Hi!
One of my colleague 3D modellers at my part time serious game job told me about SW. I started making a couple of Christmas gifts for my family, with a 25% success rate (issues with wall thickness, metal warping during the cooling, forgetting escape holes, mirroring text, filleting...)
Turns out there is a lot more to this than being good at 3ds Max.
Even so (at risk of sounding a bit cliché) it was really great to hold my first tangible product.
In the last half year I've been wasting a lot of good time of SW engineers... but getting a bit better now. My rapier (poking sword) earrings have started to sell a bit (another lesson there: if you use reference material for your models, check with the designer
first if it is ok to steal his ideas and make money out of it...)
Gladly we've resolved everything, but as beginner mistakes go, this is a pretty dumb one.
I've decided to start making and selling historical replicas. Last weekend I walked around in a museum with a whole different perspective... it was like... shopping
I want that one, that one, that one...
With a group of friends that enjoy historical martial arts, I'll also expand on the weaponized jewelry. Yesterday I was defeated with a rapier (as part of a challenge to win one of my earrings), one nice bruise on my chest, but pretty good for publicity
Issues I'm still coping with is presentation of my shop, should I add a product before I have thoroughly tested it myself, or should I allow people to buy something at reduced markup as part of the testing process? With the risk of annoying potential customers... or on the other hand having people leave, empty shops are pretty boring, right
Even though I'm getting pretty addicted to this, I try to pick new models by a few rules:
- is the shape complex enough to justify printing as a production method (or could I just as easily make it by cutting it out of cardboard)
- can I actually make it? I love pushing the boundaries of the material and the printers, but there are limits.
- does it fit in my shop, would I want to have one, do other people want one?
- is it affordable? if I cannot order a prototype to check if it's good, take a picture, chances are nobody will
- ebay check. If I can just buy one online, why bother getting it printed? Unless mine are better/cheaper/customized...
still, it's hard to get rid of the 'cause I can' feeling... oh darn I have to make booby shaped cookie cutters right now. Ok, someone did those already, nice
(actually... I shouldn't be that surprised)
Mark