Weirder stuff, or should I work on something closer to normal, or closer to a clone of a popular colorway, IE carbon, etc?
I really like the idea of opaque, but backlight compatible keycaps in fun colors. But I could also see clear or simple caps selling well, also.

[codemonkeymike]

I think there is a section in then marketplace for interest checks