Month: October 2014

3D from 2D

Death

Pestilence introduced me to a new craft hobby last night: making 3D cards and tokens from collectable card game pieces. He was remembering when he first noticed the art and how much money people were making selling these pieces. He told me I could do them on occasion, that there was this guy he knew that made them every day and just sold them all of the time.

He had a couple of examples to show me that he’d traded some of his collection just to get. (I coulda killed him.) I confess they are neat looking. The one Pestilence gave me is an abacus counter sort of like this one made from a Magic the Gathering exhume card. The bottom of it has beads so that I can count life and the top has the image cut into several layers. Pestilence told me that there were a lot of tutorials online, I should get into it!

Screw tutorials. I examined my neat new toy and set to work last night to make a 3D token using a Warrior token from MtG. It didn’t take me long to reverse engineer the art; it’s simple enough. It’s not like I’m a genius or anything. And then I set about making some of my own methods to build these things because I was told it took hours and hours. 30 hours. Millions of minutes. Your entire lifetime!

Yeah, hours and hours I would do on an oil painting. Hours and hours I do on someone’s ebook cover or The Heavenly Bride. This was not something I wanted to spend hours and hours on. So I hacked the process. It took me a few minutes – maybe 60 or even 120! – to think up my process. Then it took me somewhere over 3 hours (but not up to 30 hours) to execute my plan.

Would you like to see my first 3D Magic the Gathering token?

token1

token2

Pestilence pointed while I was making the card that I could have more layers to it than I was putting in. Pestilence was right, but this was my first card and I was more interested in the challenge of reverse engineering the process. The final card is a little under half an inch thick and has three layers to it. I look at it now and I think I could have added two more layers, giving it five.

I could also have added a real feather and a clear front to protect the very fine cuts I put into it…. I did some very fine cuts. Pestilence pointed out this morning that these fine cuts were fragile. Yeah. I’d have to change the 3D process just a tad so I could have these fine cuts. I like my fine cuts. I noticed none of the other artists were doing cuts like that, and I’m thinking… but I like my fine cuts….

This morning I set about looking around the internet to check my process and see how the pros do it. I have no idea if I reverse engineered accurately or not because all of the tutorials are on Youtube and, as I’ve ranted before, I fucking hate video tutorials. But something else I saw worth mentioning was some of the 3D artworks were simply amazing. 10 layers. Things just popped at you. Wow.

And how much do they sell for? One guy is selling his tokens on etsy for a whopping $6. Other cards I saw with more layers than this one were selling for $15. I did see one guy selling his cards for what his hard work was worth: $50. But… just one.

I don’t think this craft would be the savior to my bills, no. But it was fun and I’d make another. I think they’d make awesome Christmas presents and, sure, I’ll sell ’em when I make ’em. Why not?

But today as much as I wanna play, I gotta concentrate on more important things. Normally I take Sunday off but there’s this movie I and Pestilence have been working on for a lovely lady over the big water. We’re almost done, and I’m at that point in the project where I want to get done done done! So I can bask in my genius. 😉

Oh, and I’ve got an Elfquest entry to finish up today as well. For the fanart calendar contest.

And then we might play Magic the Gathering, if we can find the time.

A Paperdoll to … Gawk… at… I guess… um.

Spearcarrier

I have always loved paperdolls. I’m pretty sure it goes beyond being a girl and paperdolls being one of the few fashion dolls I was allowed to have. Paperdolls allowed me to be artistic because, by the age of five, I’d figured out I could (gasp) draw my own. And I’ve done so here and there.

So it’s only natural for me to want to put out a paperdoll as I slowly back off from working 24/7 and begin to incorporate fun things back into my life again like hobbies and art for the art of it. And crafts. Because don’t you know my self-employment actually began with selling crafts and beadwork, age 18.

Taus, the Akashik version was even put into a paperdoll project very briefly. You can still get the downloadable PDF of her in the OOAK Leaf store or find her on Etsy.com.

Something really neat about paperdolls is how important they are to the world and our history. They date way… waaaay back… as far as paper dates back… and once upon a time a paperdoll wasn’t just a doll. He or she was a precious addition to the household collection. They were given their own little houses, dressed very carefully every day like real people, and their clothes were made of silk, lace and other fine materials. We didn’t start to devalue the paperdoll in our lives until the past 100 years when mass marketing gave us the ability to crank out cheaply made versions.

And I’ve been thinking about this bit of history, and I decided to bring one of my old dreams back to life. And I’m in the works now of making a new paperdoll line. This is one reason why I’d love a cutter… please….

At first I was going to call the first girl in the series Della, after my grandmother, but… that’s inappropriate. Here is why: I intend to aim these dolls at adult collectors. This means the doll, when undressed, will be flat nekkid complete with (gasp!) nipples. I intend to have limited edition outfits that I’ll make from time to time. They’ll have lace and sequins, 3D parts, and even see-through areas. Yep, nighties will be slightly naughty. But not overly so… cheesecake is as far as I like to go on most days.

I envision this doll, her friends, or whatever member of the collection a person gets being a conversation piece on a business person’s desk or just something to tinker with in a home office. I’m thinking I’ll put out a PDF for fee download with her and one outfit for folks who don’t want to buy the made doll and dolls I make and sell myself will have stands and metal parts. I do like the tabs on traditional paperdolls, but I love the ease of magnetic paper and hope to use that. The hard part at this time is figuring out how to make the metal stand and backing for the doll so she can pose for you without help.

I also envision this doll’s make will be a HOBBY. I mean sure there are still paperdoll artists out there in the world who get interviewed and are making a living at it. I’m me, I’m mostly invisible, I think I’d be lucky to sell even one.

So I’m naming her Darling. I’m using 3D to create her art base – mostly because I was creating something for Heavenly Bride the other day and accidentally made a character I fell in love with. I’ll be releasing her looks when I am finally happy with it.