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Wow, thanks for the responses everyone. 🙂 I’ll try to quickly go through and respond to everyone.
@Jennifer : The more I thought about it last night, the more I realized I was at best probably looking at using a mixed media approach as, like you say, I can’t go backward. I’m also not sure I am that confident in my skill as to not make errors… so something more forgiving would be better anyway. It’s good to hear/see some reassurances that hand painting is more than okay. (Your PYOs are gorgeous, by the way. Seriously. Now I just want to paint even more!!)
It’s not so much that *all* paints are hard to find, I can usually find really cheap paint at the Japanese version of the dollar store, and there are online services I can order fine artist type materials from online. But the paints in Japan usually cost 2-3 times what they would in America and never seem to go on sale here, or in the case of the ones I can get from the dollar store I’m not sure I really trust them for going on a relatively expensive statuette.
@siberarkh1 – IIRC Dick Blick does ship to Japan. I placed an order with them last year to get some newspaper print, nice papers, and soft pastels (I had the worst time ever trying to find the last thing here; all I could find were hard and oil). It was either that, or I had family in the US ship me the items from their place because I wanted to avoid customs fees, which (especially when you combine already expensive shipping) are just absurd. I can seriously be easily looking at 70 dollars worth in shipping and tax duties on top of the costs of supplies.
@96037 – This is all really interesting information. The more I read the more it seems like my safest bet is to just go ahead and find some acrylics, but if I ordered something really small, like a foo puppy, perhaps I would experiment with the copics just to see how it goes.
@ moonbeam – My response to you will probably the longest, sorry for that. You hit the tail on the head with my concerns: the inks get absorbed so quickly, I wonder if it would really even be workable or not turn out all streaky, for one, and then the cost of those inks even here where they’re produced is NOT cheap; like you say, they’ll run out fast enough as is. I think I will take your advice and not use them for anything big, although if I bought, say, a PYO Foo puppy or Tadpoad, I might experiment with them just because it’s such a small thing.
Thank you SO MUCH for that website. Seriously. Unfortunately, I don’t live in someplace really nice and convenient like Tokyo or Kyoto; I am waaaaaay out in the country-side boonies, and to get to the nearest big city it’s a two hour limited express train and 55 dollars. The local shops around here have some really cheap stuff–if I went to the Daiso I could find paints for a dollar, but I’m not sure I’d trust them for a Windstone project. I’d be similarly leery of any of the young-student grade materials I could find in the stationary shop at the local department store.
I had tried scouring high and low for websites in Japan for art supplies, and even asked my fellow artist friends, and no one could help me. I think I finally managed to find some on Rakuten a while back, after I’d broken down and made my big Dick Blick order, but I think it had worked out that I had STILL managed to get my art supplies as cheaply or no more expensively from America. :/ So I’m going to need to do a price check before I buy anything, but at least this gives me options if I’m desperate.
What exactly is the issue with red paints? I’m sure it’s probably been mentioned before on the boards, but I haven’t seen a thread for it like the issue with the horns. Are they not being sold anymore? (That said, I agree that reds would be fabulous with silver, and also kind of rare since I think we usually see them coupled with golds with the dragons.)
I’m not a huge fan of the ivory myself, but I’d kill for a set of orientals in the original white/pearl color that is now retired on all the other dragons.
I think that would be way prettier then the ivory… probably easier to paint too. The ivory probably has to be painted on an absolutely flawless casting for it to look good. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s probably a pain in the butt for there to be a decent sized batch of ivory.
Orientals in White Pearl or the aforementioned Ivory would be stunning. A white Oriental would remind me of a Luck Dragon!
I would be ready to pounce on any new Oriental though, specifically the Sun and Moon dragons <3 Hopefully they will eventually be not so troublesome to produce!
Oh gosh. A falcor-esque windstone. I wasn’t really on board with the shimmering white pearl idea until I made the connection just now, but yes, I would love that. But I think schemes with rich blues or blacks and whites or silvers, maybe something like the morpho, would look fabulous with silver horns and light blue eyes as well. I too very badly would like one of the sun or moon dragons, but can’t afford them for the prices they go for on ebay.
I only started paying close attention to the site in the last two months, so I have no clue. But it seems like it would possibly be popular. The grab bag for the curly dragons went really fast, and I think so did the unicorns before that? I could be wrong.
How about it Melody, grab bag baby kirins? Pretty pretty please?
Goodness. I did see the website saying that they were out of stock until Fall, I guess I was just hopeful. XD Oh well, I suppose I don’t really *need* another stuffed animal… at least. Till Fall.
Well established player piping up to say that you all should come in and join the fun! FR’s got some battling stuff that goes down, you can either fight your dragons player-versus-player or against monsters in the coliseum. You can collect familiars which bond with your dragons daily and reward you with treasure chests not to mention you get to breed cute little babies that mature into beautiful dragons. They’re always adding new items and new “skins” (layers of paint to go on top of your dragon basically) and working to improve the site. And on June 3rd we have a new registration window opening up. I highly recommend it, it’s a lot of fun and the community is very welcoming.
I would love to see a contest that involves writing poetry or prose. I feel like that is a slightly more accessible skill for many than, say, sewing very tiny clothing for Windstones (but I could be wrong). In any case, I think I wouldn’t be able to participate in a sewing contest. I have a machine and material, but my Windstones are all very far away from me right now.
I like the idea of crossword puzzles and where’s-the-windstone and a scavenger hunt too that is open to interpretation and creative thinking.
Oh my gosh. How much did these cost? I wonder if I could convince my mother to go to a build a bear to get me one too, haha
Oh, that sounds lovely. I still only have but the few pieces, but maybe someday I’ll have a sizeable collection like yours! I’m really interested in getting my hands on some kirin and oriental dragons in particular, as well as some of the fascinating test paints, but they’re all more expensive and/or out of stock so I guess I’ll have to be patient.
I’ve been living in Japan for almost four years now, working as an assistant language teacher at local middle schools. I’m contracted until next July, so in total by the time I’m finished I’ll have been here for five years. I like it here well enough, but I think it’s time for a change, both in career and living situation, and I miss my family and friends back home. Every other year I’ve taken a trip home around Christmas time, but I think this year I will either spend my winter vacation in Japan or traveling to some other foreign country I’ve never been to, so seeing my collection in person will probably be part of my birthday/homecoming gift next year.
The country is lovely, and I highly recommend people visit it; don’t be scared off by people scared of radiation poisoning or whatever, I haven’t grown any gills or extra parts ;D I have done a lot of traveling since I came here and still I have only scratched the surface of the number of festivals, historical and famous sites as well as beautiful landmarks that there are to see. I suspect I could live my whole life here and still not get to them all. If you do come, be sure to come in either the fall or spring as the summer is too brutally hot to be walking around (and much tourism in Japan involves walking places) and the winter also sees its extremes, and also be sure to take advantage of hostels and the train pass available to foreign tourists as it will save you a lot of money and trouble!
First time ever to squeak! Hopefully I’m doing it right.
More baby kirin in natural color themes
GB Kirin – babies, mamas, whatever, with natural horse or deer or big cat or bird or butterfly inspirations
Blue Morpho Kirin !!!
Koi Baby Kirin
Blue Morpho oriental dragons
Green Jay inspired dragons
More wolves with wings with brindle or harlequin patterns or maybe shiba-inu influence
Armadillos!!
Dragons doing cute things (trying to catch its tail, back wiggling, crouching, maybe two pieces, a brother and a sister baby, that when combined appear to be rough-housing/play-fighting?)Ah, I can’t seem to find the edit button, but I remembered where I bought the new pieces I got during college. My alma mater has a science fiction / fantasy con every year in the spring, and one of the dealers one year had a number of Pena pieces with them. I was so thrilled to rediscover their existence!
