nail polish is nice paint
I ran out of plastic again. Geeze Louise I guess I get about 3 boxes per roll? Hard to say since we haven't done a run out of a roll and nothing else yet. I did all the figurines in white, did a crapload in the original natural, so neither time were we starting with a full roll. So I'm waiting for the shipment of new stuff. And I realized we never got white at all, so the lid sitting unfinished really will care! I have to remember to warm the print job slightly before resuming so the fresh plastic sticks better.
Dammit. So I quit this, went and phoned our supplier and made arrangements to drive down for more. It's about a 40 minute drive and the dogs and I will thoroughly enjoy it. I might even make some vines! Yay! Getting out of the city before winter is GOOD.
So that, and that means I should right now be printing off my passport form and filling it out, not typing on a website about it. But just a couple minutes more...
I also went shopping yesterday. I tried the hobby and craft stores but they had nothing for me in terms of laquer. I did pick up a set of Testor's paints I don't expect to use, ever, but Dan might. I don't think they'll mix well with the nail polish. There were some groovy acrylic choices but it won't mix either so I'm faced with collecting a whole set of those and not using my rather large collection of nail polish. So after buying some groovy things for applying glitter and sparklies I popped over to Walmart. Sure enough, they had some crazy end-of-season sales with whole nail polish lines going for $1.50 a bottle. One little set of 10 for $5 was worth buying 2 of because the bottles were tiny, but they've got sparkle in every colour! Plus matching base colour. I picked up some "ridge filler" which turns out to be economically priced flesh tone paint. I put it on so thick it has to wait for sanding still longer. I need to treat this box with extreme caution because every layer releases and softens the whole surface. Unlike acrylics which remain hardened under the current working layer. the whole thing gets spongy and gummy and tolerates no pressure. Even the brush bristles can pull and move it! So I'll sand that thing till the plastic is showing through and then when I get a really nice surface I will use gold leaf on the ribbon and a delicious pearltone teal on the body. I've got these sweet tiny rhinestone flowers in multicolours on a roll, lined up like a ribbon ready to apply. I can put these in stripes on the body over the teal. At a diagonal they'd look really spiffy. See, you could copy me but you'd be drawing other symbols, making other colour and sheen choices, and coming out with utterly different boxes! So long as the market wasn't saturated with little boxes you wouldn't bother my sales possibilities too much. Well, in Saskatoon maybe, but I'm fairly confident that the other purchasers of these printers are too busy and wealthy to bother with such fussy work. It's very fussy, 12-15 hrs per box for both printing AND painting! It's not a way to make money, really, it's more a way to make a hobby that pays for itself and possibly some extra. You'd have to switch to resin in a mould and line the interiors with fabric and use an airbrush to make a similar product cost effectively. They wouldn't have as much bling nor sing. They wouldn't open up to show the amazing brushed satin finish of the 3d printer process either. I think people will be as fascinated by that as by the deep gloss shine of these things. After all, it all started because I wanted to play with the nail polish and I can't stand wearing crap on my nails.
Dammit. So I quit this, went and phoned our supplier and made arrangements to drive down for more. It's about a 40 minute drive and the dogs and I will thoroughly enjoy it. I might even make some vines! Yay! Getting out of the city before winter is GOOD.
So that, and that means I should right now be printing off my passport form and filling it out, not typing on a website about it. But just a couple minutes more...
I also went shopping yesterday. I tried the hobby and craft stores but they had nothing for me in terms of laquer. I did pick up a set of Testor's paints I don't expect to use, ever, but Dan might. I don't think they'll mix well with the nail polish. There were some groovy acrylic choices but it won't mix either so I'm faced with collecting a whole set of those and not using my rather large collection of nail polish. So after buying some groovy things for applying glitter and sparklies I popped over to Walmart. Sure enough, they had some crazy end-of-season sales with whole nail polish lines going for $1.50 a bottle. One little set of 10 for $5 was worth buying 2 of because the bottles were tiny, but they've got sparkle in every colour! Plus matching base colour. I picked up some "ridge filler" which turns out to be economically priced flesh tone paint. I put it on so thick it has to wait for sanding still longer. I need to treat this box with extreme caution because every layer releases and softens the whole surface. Unlike acrylics which remain hardened under the current working layer. the whole thing gets spongy and gummy and tolerates no pressure. Even the brush bristles can pull and move it! So I'll sand that thing till the plastic is showing through and then when I get a really nice surface I will use gold leaf on the ribbon and a delicious pearltone teal on the body. I've got these sweet tiny rhinestone flowers in multicolours on a roll, lined up like a ribbon ready to apply. I can put these in stripes on the body over the teal. At a diagonal they'd look really spiffy. See, you could copy me but you'd be drawing other symbols, making other colour and sheen choices, and coming out with utterly different boxes! So long as the market wasn't saturated with little boxes you wouldn't bother my sales possibilities too much. Well, in Saskatoon maybe, but I'm fairly confident that the other purchasers of these printers are too busy and wealthy to bother with such fussy work. It's very fussy, 12-15 hrs per box for both printing AND painting! It's not a way to make money, really, it's more a way to make a hobby that pays for itself and possibly some extra. You'd have to switch to resin in a mould and line the interiors with fabric and use an airbrush to make a similar product cost effectively. They wouldn't have as much bling nor sing. They wouldn't open up to show the amazing brushed satin finish of the 3d printer process either. I think people will be as fascinated by that as by the deep gloss shine of these things. After all, it all started because I wanted to play with the nail polish and I can't stand wearing crap on my nails.