[Akeyla]

I once won 500$ back from the insurance for this baby:

whom they fully ruined before the artshow he was supposed to be. That was and still is one of my favourit dragons. He’s my baby. My first big dragon.
Every firm, most of them, will fight to not pay insurance, especially if we are talking of 3 digit numbers. At first when my “agent” applied in US they said “yeah sure insurance fine, 20 bucks, what how much? no DHL germany has to pay”.
DHL germany to me “nope, the receiving country, in this case USA, pays”
me: “what?”
It was a long and a hard fight, it took august until april with severe kicking from both sides, my US friend who got him, and me, from Europe. They will play pingpong with you, dont let yourself get down or be talked into nonsense like “we aint got no contact addy” ( mind you, I wrote my complaint to a freight address, not DHL officially). Explain your case again and again, stick to your paper/receipt if you have insurance it is your right. Point. Eventually in my case it also helped when I quoted them their own insurance guidelines and told them that I send a lot via DHL and that I’d never use them again. I think I sent them that letter 3x, always via “sealed option” (meaning they have to sign when they receive it).
Thats when they reacted and asked me to prove his value. sent my certificate of authenticity and a list of the materials (which eventually made 150$ if you added all shipping). Hacked some more and then they gave up.
dont give up.
good lucK 🙂 keep us updated

[Akeyla]

costy materials, but interesting to look:
http://www.paint-sculpt.com/tutorials/mold-making-tutorial/mold-making-tutorial-overview.html

and speaking of, always rememer your mold release. Friend of mine sealed a beautiful sculpture into a solid block of plaster…

[Akeyla]

damn… I had a long answer written here and the net killed it.. grr…
short though: what kind of plaster do you use?
to do what you have on mine I’d have to use a hammer.
also, never ever shake the mold directly unless you have a solid “cage” meaning your mold is not a sleeve of rubber. merely holding the form will squash it. When I do my casts I pour latex over them and let a lil lake at their feet. Gives you like a… condom with a socket. herm. then I cut a hole into a closed cardboard box and poke te thing upsidedon through and fix the tips with needles.
to be sure that all th air goes out or intricate details show up to I first fill half of the very liquid plaster and sway, perhaps even poke in with a spoon, the I fill the mold and set it stable on the table. and then I hammer, fists down on the side of the box for atleast a full minute (yes it is tiring) you will see the bubbles coming up.
other suggestion is a air pump, you seal the mold with liquid plaster airproof in a box/container and pump out the air. It will suck out every single bubble, so said by a friend. never did it, but he told me to do so when i had “hairbubbles” on some of my furry molds.
Small molds can hold their own weight, but for your size you should make a thick silicone insidemold, cut it and insert it into a plaster second mold (dont let the silikone cuts be on same line as plaster cuts) remember to keep in mind that plaster cant do what rubber does. if it finds a place to “hook” the plaster mold or worse originl will break. Hope this helps, wish i lived closer to help. I dont have professional knowledge but I did quite a few molds to have… all those wonderful mistake experiences…
keep us updated 🙂

[Akeyla]

yay happy birthday!

concerning the mold, did you shake the mold very well when you filled in the liquid? cause when I made molds I had to realy earthquake em or in the case of a lil anubis figure even half fill them and poke in and stirr with a blunt stick.
I used jolly old latex, works like a charm for small ones but needs a support when bigger forms. Like a supporting cage of plaster… merf,,, difficult to explain in words. My collegue made something similar at school. Conceptwise. I think he casted vertebras. I dont know of a professional caster but I’m sure someone on a big forum with 3D art can answer this. I think someone was asking something similar on conceptart a while ago… I’ll look if I can find it. though a warning ahead: I think it’ll be pretty expensive :/ thaz ze blessing of a 3D artist 🙁

[Akeyla]

really hardly any time left but Nambroth listed one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300052156469

I got to eyeball one at Eurofurence, they are really really awesome 🙂

[Akeyla]

send them your item?
no really… cool. Two thumbs up for creative spam that is absolutely non obvious…
ask his prices? I wanna hear this 🙂

I got something similar today, saddly I deleted it to early to quote it word by word here but it was something like:
random ebay member x writes:

HI!
I have received your note over ebay! I thought I’d give you an unique offer in my reply, I hope you do not mind me sending you this special offer!
I am selling special technical ware like cameras and yadda yadda and I have best offers in my store! please do contact me back if you do not mind me having sent you this! and please check out my store with even MORE Ipods and yadda yadda. goodbye and I hope I didnt bother you…
xy

I almost wrote back because I thought it was so cute how he appologized his spaming in every second sentence 😉

[Akeyla]

Nambroth wrote:

SPark wrote:

Well, at least Melody doesn’t think it’s some horrible nasty thing. *chuckles* She was jut curious, since her work does attract a lot of furry fans.

(Not that most people I meet think furry is ick, but most furries I meet think most people think furry is ick, if that makes any sense. Paranoia, whee!)

Yeah.. it helps that she’s met several before though, I think! 🙂

I’ve been to a con (AC) and, well.. there are a lot of scary people out there. A lot. XD But any fandom has its scary crowd, and not all of them are bad. I have several friends that identify with the furry group and they are nice, normal* people. 🙂

*normal as in not scary! XD I don’t really know anyone that is ‘normal’- what IS normal, anyhow??
agreed 🙂
furries pro and contra are like every community only I experience the differences betweend good and uhm… annoying more extreme than in any other cmmunity/fandom etc I have ever heard/been/seen. I have many furry friends that I love and adore very much and just as many where its better to be… blind and stick your fingers in your ear and sing loudly.
But the others are very kind and talented and I enjoy meeting them. And painting for them. Been to five Cons so far and am part of the Siwss Furry ORGA, but I do not have a fursona (I’m always asked every time and once when a person asked me the gadzillioned time I said tapeworm)
/end furry stuff

glad you had a nice time there 🙂 I envy you
I’d die to see the factory….
but my next ocean crossing is not in the next two years. Thankyouschool.

[Akeyla]

dang.
to late :/
If you have something left I’ll also gladly trade some art for it 🙂

[Akeyla]

when I have an art block I used to pick my favourit subject and “go big” (I once made a dragon as big as a medium cat)
with all the biggety also came more space for experimenting and time to think and change. He is different to all my dragon as he had no “plan”.
Or, and that I do more often, is to think what I havent done before. A new challenge. Close to my favourit subjects but still with a twist that makes it against my mainstream. Running figures, double figures, flying figures, there is no limit out there, figures with with a special media added, figures with extra detail, figures in special clays (mixed colors)

I envy you for your new studio. congrats 🙂 you must post pictures.
I do have a smaller studio for my giant figures but my everyday work I have to do in my room or on my lap infront of the TV. Somewhere thats good because I like to have my surrounding with stereo and everyday materials. But yes I have polymerclay in my carpet

[Akeyla]

very perdy and definitly a teen one 🙂
I like the mix of new and old media 🙂
say, I have a few points I see, but I would like to ask first if you wish for critic or not.

greets

Aky

[Akeyla]

I’ve seen the SHiflets original unpainted(online) and i believe what we see here is merely a bad paint job. The sculpture itself, yes, is a bit edgy but I like it, it gives the whole dragon more life.
Its still a helluva money.

second one is plastered, I believe he scratched it directly into the wax form, which explains why most scales are not 3D. If they’d have presculpted it in a more durable material I believe he would also not be so obviously “butted” and more detail and more dynamic toes could have been made. And I’m not gonna rant about the base. Still, its an amazing piece, very amazing. I wish I could cast metall too. We once visited a factory doing it and prices were like… oh you dont even want to know.

[Akeyla]

hey… I just beat your sssspensiveness:
http://cgi.ebay.com/DRACO-LAST-OLD-DRAGON-BOWEN-SWORD-EMBLEM-SHIELD-1-1_W0QQitemZ160054355016QQihZ006QQcategoryZ553QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Akeyla]

oihhhhh… perdy…
very very expensive. Wow. As much as I love the shifletts rendering of him aswell draco as the charactere, nope.
glad for the piccies though 🙂
hmmm…. maybe if next years convention and ebay sales bring more money. *bookmarks em*

[Akeyla]

hehehe 🙂
um, no, *g* surprisingly. We owe it to made in China products and also those really bad pinkish fantasy posters you find around in every store. Or that cutesy that makes you wanna get sick. The artists representing the subject are often really bad, not in the sense of qaulity always but in general art and giving the thing life understanding.
As for dragons in Switzerland, i am slowly collection ideas and stories and designs for dragons(and creatures) . Currently I am doing most of my ebay dragons and critters based on that idea, which is why all my ebay auctions for the figurines have these loooong stories. Many of the ideas are actually based on childhood stories.

[Akeyla]

Keplilly wrote:

I know they discourage selling repainted windstone pieces but I’ve heard nothing about them discouraging the selling of PYOs.

ahh… then I stored it wrong in my mind. Because thats the exact sentence I remember having read from her and I could have sworn it was in one of the PYO threads. So I was even silently wondering why PYo’s popped up on ebay. My mistake 😉

as for the fantasy market in Switzerland. Let me put it into a simple sentence:
The attitude towards fantasy here makes you want to kill people.
If you ever hear someone tell you you suck because you do fantasy stuff you will know what I mean. Thats not once I heard it.
In fact, I, for the sake of my grades, cannot say the word fantasy at my school (art school). Yes, I am right now living two lives. Because if ever a braintard tells me that my LINE (you know, the thing you put on paper with brush or pen), or the fact that I can paint and not do collage, is bad fantasy and not good I am afraid I will definitly lose my marbles.
The normal market (I made a Christmas market some years ago) is more in the direction of fairy cute gnoll things. The younger generation knows it better, the older one hasnt ever heard the word gryphon and is afraid of dragons. Yeah the cute cuddly dragon are ARGH OMG its gonna eat me. No i am not exagerating.
It is possible that LOTR and Eragon have finally made changes, but chances here are slim.

good luck with em, Basilisk 🙂

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