New Store - Etsy.com

After closing my ebay store, I have opened up a new place just today at etsy.com which I found out about due to an article in the NY Times. The site looks like it generates a lot of traffic and sales intrinsically so this could be not only a great resource for my current customers to buy my items easily and securely, but also a place to gain new exposure from a large market of buyers who have never seen my stuff before.

It is still being constructed and there are currently no items for sale, but my new store's web address is http://www.minifigure.etsy.com/
They offer a widget-type thing that you can put on your website, and I am going to place one on my "Purchase" page instead of resorting to the PayPal shopping cart which I had planned on using for sometime now. I'm very pleased from what I see thus far and I have high hopes that this site will be keeping me very busy on those rainy days like today.

Custom Orders

Over the past few years I have made quite a few custom orders, and they constitute a large percentage of business that I conduct. There has always been a problem with custom orders though, many people want to be immortalized in the clay by having a portrait done in miniature and often I have to tell them why I cannot do it. The reasons are 1. The figures I work with are tiny, details are hard to pack in, 2. I’m just afraid to push my limits. I would often tell people that I would do a certain skin/hair/eye color and they would know it was them, but now I have decided to meet halfway with the customer. I will now actually attempt to make it resemble you, but it becomes butterflypersonized, which basically means that you are transformed into one of my creations but you were the inspiration for it. It gives me some artistic freedom from restrictions people tend to put on the piece, but it will (in all hopes) resemble you a bit.

My latest custom order of two little girls is the first in what hopefully will be many of my custom designs of people. I first sculpted the heads and then added them to the bodies when they were painted and finally made the hair. The patron did not want me to paint them brown so I left them the beige color the clay was already in. I think there is some resemblance, there are some issues with it that I have, but this is my first attempt and hopefully I will get better without resorting to caricatures which exploit features, not objectively present them.

So it goes.... I did the heads, the older sister first

...then the little sister whom I feel I captured more of as far as facial structure...

...next they got bodies, of course they didnt have breasts or anything, they are kids!

VOILA! What you see changed between two pics actually took hours...
Bam, got the curls going on and fully clothed, older sis puts her arm around younger to get some sense of togetherness.


... And finally the two were encased in a 5"x7"x5" cube which dwarfs the little inchlings. The patron wanted them to be surrounded by butterflies so thats just what they are. I cant say I love the end product, but the process of making them was definitely fun.

New Year, New Blog

Hello Two Thousand Eight! it’s a brand new year and that means a brand new blog. I was blogging away on myspace at http://blog.myspace.com/butterflypeople but the blog wasn’t about me, it was about the butterfly people which is me, but the human element was removed from that blog. The artist was removed which is strange when you think about it because any art when studied, if the artist is known, the artist is also significant. Anyone who wants to read it and its older posts is more than welcome to, its very bright and cheery, and features the pieces I’ve made during all of 2007, and part of ‘06. Things have changed since then, I have become full fledged artist. This doesn’t mean I was any less artistic, but I was on a journey from your usual 9-5er to a more independent way of life where your time is your time and your money is your money. Time is not necessarily money since you don’t get paid hourly, and the future is more uncertain since sometimes nothing is sold, other times many things are, such is the nature of art.

Through this new year, the blog will document the journey of yours truly, an artist who will try and make it freelancing, street vending, and independently managing his own finances in the greatest city on earth, Manhattan. You will either see me rise or fall by this time next year and hopefully when I reflect then, it will all have been worth it and a good experience for me. I am by no means unemployed, I will be working harder than ever, just in a different way. Stay tuned for some photographs of my latest pieces both large and small and feel free to visit my little piece of webspace at www.TheButterflyPeople.com.

Dolls or butterfly bitches?

Russia?  Japan?  Who knows, its everything I had put into one figure.

butt

Associates Degree

I found out not too long ago that on August 31st, 2007 (my birthday) I was officially awarded my associates degree which I was having problems obtaining from my last educational institution.  To say the least I was ecstatic, I didnt get anything for my birthday (not even a happy B-day from my dad who forgot!), but this definitely makes up for it! 

I felt a inkling of sadness though when I realized I didnt have anyone to share the news with, my sister I can bother with it but the only one who really ever cared was my mother, she would have been so happy.  Hopefully she is shining down, but it still hurts to be reminded that she is gone, forever.
but yay, I got my degree!  Now two more years and I can hopefully be writing about receiving my bachelors :)

new

Heres some of the latest stuff ive been making.


Ten little people only 1.5" tall!


Okay, the blue one is scary, I don't know if its an Indian God or what but its freaky. Ive changed the eyes and experimented on making anime-inspired eyes on some of them, it brings them to live when you compare them to the black beady eyes of the past… constant continuous evolution and progress, that's me!

All of these people are different, I love the little guy/girl (cant tell its gender, you decide) in the front on the right they are so cute. I also like the eyes on the one left of the blue, reminds me of my grandmother. The lady in the back right with dreads is cool because she has dreads, my first time using yarn from Guatemala. They are all fun, cant wait to get back out selling!