Amazon has now allowed me to enter into their homemade crafts roll out, which is nice, but if you've ever sold anything on Amazon, it is nothing like that. It's closer to Etsy and I hate Etsy. What's wrong with Etsy, you may ask? Good question. Everything you sell on Etsy requires that you fill out a lengthy form, and it doesn't matter if you sell two extremely similar items or if the only thing that's changed is the pictures, you have to fill out a unique form for each item. Meanwhile, despite the countless times the items and the page have been "liked" on Etsy, I have only ever sold one item. No one there buys anything.
Amazon's homemade stuff is less Etsy-esque, but there are still a few too many things to jump through to get something up. This especially since selling a book on Amazon generally only involves entering a UPC, a condition, and a price.
In any case, what I've noticed is that on big days, like yesterday, where I put up 17 items, the time to put stuff up has almost tripled. Aaargghhh. For those of you who are reading this and who are thinking of selling on Amazon, I will let you know in a few weeks if I think it's worth it. Ultimately, I think Ebay has it dialed in.
In any case, having hurt my leg in Karate, and having not wanted to run up and down stairs, yesterday was a painting day, and painting days are days when things make it to the photo booth. If you are reading this, it's probably the cool pics that you're looking for and not my ramblings about putting up things for sale. So, without further ado...
This is honestly an exercise in keeping your eyes open for interesting beads/knobs and making yourself aware of interestingly shaped packing materials. Just remember, if you pour stuff in it, it's automatically a mold, no matter what its original intended use. The Urbanmech is also up for sale. Every attempt I make at trying to paint a Battletech mech like a cop car ends up looking like this.
For this one, you need to keep your eyes open at hobby, craft, and hardware stores. This one comes from bulk chandelier kits. I'm fairly sure that if I could team up with a demo team, I could probably get everything I need for my craft from demolished buildings.
I actually made a Youtube of how to make this thing, but unfortunately, that was when I figured out I didn't know how to attach sound files to video files. It didn't turn out so well.... The secret is hot glue over a wire superstructure.
What to say? I like this piece. I think making a hieroglyph mold was a smart idea, though I've found that Egyptian stuff isn't in as high a demand on Ebay as I'd like it to be. I think a lot of my best pieces look Egyptian, but I don't do them very often because I can't be guaranteed that they'd sell. That's honestly too bad, but a pretty good example of how the market sometimes dictates what kind of art an artist (you know, like me) makes.
I really think that a piece like this has to have little thin bits to set off the big bulky stuff. The trick is to think big and small at the same time. As for the pipes themselves, to make them, you basically just need speaker wire and plastic stir sticks
Eyes open when walking through Michaels. This one's located in the jewelry making aisle.
I don't know if this is already fairly obvious, but the trick to a piece like this is that the four brown things can't all be painted the same brown tone. You can do this by using different base tones, different highlights, or different varnishes. In any case, you want to make sure that you have different tones for the different bags and pieces of wood. Gold is, as you can imagine, easy to paint. Simply start with black and then overbrush it with gold.
Water effects are easy. A glue gun will pretty much do the trick. The problem is that hot glue tends to look white and not clear. the introduction of a transparent ink is generally enough to do the trick. In this case, I used two colors so as to create a kind of disgusting muck kind of look.
When painting the mummy, I started with everything black. I overbrushed white and then applied a light brown varnish to the entire figure. Yes, I know, it doesn't look light brown except in various places. Basically, on top of all that, I applied all other colors. My feeling was that if the colors sitting on top of the light brown looked dusty, that would be just fine. It is, after all, a mummy. That being said, my favorite thing about this mini (aside from my cool hieroglyphic base) is that he looks like he's been drinking. Credit where credit is due. Reaper makes some damn cool looking minis.
Having finished this mini, I can't help but think that I should have put a pattern around the cuff of his coat. If he doesn't sell right away, chances are I will add something there. When you paint 17 figs in a day, you sometimes miss opportunities.
While I realize that it's awesome being super-artistic, sometimes it's easiest just to paint the guy like he's shown on the box. In this case, this is the mini for the Talisman expansion set. If you have the Talisman game, and you pull out the card for the Priest, you will notice that this pretty much looks exactly like the guy. Done and done.
Brick walls like these aren't difficult to make. The main thing is trying to keep the mold alive. Brick voids don't always demold as easilly as you'd like. In any case, how to do it, is pretty much just what you'd expect. Get some stryrofoam. Cut out a brick pattern. Cut some brick shapes, put them all around. Get yourself some vinyl spackling to make sure that there are no holes for the mold and then...make a mold. Don't do this over and over again. It's time consuming.
See, this guy's a Time Lord. Does he look like Hamlet holding a mechanical skull? Yes. Isn't there only one Time Lord? Sure. But I'm not FASA, so...lay off. Enjoy the paint job, man. Life's short. This is a Time Lord in a checkerboard shirt and tights. That's not something you see everyday. In any case, the base was no good. Mainly because I couldn't figure out what a Time Lord would be standing on. I decided a gear because....because... I don't know. Gears are cool.
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