[Sidepot]

This is Magus_23's thread for revision posting, color and edge spot tweaks, feedback, or whatever he deems appropriate. Feedback and constructive is not only welcomed, but eagerly encouraged!

The floor is yours Magus_23!

[Magus 23]

Alas, there's no way to do this without upsetting people. But — viewed as a set, as well as with the shaped inlays — there were several tweaks that I believed were important to make. And at this stage, I felt it was critical to produce the strongest coherent set of chips for the Protégé line.

But, since I've thrown in last-minute changes at every stage in this process, I see no reason to stop now. So with mere moments to go before voting (well, a couple of hours, probably, but I'm going to be tied up for a while), I submit my final final version of the alternate chip set:



As always, the final decision will come down to you, the Chiptalk community. I will encourage you to support my revised version, and do my best to provide sufficient explanation for the changes I've made below, but it remains your decision. For reference (although more for posterity at this point), here are the individual iterations in handy-dandy thumbnail form:

Original Set and revisions 1-2:



Revisions 3-5:



Feel free to add your comments in this thread -- though once the vote starts, it may be best to make your thoughts known there. Well, unless you have something negative to say, in which case, just write your thoughts down on a postcard and mail them in. We'll be sure to post them as soon as they're received...

[Magus 23]

Brace yourselves. Here comes the explanation, after which point you can comment at will.

I only deviated from the selected chip colors when it was really necessary in order to fit in with the set as a whole. Philosophically, I tried to keep at least the general trend of greater complexity as the denominations got larger. Not a perfect science, but I wanted the higher chips to at least appear to be more difficult to counterfeit (these may not be real casino chips, but I wanted to treat them as such).

In choosing real-world models to follow, I probably leaned most heavily on the Bellagio chips (at least tonally), with the Wynn, Mirage and MGM Grand as secondary influences. There are probably others I've forgotten as well (to say nothing of all the designers here), but these are the ones that spring quickly to mind. (I did a lot of referring to the pictures at Silver State Treasures.)

Here are my comments on the individual chips as I've revised them. Edited in color to add explanations for later revisions.

1. The 25¢ chip: Changed the edge spots to Plum to avoid "blue overload" in the lower-denomination set, particularly if the NCV chip is added to the mix.
   
2. The $1 chip: Unchanged
   
3. The $5 chip: Changed the edge spot pattern to avoid the huge swaths of Mustard.
   
4. The $25 chip: With the $25 chip's green base color, I really wanted to suggest "money." And while the chosen colors do keep with the green-on-green color scheme, I kept coming back to the notion that it would be better suggested by a lighter green base with darker edge spots than vice-versa (as is the case on the Bellagio and Mirage chips). But given the negative response to my initial attempts, I settled on both Verde and Sherbert Green as edge spot colors. Furthermore, I changed the six-spot pattern to the 4 1/4 with 1/8 pattern; for one thing, there are changes to follow that made this necessary, but for another, I wanted to continue the (admittedly subtle) connection to four-cornered currency.
   
5. The $100 chip: Lightened the center spot to Lime Green to brighten it up a tad. However, since (contrary to my initial expectations) this chip generated the most heated argument, I didn't made any more substantive changes.
   
6. The $500 chip: As mizuchaud originally noted, if we go with the (default) shaped inlays, we have some instances where the edge spot patterns conflict numerically with the inlay shapes. I realize that the edge spots will not line up with the inlays (other than by random chance), but I do think it important that they be at least parallel. For my part, I felt it was more critical to keep the inlay shapes associated with each denomination (at least a vague "standard") as opposed to our exact edge spot patterns (something more open to variation). So as much as I like the 4 1/4 with 1/8 pattern, the six-sided inlay strongly suggested either a three- or six-spot pattern. The three spots (with just two colors) didn't suggest enough of a complexity improvement over the $100, so I opted for the 6 1/8 with 1/8 here (the colors remain the same).
   
7. The $1000 chip: This one is probably the most changed, so I apologize in advance for any ruffled feathers. There was a vocal contingent that pushed for losing the Canary Yellow as a base, and in my focused feedback section, I did offer up some alternatives. But the more I compared with the casino models I was following, the more I realized that the bright yellow is the standard I wanted to emulate. However... the red and blue edge spots may have suggested more of a "primary color" theme that detracted from the "elegance" factor when paired with my particular inlay design. After much debate and deliberation, I opted to swap out the Blood Red for Dolphin Blue as an edge spot color. Since I'd adopted the 6 1/8 with 1/8 pattern for the (adjacent) $500, I went with the 4 1/2 with 1/8 pattern.
   
8. The $5000 chip: First and foremost, I changed the 3 1/2 with 1/8 pattern to the (otherwise unrepresented) 8 1/8 with 1/8 (which forces the loss of one edge spot color, but does retain an elegance that I thought fit our highest-denomination chip). Since I was insistent on keeping the four-laurel design and 4 1/2 moon inlay for this chip, the edge spot pattern had to match numerically. Which then brought us to the colors. While I do like the chocolate color, it seemed too dark — i.e., too close to the black $100 — to give the chip enough of a distinctive identity; furthermore, I thought the colors of the inlay were better complemented by Adobe as a base. With only a single edge spot color available, (and since Mustard had at least made an appearance on the $5 chip), I opted to keep the Almond.
   
9. The NCV chip: Since the inlay design (and tri-point inlay shape, which I'm still pushing for) is largely triangular, I changed the 4 1/2 with 1/8 pattern to 3 1/2 with 1/8. I also lightened the outermost edge spots from Dark Blue to Light Blue so as not to create such a drastic contrast, which seemed out of place in relation to the rest of the chips.

Well, that's it. At this point, I've pretty much got to consider this version locked and up for voting, so I hope that -- even if you don't like the changes, you can at least understand and appreciate the reasoning behind them.

[JM]

Nice, I like the changes. The only thing I'd suggest is a different color combo for the NCV chip. I think that combo is pretty garish.

[PFunk]

I really like the color changes..Wasnt crazy about alot of the originals....Good luck-

P.

[luckychick]

My intial reaction to your changes:

I much prefer your $25.
I like the edgespot arrangement you choose on the $500 better, although it didn't really bother me before.
The $1000 chip looks really "contrasty" to me now, and doesn't seem to flow well IMO. The 0.25, 1, 5, 25, 100 & 5000 chips are all have edgespot colours that are somewhat tonal, and I like them. The bright yellow and pale blue doesn't seem to "fit", but I also think that alot of people will disagree with me... (On a related note, I kinda feel similarly about the orange on the $500, but since people voted for that one OBVIOUSLY I am in the minority there.)
As much as I liked the $5000 chip before, with the dark chocolate, I think your "too dark" argument makes a lot of sense, and I like the edgespot colours you choose. The pattern is good too.

[Sidepot]

I like the $5 chip colors as is, but have you given any thought to going Blood red with a purple edge spot (#5 below, not #15). It's a Tropicana knock-off, but I think it'll look great with the hub inlay.



Secondly, my least favorite color combo of the original default set is the $100. I think the 2nd place finisher was actually better on that chip:



Just throwing ideas out there.

Lastly, I commend your decision to not change the inlays at all. They're perfect, I think, and are probably the front runners at this point. Good work, and good luck in the finals.

[mirageII]

I can see your reasons for the changes and I agree ... with one exception the yellow 1000 chip. Your new changes seem to continue / complement the inlay shape outwards to the edge spots. IMHO the previous edgespots did this better.

What do I know

[Sidepot]

One more thing...

The default yellow chip is pretty nice I think. I think you might have went backwards there. These colors are the exact same ones we use on our InPlay Clay line for the $1000, and it's one of my favorite chips in the line.

[ehanhan]

I like the 25 alot !