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Too bad you can’t hang onto him until I’ve gotten some true purple eyes. Until then, I don’t suppose you could try the dichroic eyes?
pegasi1978 wrote:eaglefeather831 wrote:Ohhh….we need someone to nag for more hoofers! There are too many dragons out there!
Agreed!
Amen! Hoofers rule!
Jennifer wrote:Is it because of their size and weight? I imagine they take a pretty big box! And I thought the emperors were a pain. 😉
Emperors are a snap – they get shoved in a packing box – just like the ones everyone gets. Like you guessed the Secret Keepers aren’t just heavier than a herd of recalcitrant rhinos, they are bulky, and difficult to manuver. This makes the custom packing we do on each one a royal pain to manage. I hope we don’t do anymore secret keepers for a while.
Okay, strike what I said earlier – the hardest thing is not learning how to paint properly. The hardest thing is packing secret keepers to be shipped. I got the dubious honor of learning how to pack secret keepers for shipping today. That has got to be one of the most difficult packing procedures I have ever dealt with. I hope you people really, really like them… cause they are a ROYAL pain in the butt to pack. x.x
Jennifer wrote:I’m so nosy!! One of the things I’ve always wanted to do would be to visit the Factory and see how Oly, Melody, and now you do airbrushing. I handpaint my special pieces of course with brushes, but I have an airbrush for getting a solid color base coat on these critters and to me it seems like only slightly-more-controlled spraypaint! 😆 Those that are skilled in airbrushing make it look easy. What do you find difficult about it? I don’t want to disclose trade secrets but do you find it hard to layer the colors? Detail? I’m an Art Nerd so any new artform is fascinating to me.
Getting the paint to be just right on a piece is the absolute *hardest* thing, even just a flat color! If you use the airbrush too close to the piece, the paint runs because the air is too close to the piece, if you have the airbrush too far away, and the paint actually begins to dry in mid-air so you get a rough/grainy texture. Plus, the airbrushes are notoriously tempramental – suprisingly small amounts of dried paint can radically alter how an airbrush performs, as does the humidity level. Or (like in my case) you just might have an airbrush that flat out hates you ;____;. I’ve just managed to learn the right way to airbrush so I can be more-or-less unsupervised (not without screwing up, however. I have a visual gallery of windstone pieces of what not to do with an airbrush decorating my booth) after weeks of practice. But once you get the knack for it, it is much, much easier. After learning how to just put paint on a piece well, layering colors and the rest is a piece of cake by comparison. That’s just wrist training in learning how exactly to move the airbrush. For me, it’s made more difficult in that I’m left handed – most of the good airbrushes are made for right handers, so I’ve had to improvise quite a bit because the canister the paint rests in is always in my way. But I’m learning.
Personally, I tried hand-painting a piece with scales, I have no idea how you can stand painting dragons like the Emporer by hand! The only way I can get the paint to be smooth on the scales is to air-brush.
*crawls up from under her rock, otherwise known as a painting booth*
What do I do? Hooo boy…
What I’m being taught to do that’s a priority is painting. I’m being taught by Olympia, and most of the day is spent under her supervision (making sure I don’t screw up *too* badly) learning how to paint properly. It is a *lot* harder than I thought it would be! I also detail, and polish and pack journeystones, learn about inventory stuff, handpaint, and research new eye colors, and nag Melody into doing more hoofers, and scarf down yummy food people send, and make a nusiance of myself in the office, and make odd noises when the factory is empty…
Okay. So maybe those last four things aren’t exactly jobs per se, but someone’s got to do it! I’m being trained to do a whole lot of things, the things I listed above are more-or-less priority currently… I learn how to do something new everyday. It can be daunting, but it is a lot of fun.
Thanks for the welcome! Glad to be a loyal minion- I mean… employee!
Oh, I am definitely the black sheep. I hate family gatherings, and given the choice, I’d spend the evening curled up by the fire sipping hot chocolate, and reading a book. My family seems to sense this, and tries to rope me into as many commitments and things to do as possible. Just the exact opposite of what I want. God forbid someone be offended by the lack of my presence.
Dragon Master wrote:What would you consider Lodi Central CA??
We have all gotten to busy to remember the simple things in lifeYes, Lodi is definitely Central California… and unfortunately I can’t say anything better about the central Californian attitude except central California doesn’t feel the need to steal northern California’s water resources the way southern California does. *steps off her natural resources soap-box*
Yeah, the simple things make me happy. I’d be happy if I could find a place to go hiking out here, but it’s no use. No matter where you look, there’s people. Rude people at that. Heck, I’d even be happy sitting in a garden for 15 minutes. But no such luck. I’m trying to think in terms of mental survival and endurance.
Dragon Master wrote:Not in CA they never out grow rudness at least not in No CA
Not to nit-pick or anything… but if you really are from Lodi (like your sig says) you aren’t in Northern California. I’m from Redding – that’s true northern california. This nitpick does have a point, I promise… it actually is one of the reasons why I am depressed.
As a native northern californian, I am genuinely shocked at the rudeness of southern california. In redding, people fight to be the most polite at a four-way stop to let you go first. People up there are so polite, even on the freeways, it is mind boggling to see how rude people are down here in LA. They are almost like two different countries. It sucks, and probably is a really, really good reason why I am feeling depressed.
I miss my farm-boy, and I miss clean air. I miss the woods, the mountains, and the wildlife. All these things redding had, to some degree or another. Now I find myself in a huge sea of humanity that attempt to trump and hurt each other on a daily basis.
I am very glad to work for Windstone, but I am probably the most thankful that Windstone is moving their operations to Oregon. I am a truly wild creature in mind and spirit, and I would not do well in such a city for long.
Maybe it’s that I’m in a very strange new enviornment. Maybe it’s that I won’t be going home to my family for christmas. It could even be a temporary hormonal imbalance. Any way you slice it, it seems the christmas cheer has skipped my heart this year.
I just… can’t get motivated into feeling christmas-y. It’s usually my favorite time of the year – christmas lights, all the food, laughter, and good times. How could I not enjoy it? But somehow… it just dosn’t touch me this year. I don’t know why. I’ve bought christmas gifts, and wrapped them up, but this year, there’s no real joy to it – I know the gifts I’ve selected will go over just fine… but I’m not even deriving joy from giving gifts like I usually do.
Anyone else feel like this is a blue christmas? Or am I in the boat of “Smile, and the world smiles with you. Cry, and you cry alone?”
Here’s a video we took of shooting some flaming haybales with my boyfriends trebuchet:
As you can see, it has a nice range. He built it himself, and it is a lot of fun to play with. How’s that for a toy?
I am not fond of this color at all. It’s way too monotone. I am glad these are not a production color, as I’d get sick of working on such boringly colored dragons.
(I’m hoping for something excitingly colored that isn’t a dragon, for a change.)
Dragon Master wrote:SK’s take WAY too long to dry according to Medody so it would have to be another target.
Oh Ski I think they need to do some Ski shooting!!
You are the best one since you will be able to fight backOh, I wasn’t talking about targeting a secret keeper. I was talking about loading a secret keeper into a trebuchet sling and flinging it… oh… 300 feet or so. Should make a nice dent in something, to say the least. If that fails, I can always move onto the emporers.
Dragon Master wrote:Actually after thinking about it!! You 2 go ahead and fight and that way you will be distracted so we can go to the factory and see what we want when it hits e-bay
I wouldn’t be too quick to say this. I am dying to play with my boyfriend’s trebuchet… I think a secret keeper would make great ammo for it. >.>
Whoo boy. I have quite a few pet peeves.
As an artist, it really, REALLY hacks me off when people tell me I should “do” something in my art. My typical reaction is to tell someone to go take a long walk off a short pier unless I consider them to be a colleague, or better than me.
Another pet peeve of mine is political correctness. I am totally not politically correct, and I tend to not only step on, but trample people’s toes that are. Honestly, if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?
My biggest, and absolute worst pet peeve is something I call the “Bambi” reaction. I got no problems going out and killing my dinner – actually, I think people who want to eat meat should be forced at some point to kill what they eat, so they don’t loose that connection to where thier food comes from. As it is, I have no problem going out and killing a deer to eat, and given a choice, I prefer doe meat to buck meat. This almost always gets the reaction “You would shoot Bambi’s mom?” from folks. Well, here’s the truth of the matter about deer. Hunting season is during the fall – six months after fawns are born – by that time they are weaned, and more than able to fend for themselves, even if they do hang around mom for a while after. Doe hunts are all but banned here in California, and in some places (Angel Island) the deer are literally starving because there’s just too many of them for an area to support – this is going on on the east coast with white-tail deer as well. The best way to manage a population of deer is to hunt the females – a single buck can impregnate as many does as he can, but you start reducing the number of females, and fewer babies are born, thus managing the population better. Andin the case of white-tail s this is good. Because white tails can breed at six months of age, and often throw twins.
…*steps off her soap box*
…so, yeah. Pet peeves.
