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Holy heck. That’s a huge group. I would also join, but none of the available sculpts I am interested in receiving. Also curious if the store can supply this many pyos!
I do always lurk the show off threads, so I’ll be checking in to see what this group paints.In my personal experience, I found UPS to be way more expensive. Got a couple quotes from them and one I remember exactly: they wanted $36 to ship an anime figure. USPS only wanted $12. Same box, dimensions, weight. They also wanted about twice the amount to ship a male gryphon than USPS wanted.
Absolutely get multiple quotes, but after the, several, inflated quotes from UPS, I will not use them again (also the packages took over a week to arrive every time).(Also once I sold one of my fursuits and the UPS website quoted me around $50 to ship him. Got to the store and was told it would cost $140 to ship. If your website can’t accurately quote prices for the one thing your business does, what are you even doing? On that note, I’m shipping another fursuit tomorrow and, label printed, USPS wanted $42. I don’t even want to know what UPS would charge!)
I’m curious about that. I sold off a lot of my collection recently and never paid more than $30 for the larger sculptures to be shipped via usps. I got a quote for the rising spectral that didn’t sell, and he was only in the $50s for shipping cost. Now it has been a couple months since I last shipped, but as far as I know they haven’t raised prices that much.
The price is determined by both the weight and the size of the package. If you’re package is super light but in a huge box, you’ll still pay a larger amount to ship it.Not exactly a “grail”, but I’d love to have a sitting oriental. It seems like windstone will never again make any sort of oriental.
I’m curious about that gothic unicorn. I’m too lazy to unbox mine to check, but I do not think he is signed. Inspecting those images, that ebay unicorn does not appear to have the sparkle paint on him. That paint (I own and have used extensively) is extremely noticeable on black paint. Even without bright pin lighting, you still should be able to see some flecks or sparkles, however you cannot see any in the photos.
I have 100% stopped selling on eBay. Too many strings attached.
I’ve had super good luck selling in the Facebook Windstone page and on here.
Same. It’s more of a hassle now. Unfortunately for me, that means I can now only really sell anything here (which means limited audience), but c’est la vie.
What really got me, a number of months ago when I was selling a lot of my collection on ebay, it turns out they charge the same fee price they take from your sold auctions on shipping. Here I am, asking fair shipping costs and ebay is taking not just money from my sale, but also the dollar amount I require to ship said piece?
No thanks ebay. Hard pass. Using it to purchase only now.From reading online, maybe by reporting him and ebay agreeing, he may have had to pay the original sale fees now. Where by selecting you requested to cancel, it got him out of those fees. Horrible seller. I see it sold for a best offer now.
One more follow-up on the Rock Dragon saga (last one, I promise) – I am not able to leave feedback for the transaction. Presumably that is what happens when the buyer cancels the sale, or the seller claims that the buyer cancelled the sale.
So, if you ever want to cancel a sale, that’s the way to do it.
Hmm. I not too long ago had an issue where I bought a couple figures, then the seller lied to me saying they were “damaged”, only for him to relist them $300 more expensive. Even though the transaction was cancelled under “buyer requested”, I was still able to leave feedback (and leave negative feedback I did. He then had the nerve to message me and offered to give me $20 to change the feedback. Uh NO. I didn’t even reply to that).
Another answer to your question, of course, is that Windstone has made a number of colors that don’t have blue eyes. Some are retired and some are not in stock at the moment:
the original green dragons have orange eyes
Ruby dragons – red eyes
Emerald – red eyes (or rarely orange eyes in older dragons)
Gold – red eyes
The oldest Copper Patina dragons have red eyes
Violet Flame – red eyes
Red fire – gold eyes
white – yellow eyes
Amethyst – orange eyes
Lavender Pearl – lavender eyes
Elven – silver eyes
Shell Pink – silver eyes
Stone – tan eyesWhat have I forgotten?
Ebay is the best place to find many of these colors. It does take patience (and sometimes a lot of money).First batch Blue Pearl had straw eyes until they, of course, changed them to blue eyes.
Problem is, even with 50/50, when blue is 50% of the eye color that’s still a huge difference. The other 50%, divided by your list here (8 colors), is about 6% per color. 6% chance of getting, say, red eyes verses a 50% chance to get blue. Hmm yeah not good odds unless you like blue.
Now also remember that windstone makes a total of 20 eye colors (excluding blues, but including teals and periwinkles) I think. So really, it’s about 2% of getting any specific color (in my above example, red).
(Now maths and I are not friends, so if I’m incorrect then someone can correct me).I’m not all that picky with eye colors, just no blue! However gray is my favorite eye color and pft, I don’t think any ebay piece has ever has gray eyes? And certainly no production piece. I was lucky enough to get a black/rainbow scratcher that has metallic silver eyes. Not gray, but close enough I suppose.
I’m in the “dislike/extremely tired of seeing blue eyes” club. At first I didn’t mind them, but then I started downright hating them. I now actively avoid sculptures with blue eyes and will not purchase a sculpture if they have any color of blue eyes.
Black gold is my favorite color scheme, but I hate that they have blue eyes. I remember Melody saying something that the first BG test paint was done on a dragon that was previously painted, that already had blue eyes attached (due to whatever he was painted beforehand) and that’s why the BG have blue eyes. Sorry, but that’s an awful reason, in my opinion, to give them blue eyes when pretty much any other color would have suited them better.
But if blue eyes sell best, I cannot fault windstone for that. Saves me a helluva lotta money too 🙂
I know the orientals are difficult to cast. At Least the the older ones are. I suspect it’s why we don’t see them as often. Finding a balance is important, but keep in mind the grab bags are a very quick infusion of cash. As a company, particularly in these uncertain times, Windstone needs to do what’s best financially to keep the company afloat.
However, that frustration you just identified is why I suggested figuring out a way for Windstone to figure out what the demand is for a certain item so they can be better in control of inventory. Think of all the Kickstarters or Worms and Bones for example, that have an offering, get their numbers, then people wait for their items and are happy to do so because they know the item is coming. Windstone could do a poll, get an solid idea of how many they need to produce, and then go from there.
Yes, I remember how they mentioned them being difficult to cast. However, I recall them also mentioning that the newer orientals were sculpted in such a way to prevent that. Or is my memory just off?
Either way, if that’s the case, and as much as I love the orientals, perhaps windstone should permanently discontinue them instead of having them around but never actually producing them. I mean, it’s essentially the same thing if they never get around to making them.Yes and no about the grab bags. They are all individually painted instead of just the same color scheme across the board. This reflects in their price tag as well. As a generalization, they’re about 100% more expensive than their non-grab bag counterparts. And since they’re all painted to be not the same, that takes more time (as well as having a lot of brush details instead of purely airbrush. Personally I’d think they take twice as long, or longer, to paint than a standard production piece). The thing grab bags have as a plus is that they seem to be guaranteed to sell, and yes, in these times that’s what a company needs.
Disclaimer: I don’t pay too much attention to the grab bags as I will never ever purchase one. This is just the information I’ve gathered here and there from just seeing the posts about them so it might be off.I know of Worms and Bones, but I never really looked into their business or kickstarters (didn’t know they did KS). Just looked at their dolls. However, with what you said makes sense from anyone’s stand point I’d think. I’m happy to pay for something and then wait because I will eventually get it. I’m currently waiting on an artdoll right now and it has been almost 5 months, but I’ll get him eventually and I’m fine waiting (but he’s being custom made, not mass produced).
(exceptions to everything. Lots of impatient people out there)Polls would be great. That way we can get non grab bag items prioritized. I super want Ori’s in any production colors and I know others do too.
I’ve been waiting for the PYO Oriental to come back in stock for what seems like years. I have, quite honestly, given up hope that he will ever be restocked. Basically I feel that windstone should just remove the items completely from their catalog if it’s going to be an out of stock for as long as some of these items are. It’s almost like being taunted with something. “We CAN make this item… but will we ever? Probably not lol”
On that note, for me, it’s amazingly frustrating that the orientals in general are so neglected.
That all being said, I understand windstone is a small business. But when you see all these grab bags coming out one after another, and you KNOW they take a lot of time and effort to make for everyone involved, it makes you wonder why so much time is being taken up/dedicated to them when it could be used for other items. I just don’t feel like it’s a good use of time honestly. Especially when other items are being requested for restocking that never see the light of day. Balance is key.
This is basically a “reserve”. You’re paying in advance to reserve a product. Think of how the kick starter dragons went… those were basically reserve (“pre-pay”) items, but still plenty of people seemed to be upset (I didn’t really follow the whole kickstarter thing, but that’s what I got from what I did see).
Now if it was a reserve for only one paint scheme it might have gone more smoothly. But with the kickstarter issues in mind, I do not believe it’s viable for windstone to do reserve items.How about a “I want to purchase this” button. When the amount of people who want to purchase this hits a certain amount (like 10 maybe) then that item is front lined for production/paint.
That way Windstone knows it won’t have product sitting and there is incentive to produce them.
That’s basically what the waiting list is. Windstone has stated that they produce out of stock items in order of how many people are on a wait list. If one item has 15 people on the list and another only 5, they will make the 15-on-wait-list first. At least, this is what I remember Susie mentioning.
The dragonfly paints are actually a top/clear coat (Satin or Gloss, I don’t recall which)… so you may have issues painting layers on top of it.
I purchased them forever ago and still haven’t used them haha.I’m always interested in how people paint the roosters, so I can’t wait to see what you end up doing with him 🙂
Nice! I love it! I got antlers for mine and never ended up using them. It came out great!!! LOL!
Don’t do it Drag0n lol they look neat but they are, literally, a pain. Hurts my neck to wear him for anything longer than, I’d say, a half hour. I should weigh him one of these days and see just how much he weighs.
Well I got the ones that were thin plastic on the outside and filled with expanding foam on the inside so it makes them really light. I bought 3 sets of horns and was so torn of which set to use I ended up procrastinating my way through Halloween (which is why I just put my hood up for the time being) I also got a pair that were molded after I think a type of antelope and the other are the curled ram horns. Decisions decisions… If only I could rig is so they were all interchangeable.
You totally can, just use magnets! I was going to use magnets at first but then I figured, what’s the point if I don’t intend to take them off.
Yeah I got the full resin ones. My issue was I wanted ones that looked the most symmetrical, and curved a certain way (I’m too picky).
