Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Snapdragon wrote:
OK, I’m more awake now. I look back at all the things I’ve done in the last 12 years since I got out of high school, and I have to admit that the web hosting is the thing I enjoy the most. The problem is, it’s the most difficult task I’ve ever encountered.
I would say I’ve relied on self employment for about 70% of the last 12 years, I never stopped, even when working full time for someone else.
I have to admit that I’ve had thoughts lately of packing it all in, but even if I did, I’d still have to complete the back log of work, and then I’d be stuck paying off a bunch of expensive equipment myself, and I get really depressed when I think about all the work and money I’ve put in so far (basically over a year of my entire full time income from my last job).
I’m slowly getting things worked out, I mean, it’s hard when there is so much and you’re on your own. My GF wants to help but the reality is there really isn’t much she can do, if she takes care of the house and food and what not that is help enough but in her present state of hurting I spend most of my time telling her *not* to bend over and pick things up.. grr.. silly girl, I know she just wants to help and feels bad about it but c’mon, when you’re sporting a ruptured disc…
There’s lots of frustration in this house right now, and I just hope it doesn’t turn into something very ugly one day. If we can get through this year, get organized, get her all fixed up, then we can concentrate on buying a house and opening cafe #2 where I can move my office to, permanently! That’s been another big problem is being jerked around on my office space, I had to move three times in 2006 👿 Now it’s being done (quietly) through home but I know the landlord suspects something and it’s not allowed.. I’m just waiting to see if we get booted when our lease runs out in June… right when my baby needs to go for surgery.
But alas, don’t fear, I don’t plan on going anywhere. This is why I overspend on my equipment, it can handle whatever you guys want to throw at it and function without me.
Well, I am off to the cafe to build another server. 😉 This sounds very very familiar. John and I, and almost every one of our many friends that have their own buisinesses ask this constantly “Why am I doing this to myself?? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a 9-5 job, come home and turn on the tv, like Homer Simpson…instead of working every freaking minute of the day???.. and loose money doing it!(when you are jealouse of Homer Simpson’s life style, you know you are in trouble)
Ah yes. John and I talk about this a lot.
Charge more.Tyrrlin wrote:While at the on-post art (ceramics) shop, I was talking up the PYOs to the lady who works there. She might be interested in stocking some of the PYOs, but asked if they could stand up to the glazing process that the ceramics go through (I think) in order to create some of the effects they have. I wasn’t sure, but I said I’d ask.
So now I’m asking. Hopefully you know what she’s talking about because I don’t. 😛 The shop has a “class” every Tuesday night where people can come and paint ceramics that are then fired and glazed. (The part I don’t understand is the the unpainted ceramics are already fired/hard, so why would they be fired again?)
Would the PYOs be able to handle that kind of treatment?
No, you can’t fire gypsum.
Ceramic clay hardens because the high heat of firing drives off the chemically combined water in the clay body. This changes it forever, making it waterproof ( meaning it will never turn back into clay) and rock hard.
Gypsum sets up by itself with a chemical reaction that bonds water into its crystaline structure.
The glazes are painted onto the once-fired ceramic piece and then it is fired again. This turns the powdery glaze into a gorgeous glass coating.
Very cool.
We use gypsum instead of slip-cast clay for Windstones, because gypsum is one of the few materials that can be cast in a flexible rubber mold,which allows the sharp detailed undercuts. If you look at ceramic figurines, they will have very few, if any undercuts.
It is fun to go to a gift shop, or antique shop and analyze what each figurine is made of by the way it looks!
I love ceramics! It is totally fascinating.Making ceramic molds and casting them is so much fun.In the back of my head I still fantasize about setting up my kiln again.I have never seen that kind of crazing on any of the dragons we have here, which could mean … that it is caused by humidity? We have almost none of that here in So. Cal.
I really don’t have a clue what could be causing that.. We test the finish by soaking,freezing baking and refreezing pieces,and haven’t found this to happen, but that isn’t the same as years of humidity… and it seems to be most common on the bottoms?
What is the history of these dragons? Did you buy them new? Are they in humid environments? Any clues?Dragon Master wrote:you did this on this forum to help some of us feel like we belong to something special
You do!
Maybe it wasn’t a black gold one, I don’t remember now, but one went for something like $4,500.00. That was the good old days.( I mean,the good old day. We just got one like that.)
Greater Basilisk wrote:$660 is a doosy. I bet Windstone is happy.
Did you ever see what the first Black Golds went for??
drag0nfeathers wrote:Hiya Melody!
I was just wondering if I could perchance grab a tiny bit of the Pearl Griffin touch up paint for the claws. See I got a few babies to make sure I got one that matched my momma. I’m finally left with my pick of the litter and I noticed one of his claws were accidently missed in the painting process. If I emailed Karen do you think she could send it with my Gold Curl? If you had any to spare that is. Thanks.
I can.
If anyone requests paint from me, it is best to tell Karen too, because I just can’t remember who needs what! If anyone has requested paint, and hasn’t gotten it, please remind me!(or tell Karen I forgot, she will remind me, loudly)TrottierJS wrote:I’m guessing that I already know the answer to this question.. and that you don’t know anything for certain yet but I had to ask to satisfy my curiosity anyway.
Do you have an estimate for production for the Secret Keeper?
From what I’ve read in the other threads you are still having issues with hollowing out the Secret Keeper sculpture and maintaining integrity.
Or is it possible that there will be no Secret Keepers available anywhere other than ebay? I love this dragon she is truly magnificent (such a pleasing expression) but I can simply not afford to spend two thousand dollars on her. I might be forgiven for an expenditure of under a thousand.. but more than that and I’m really stepping on my husbands toes…
🙄 We haven’t made any progress on a hollow SK , but we haven’t had time to work on it either. Perhaps we will get enough solid ones coming out of casting that we can begin to sell them direct from our online “store”( which isn’t up and running yet, we are working on it) at a set price, in limited production colors. I can’t predict when that will be. We are aiming at a price under a thousand.I think the auctioned ones have sometimes gone for under a thousand.Keep your eyes open!
tfsculptures wrote:glee! i can’t wait! this is going to make me get a big pearl griff yet! uh oh! 😯 the proud parents will have a whole litter of chicklets!! hmm two pearl, two black and two wolfs for me in the chicklets!weeeeeeeeee! thank you thank you! uh oh, i forgot about the poads for a moment…. (breaks out calculator..) 😯
I painted the first batch of twenty five butternut colored poads yesterday. I am still working out the messy-back-stripe issues, but we should be getting poads out soon. Poads really do look best in large numbers…
Oh, I forgot the “TM”. The name “Poad” is trade marked.yadda yadda yadda. legal poop.
emerald212 wrote:emerald212 wrote:Once I get the shadowbox made that will look like an aquarium and put the goldfish in it (and some shells that I picked up while I was in England), I will use the shelf for a Mariner’s Watchtower I just ordered.
My favorite is the one on the left in back. It’s white with spots and bulging eyes. I paid more for it because it’s rare, but it’s so CUTE! I also have a solid orange one coming that looks like the black one, and two little hermit crabs. And a seahorse to keep the Lion Fish company. 🙂 You are addicted too!
emerald212 wrote:Okay, Melody. You said you wanted to see photos of my lighthouse decorated bathroom. I included a close-up of the shelf with the Kaiyodo goldfish on it. This bathroom is a spare and its tub holds bags of packing peanuts and bubble wrap. And I store boxes in there too, since it’s next to my packaging room for my business. You’ve been warned! 🙂
You can see the fishing net that hanging from the shower curtain loops in the mirror.
Note the lighthouses on the curtains.
Once I get the shadowbox made that will look like an aquarium and put the goldfish in it (and some shells that I picked up while I was in England), I will use the shelf for a Mariner’s Watchtower I just ordered.
That’s a little Kaiyodo Lion Fish by the sailboat. These are NOT the shells I got in England. Those are still packed away.
THAT is your SPARE bathroom? Gad, it is beautiful!! You should see ours. No, you shouldn’t.
Oh those fishes are beautiful! I’ve got to get the ones I don’t have! Did you notice the tiny gold edges on the little scales of the orange ones? Just amazing.
On the serious side,this is exactly why China has put most US “figurine” manufacterors out of biz!rockerbot wrote:I know it’s hard for you to come up with ETAs for this sort of thing, but I feel like I just gotta ask. I’m not too wild on the pearl coloured anythings and I really want those griffin chicks in brown. (DUCKILING GRIFFIES!) Do you have any idea when you’re going to sell them on eBay or the site in brown? Did you even start painting any? I’m counting me pennies! 😀
I’ve got paint samples but no production yet. I can’t give ETA’s, but maybe I can get someone started on them next week. I was focusing on the wolf colored ones, because the stores need griffins too! We are starting to get castings of the crouching chick.. so the next one available will be that one in Pearl.
You think I got time to answer a long question like this??
(Just kidding!)
I realise most of these are rhetorical questions, befitting a glorious rant, (No sarcasm intended, I LOVE rants!) but I’ll answer them literally anyway.You and I, we are different, but yet there are so many similarities in our work.
Quote:All day, every day, people look at the work you’ve done in the past and immediately start winding around in their head, “hey, I bet he/she could take this and do this with it, since they’re so freakin good at doing this”.
Isn’t thinking about the new things you can to do what keeps you interested? Fortunately with me, most things people suggest are things I’ve already got on paper, or in my head to do when I get to it. If I have no intention of ever doing what they suggest,or I can’t, because of the material I use, I tell ’em.
Quote:It would really be an impressive feat if you could pull of making every single piece that people have asked for here.
Hey, I’m not retired yet.
Quote:It would be an equally impressive feat if I could pull of creating and maintaining every site I’ve been asked to run. Even the ones I’ve had in the past I’ve had to step away from micro-manging, and I cry a little bit when I see how they begin to fall apart when not being maintained.
Micromanaging = love. Love is free, get someone else to love it! What can the forum members themselves take care of?? Take this forumm.It is flourishing because we all care, ( all of us forum members) and pretty much try to take care of problems ourselves, because this forum is important to all of us,and we really care about each other..Is this a rare thing for a forum? (I don’t know alot about other forums, but I know I’ve asked questions on others and it takes days before I get a response if I ever do..)Although we do need the Professional to help, for spam avalanches and other bad things, that we can’t handle ourselves.
Quote:So the question is, why do we do it? Why do we bend ourselves out of shape everyday to try to make as many people happy as we can, just because we have a skill?
Quote:Sure there is enjoyment of work, but where do you draw the line?
I have two lines I draw; there are projects I can do, and want to do,and will get to eventually, but not this minute…, and those I don’t have any interest in.. People understand “I have no time to do that”…well,some people do anyway…
And then there is the things Iwant to do for myself.yeah, right.Quote:Maybe I’ve made a gross assumption and you have no time management issues,
O.o
Quote:but I’m sure you can’t work on more than what, two or three different figurines at a time? Cast one set while you paint another and maybe be selling/shipping a third?
Of course, but don’t forget, we got a staff of twenty or so people that do the work! I do the creature sculpting entirely by myself now(that is why new things come out VERY SLOWLY), but I only paint samples and special stuff.
Quote:I could use about three full time staff to get me where I would like to be, one to do nothing but answer the phone, open the mail, and read the security mailing lists (and keep an eye on my forums) .. gee, who wouldn’t love to be paid for that. Another to input my accounting. And one who could monitor help tickets and the server health on a daily basis, do small maintenance jobs, etc. But who the heck can afford to shell out one, never mind three salaries, 25K+ a year, when people complain about paying more than $5 a month for web hosting….
Thats what teenagers are for.
Quote:(not Windstone of course).
You need to charge more.
Quote:I don’t understand how you guys are able to sell these curlies and what not for less than $100. Your R&D has to be stupidly expensive just in time alone.
We can afford to sell the the curls for that price because they are direct sale. That is why we never produced them untill now.
Quote:Well, that’s my thoughts of the week. Having taken two naps totalling 5 hours since Wednesday morning, I’m going to make an attempt at 8 hours now. 😳
Sounds like you are in training for parenthood!
Quote:Here’s to another 10 years of Windstone Editions! and heck, maybe web hosting too 😆
What will this forum look like in ten years, I wonder?
Nirvanacat13 wrote:I so want to see the ALSK when we come up! 😯 I’ll take pictures!! =P
I found the Autumn Leaf color to be impossible to photo with a normal digital camera. The colors come out totally wrong; I mean, not even close! The pics I took make the dragon look as if it was painted with big blotches of black, red and green, with no gold, and no shading between the colors. Simply awful.ugh.
SPark wrote:She said probably not, because having boxes for sale would make it too easy for fakers. They could put fakes in real boxes.
Personally I think the solution to that is to sell boxes one at a time, and ship them one at a time too, no combining. That way they’d bee too expensive to be economical for fakers, (who would need hundreds) but still within the price range of those of us who just need one or two.
I don’t think the danger of fakes in Windstone boxes is really much of an issue, myself. A fake looks like a fake, no matter what kind of box it is in. The biggest issue to me is that we simply don’t have time or space to deal with selling individual boxes. We assemble one kind of box at a time, as needed, for batches of finished things when they are packed. We don’t have the complete boxes sitting around for all the products, that would be impossible..
