妖怪世捨て人The ramblings of a recluse.2019-10-28T13:50:47http://reader.tymoon.eu/Copyright (c) 2014, TymoonNET/NexT
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2020 Calendar - Confession 893782019-10-28T13:50:472019-10-28T13:50:47shinmerahttps://shinmera.com/shinmera@tymoon.eu<p><img src="https://filebox.tymoon.eu//file/TVRneE1BPT0=" alt="header"><br>
<a href="https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/371">Last year</a> I, mostly on a whim, decided to make a small physical desktop calendar. Much to my surprise quite a few people were interested in it, even some from Japan, China, the US, and various countries in Europe. However, last year was pretty stressful, as I came up with the idea for the calendar a bit too late, and had to really hurry to get it all together in time for the new year. This year I decided to <a href="https://gum.co/yukari2020">try again</a>, and fix the mistakes I made last year.</p>
<p>So yes, I made another calendar! It's still the same format as last year: 13 spiral-bound A6 pages on 300g paper.</p>
<p><img src="https://studio.tymoon.eu/api/studio/file?id=1571" alt="photo"></p>
<p>Unlike last year, though, I've made a bunch of improvements that I'm quite happy with. First, I decided very early in the year to start working on it, and thought of a theme to go with: the deep sea. I then gathered a tonne of references and organised them to form a little story throughout the 13 pages of the calendar. The result is a small journey from the shore down to the deepest depths of the ocean. Along the way I again incorporated a bunch of curious sights, to keep the same theme. I think it worked out pretty well overall, and the deep sea theme lent for some striking scenes.</p>
<p>I also created a new layout for the calendar, to suit the theme a bit better. And finally, I changed from the ad-hoc PayPal payment button to a much more convenient and reputable store <a href="https://gum.co/yukari2020">on Gumroad</a>. Gumroad has been very convenient to use, both from the seller and buyer side, so I hope that improves the checkout experience a bit!</p>
<p>I really hope that people are still interested in my calendar this year so that I can make another one next year. I even have a theme for that in mind already!</p>
<p><img src="https://studio.tymoon.eu/api/studio/file?id=1572" alt="overview"></p>
<p>I ordered the first batch of calendars today, and should be able to start shipping them out within the week. I'll keep the store open until the end of the year, so there should be plenty of time to get one still. If you want to get it in time for the new year though, I recommend at least ordering before December. The post around that time tends to get crazy, so I can't really guarantee how long it would take to arrive.</p>
<p>I wanted to close by saying that, even if you don't buy anything, that's completely fine! I'm very happy if people appreciate my drawings at all, and I'm still bewildered that anyone would even spend their money on it. Thank you very much, for your continued readership and, uh, looking-at-art-ship? Really, thank you.</p>
<p>本当にありがとうございました!頑張ります!ところで、先々月前から、漢字がたくさん勉強します。私の日本語は上手になるのはいいですね…</p>
2019 Calendar - Confession 833712019-01-04T18:58:432019-01-04T18:58:43shinmerahttps://shinmera.com/shinmera@tymoon.eu<p><img src="https://studio.tymoon.eu/api/studio/file?id=1423" alt="header"><br>
It's already 2019, and last year I decided, for the first time ever, to sell some of my art. Apparently more people wanted to buy my art than I expected, so I thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about it all and my future plans.</p>
<p>This project started with the usual problem around the holiday season: not knowing what to gift to people on Christmas. Inspired by one of my favourite artists, <a href="https://twitter.com/malbeni">Malbeni</a>, I decided to make <a href="https://studio.tymoon.eu/view/1348">a calendar</a> for the coming year filled with my own layout and drawings made specifically for it. But if I was already going to go through all that trouble, I thought I might as well try and sell it on the net in case anyone was interested. It turns out, genuinely much to my surprise, that people are indeed interested in buying things, but I'll talk about that in a bit.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for me I got this idea pretty late – mid November if I recall – so finding the time to draw all the pictures, do the layouting, find a print shop, and finally print things was quite hard. The calendar included 13 drawings, each of which took around 2-4 hours to do, so that alone cost me around 40 hours. Mix that together with university shoving end of semester exams in my face it was a really exciting time!</p>
<p>Finding a print shop that had the exact format I wanted also proved to be quite tough. I emailed several shops, and they either didn't reply at all or offered fees that were absurd like 300 Chf for 20 copies! Finally I did manage to find an online print shop that offered a reasonable rate, though the reviews made me worried that things might not arrive on time. Even though it cost me a lot of days, I'm really glad I decided to first do a test print too, as that showed I had screwed up with the colours and some of the pictures would have turned out way too dark. In the end things arrived on the Wednesday before Christmas, so about just in time for the gifting season. I'm honestly not sure what I would have done if it hadn't arrived on time.</p>
<p>The way I planned things out I needed 8 calendars for gifts, and the rest would be up for sale. I thought I was going to sell at best around 10 copies, so having two left over didn't seem so bad and the final order was 20 pieces. Unfortunately it seems this was another mistake on my part as I've now received more than three messages from people that wanted to buy a copy but couldn't. I'm very sorry! I'll try to do better next year. There might also still be a chance for me to order more, if there is enough interest. To explain, here's a breakdown of the price:</p>
<p>The calendar was put up for 12Chf + 5Chf shipping. It <a href="https://www.post.ch/en/private/sending-mail-privat/private-international-letters/private-priority-letter">really costs 5Chf to ship internationally from Switzerland</a>. The 12Chf price was calculated by a <a href="https://www.wir-machen-druck.ch/monatstischkalender-zum-aufstellen-13-blatt-12-monate-deckblattdin-a6-hoch-105-x-148-mm.html">production cost from the printers</a> of about 3Chf ammortised over the 20 copies, leaving me with 9Chf profit per example. If I wanted to sell another batch of 5 calendars, each calendar would cost about 7Chf to produce due to the base price of the print shop. I'm still willing to do this, as long as I get at least 3 orders, so if you want a calendar but couldn't buy one yet, I've <a href="https://studio.tymoon.eu/view/1348">reopened the offer</a>.</p>
<p>I've already started working on next year's calendar, but I will definitely make sure to avoid the mistakes I made this year. Namely, I will:</p>
<ul>
<li>Finish all drawings around October</li>
<li>Remember to do CMYK conversion and colour profile adjustments</li>
<li>Finish test print and final adjustments preferably before November</li>
<li>Open orders around or on the first of November</li>
<li>Order more than 20 examples for the first bulk</li>
</ul>
<p>To close this off, I want to thank everyone again for their interest! It's been a really heartwarming and happy surprise whenever I got another email from PayPal or when people expressed their interest in the calendar. Thank you very much, I sincerely hope that I can do better next year.</p>
<p>よろしくお願いします!</p>