The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Wofano Wotanto]

Successful businesses are often the worst on folks in this regard. It means they are focusing on all the attributes of business not related to their craft which leads to massive burnout in many cases.

I'm pleased to say that my painting/modeling business never went beyond paying the rent and the costs of minis I planned on actually keeping for myself. The rest of life was paid for by investment income and a more conventional part-time job (also in a field I enjoyed, book sales). I could have made more on the hobby if I'd accepted more commission work, but I discovered pretty quickly I'd rather cherry-pick that kind of work and rely mostly on painting on spec for sale on ebay and social media (back when it was less poisonous). There's something to be said for the "paint two, sell one" approach to minis as long as your tastes are at the right level of obscurity. Too commonplace (ie everything from modern GW) and it's just unsellable, too weird (remember the minis for the Low Life RPG?) and it takes forever to find a buyer.

 

[Cadence]

Random campaign design making its way through twitter and elsewhere in other contexts...

 

[Ryujin]

I dabbled in that a bit in my youth but these days my hands aren't quite up to it any more. Pretty soothing IME, though.

I've been cutting my own rings in aluminum, brass, and bronze. Buying steel and stainless steel. I'm trying to come up with a cutter that will handle harder metals, with auto lubrication of the blade, but it's slow going. Made myself a welded stainless shirt a while back. A friend tried to get me to go pro so he could pimp out my work to his HEMA buddies in Toronto but no way that's happening, for precisely the reasons others have stated. The energy is completely different when you're selling something. Timelines, deadlines, profit margins, labour costs and, worst of all, dealing with demanding clients. No one complains if I gift them a hat or piece of custom chain/jewellery.

 

[Thomas Shey]

At least they'll actually LEAVE the stuff at the door. One of the delivery companies here that deliver my Amazon stuff absolutely will NOT leave things at the door. It's sign, or nothing. Which means I actually have to be physically present every freaking time they deliver. But, of course, it's a crap shoot as too whether it's that delivery company or any of the other ones that will deliver my Amazon delivery. Doesn't matter what instructions I give Amazon. They will not do it. :GRRR:

Where approximately do you live? Because I've got to say I've never seen an Amazon delivery that requires a signiture.

 

[Ryujin]

Where approximately do you live? Because I've got to say I've never seen an Amazon delivery that requires a signiture.

Here, it's only the large value items that are delivered by 3rd parties requiring signature. For example I got a new TV and had to sign.

 

[Maxperson]

I can only hope that there's a special place in Hell for delivery drivers that put packages in front of doors that open outwards.

I came home once to find a boxed delivery "cleverly" hidden under my front door mat. The door mat was about a foot off of the ground sitting on top of the box.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I came home once to find a boxed delivery "cleverly" hidden under my front door mat. The door mat was about a foot off of the ground sitting on top of the box.

 

[Maxperson]

As someone who used to paint miniatures for a living, I can vouch for this. Not only is mastery of a craft a realistic, achievable goal, you can also get paid pretty well while striving toward it. Even "journeyman" levels of skill are worth something to someone. The cliche is "starving artist" not "starving crafter" for a reason and all the ambition in the world won't always suffice to create art, however you define it.

There was a guy here in Los Angeles that played with one of my groups for a while. He would sit and fully pay attention to the game while simultaneously painting figures of such quality that he made good money selling them. He'd finish one or two a session. Meanwhile if my stick figure is symmetrical, I'm happy.

 

[eyeheartawk]

There was a guy here in Los Angeles that played with one of my groups for a while. He would sit and fully pay attention to the game while simultaneously painting figures of such quality that he made good money selling them. He'd finish one or two a session. Meanwhile if my stick figure is symmetrical, I'm happy.

You know, funny story about LA. I happened to be in town for a day and one of my buddies had moved there. I called him up and was like "Hey, let's hang out". We happened to be about 12 miles apart as the crow flies or something like that. And he declined. Turns out, in LA traffic at that time it would have taken him hours to get to me. My biggest memory of my time there.

 

[Maxperson]

You know, funny story about LA. I happened to be in town for a day and one of my buddies had moved there. I called him up and was like "Hey, let's hang out". We happened to be about 12 miles apart as the crow flies or something like that. And he declined. Turns out, in LA traffic at that time it would have taken him hours to get to me. My biggest memory of my time there.

Yep. Rush hours are from about 6am to 10am and 3pm to 7pm. That middle period from 10am to 3pm is a crapshoot, because of accidents, construction and other events that cause traffic happening around the city.