wickedorin's avatar
Oh please do. I'm so tired of seeing artists who aren't appreciated for their work.

And you have broken my poor little mind with that life-sized Mew. Serious awesome.
k-times-two's avatar
Sadly, many people will never understand the plain fact that art takes as much practice and dedication as anything else does. Most people are smart enough to get the point, but in my experience, they just don't think about it.

Well look who's talking. I found you because of the daily deviation, but geez. That thing has multiple strings through each bead? I could barely get my bead loom to work, let alone force my thread through any one bead more than once or twice.

Thank you, though. :meow:
wickedorin's avatar
Sometimes I have to wonder if there are some people who have just never made anything in their lives. And it scares me. But to be fair I have had a lot of people who have changed their attitude dramatically when they were actually told how much work was involved, so maybe it's just not thought about. But I am from a very different universe where I can't seem to stop doing things...

Ahem, anyway. Beads do still shatter from time to time. And there is cursing and back-tracking and more cursing and then it can be pretended to have never happened.
k-times-two's avatar
It's passion that keeps and artist eternally going back to their art, just like it's passion that keeps an athlete training for the Olympics. I don't think I've met someone without passion, but I do know that some people have passions they cannot for some reason pursue. In those cases, I'd imagine they understand the feeling of need but not the actual trials and commitment involved. The rest of the things they learned were forced onto them by the universe, and thus not really great for a lesson.

There's... backtracking? I'm gaining more respect for your craft than I had before. I mean, backtracking in felting usually means just making things denser until they approximate the form I want. Which is work, but it's not like... re-doing stuff. Arrglghblraghle. I can't believe you're selling that hylian crest wrist cuff for only $120. I mean, I get it, otherwise it won't sell for a long time, but still.
wickedorin's avatar
It is passion or it is blissful self-imposed ignorance, or perhaps something like the two. *grin* I just had an overwhelming need to do what I loved. ...Even if these things clearly do not love me back, or it's a seriously screwed-up relationship. The end product is good! The journey to the end product is... often described much too politely. But then it's a great feeling to find someone who knows. Sharing war stories and whatnot.

Backtracking is relatively rare. Thankfully. Because wow is that a pain. Sometimes a shattered bead can be hidden or replaced, so that's fine, but if one winds up too tight for a needle to fit through again, while all of the others are still fine... yes, that can mean taking out a whole row. Or more. Just to replace that bead. One learns to pay attention as much as possible to what it feels like when the needle goes through the first time.

Argh, pricing. I go back and forth so many times. I guess a key factor is "how much would it take for me to do this again?" but that's obviously just a part of it.
k-times-two's avatar
Yes. That is definitely a paragraph I wholeheartedly agree with. My poor needles. I've murdered them by the hundreds, but they died for a good cause. ;__;

That seems like a blessing. Time-consuming work is almost psychologically painful to redo. I know I had to redo the coloring on my Mew at least a couple times, because I had a shortage of pink. At first, I used a deeper pink, but I didn't have enough of that. I thought I could get more, so I did some deep blue eyes. But then I realized I could card white into the pink, still get a decent color without too much fiddling, and then be able to cover more. So I did that. But then the eyes were too dark. So I redid those. And then finally my needlefelting store got a different decent pink that I had to completely recover the Mew in, which was cool except I'd spent at least ten hours on the first two pinks combined. So all in all if I'd been patient I could've saved myself a lot of trouble... although the eyes weren't much trouble. I love making eyes. :heart:

That sounds like a better method than I have now. Being so new to needlefelting, my prices are low, but then I do something and then I'm like "I totally underpriced myself for this." So I expect my prices to nearly skyrocket in the future for the larger things. Which... is probably not so good. I need to do more examples of my small stuff.
wickedorin's avatar
No one would ever think that wool could be so destructive. It is the soft and silent killer... of needles. Ahem.

Clearly I just like to pretend/believe that everything works out perfectly the first time and forget the details. *grin* It sounds like your Mew was a magnificent monster to create, but geez the results are still so awesome. I still just pick now and again, so I can hardly imagine the effort of making something that big.

Well, maybe your prices can climb little by little. I've been trying to steadily adjust; older stuff stays where it is since I didn't have a much practice and was still learning techniques. The things I've been exploring for years are going to be more because I actually know what I'm doing and how long it takes. Then again there will always be people to complain about everything. ...Of course, I sort of wonder if I'm capable of doing simple things anymore...
k-times-two's avatar
It's not funny! not to the needles, anyway XD

Most people do. For the most part, my memory of working on mew is the conception of the idea, the eyes, and then poof! it was done. Man, how I wish it actually went like that. XP But it was fun.

They probably will naturally. Just because I'll believe in myself more and stuff. And you are capable of making simpler stuff still. I know for me the simpler things are just sort of boring, unless I love the concept or something.
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