Prototyping

I like your "ingredients list" quite a bit. I see a lot of things I use on your list as well.

I have a personal laminator machine, because I like using dry-erase and wet-erase markers fairly often. Or if I've made a small game for my friends or relatives, I like using it to make a longer-lasting version of the game (and sometimes other pieces) for them.

I picked up the laminator and various colours of paper and card stock from a typical office supply store.

I have a manual paper-cutter (the kind with a flat surface for layout and measurement, and a cutting arm that you lift and lower, cutting paper along its edge) and scissors for most cutting jobs.

And oh yes...! Any cardboard I find, I find a way use. Not really a fan of frozen pizzas, but I will consider anything that comes along. :)

Overall pretty good.

I don't use a lot of wooden cubes since they're a bit more expensive.
Everyone I know uses the assorted centimeter plastic cubes that come in a pack of 500 for $20. (Just Google "assorted centimeter plastic cubes")
$0.04 each is a lot cheaper than the $0.10 - $0.15 each for wooden cubes.

Also, poker chips!
I buy any game at goodwill that has chips in it. I can always use currency

I just refilled my Ecotank for the first time since I bought it a few years ago. Only the black ink needed refill, the other colors are still around 50% full. Have printed 2195 pages. Of course probably 1500 pages were just test pages to see if the heads needed cleaning. But still, I printed countless print'n'play games and prototypes on this printer. The ink is cheap too, even buying original brand bottles, so no need to mess with random ebay ink that might or might not be good, like I used to do with my old Canon printer.

Only bad thing is the Ecotank that supported A3 was too big (and possibly too expensive) so I can only print A4. Canon make some very space-efficient A3 printers. I miss being able to print A3 game boards.

Other prototyping stuff, I have a box full of stuff, mostly random bits from spielmaterial. They often have offers for big bags full of "components for game X" (where X is typically some euro). I bought several of those, a few each, to get a nice collection of meeples and cubes and discs etc. Plus various cubes and sticks and discs and pawns in addition to that. I typically buy when I am printing some print'n'play game and need some specific bits, and then I buy extras, so my hoard of useful bits keep growing.

Then I have a smaller component box (but still quite big) where I keep more than enough of most of the useful things that can be good to have at hand, like meeples and dice and cubes in a few different colors. Also some old prototype cardboard tiles, for instance some with just numbers 1 to 6 printed on them, in red and blue and with a few different symbols, and leftover printed random robots and soldiers. Just good to have to quickly get something on the table to try something (plus my 5yo loves to play with that box that has so many toys!).

Also bought 100+ blank indented plastic dice several years ago, and have dozens remaining. And of course basic stuff like a pile of large sheets of very thick cardboard, 100s of sheets of A4 label paper, other printer paper, regular playing cards, lots of dice. 1000+ (I think around 2500?) common Magic cards and sleeves (I never played Magic and do not know how to play, but Magic cards are great as backing when printing cards).

For every print'n'play game or prototype I like to put it in a box or big ziploc together with everything needed to play, so many dice and cubes (and card sleeves etc) end up with various printed games, and typically never go back to my pool of prototype stuff (although sometimes I raid old prototypes to recycle parts).

Oh, and tile spacers! Those are great as random markers for everything, and extremely cheap. Go to any hardware store and chances are they have different sizes and colors too if you are lucky. Beads are nice too. I bought a bag of 1000 star-shaped beads from some hobby store, in 6 or 7 different colors. And cheap plastic poker chips. And 100s of plastic bases to put paper in to make standees. And... I think I need to take a proper inventory some day and sort all that stuff.

I'm currently wondering about the EPSON Ecotank series of printers. I've been reading up on them... And it seems there are a LOT of positive reviews like over 700+ but like about 50+ are "1" ratings. People complaining about having difficulties with the device not working after a year as designed. Others say the next generation of EPSON printers are poorly made and not as solid as previous generation printers.

Just curious. Because I have a LASER printer and I might want to BUY a NEW inkjet/color printer... And these seem really cool with the Scanner/Copier built-in features for $399.00 CAD it seems like a really good price point.

I don't need a FAX because I only have a mobile phone... But the combo printer/scanner/copier is sufficient for me.

I was wondering HOW does this Inkjet compare to Color Laser Printers which are also moderately priced these days (under $500).

Sorry to hi-jack the thread. I just figured some of you who have actual experience with the EPSON Printers would be able to explain the poor ratings by some people and what overall is their impression of the Ecotank printer series...

Note #1: I don't print hundreds of pages a month... I may print 100 pages in a YEAR. So the in terms of usage... I don't think that I benefit much from the Ink Bottles versus expensive Toner Cartridges.

That being said, I realize that the cost of Toner Cartridges is MORE expensive than the price of some of the printers themselves... So I guess price is to be factored in ... Especially when there is only a little bit of use (moderate) TBH.

Note #2: Doing more research, a Laser Printer might be the better choice because the toner doesn't dry up or cause the nozzle to become clogged. Anyone care to comment?! Would like to know your thoughts on the matter... Especially the Designers with Ecotanks...

Laser printers are faster, but they aren't as good at color consistency and can't use any kind of paper even slightly sensitive to heat. Laser prints are indelible to water.

Inkjet printers do a better job of blending colors, keeping colors consistent, and printing on a variety of media. Unless specifically told otherwise, assume the ink will run if it gets wet.

Agreed. I would suggest inkjet over laser for most purposes myself, *if* you are using them fairly regularly so that your ink doesn't dry out before you get to it. Ecotanks are fantastic (I wish I had got one).

Yeah, I've been selling accessories for about 8 years now with some success. It's not enough to make a full time living off of it (though I am working towards that, especially with being unemployed for the past few months) but it certainly helps. I pump almost all of the profit back into the business to build and improve it. At 50 cents a piece (Canadian at that!) I'm probably way underselling my product as well considering the time and effort, but I'm happy with it selling and being profitable.

And yeah, 3 printers .. and I could easily run another 3 and still just keep up. I get a small backlog of orders and I have a dozen other 3D printed projects I'd love to offer but don't have the capacity at the moment. Each of those pieces I print takes me about 2-3 days to model (I absolutely will not sell someone else's work, it has to be my own unless I have a full commercial license for it) and the printers can pump out about 1 every 20 minutes per printer at the quality I'm doing them at. I even have them available in a brick and mortar retail shop in the US (Noble Knight Games)!