[Den]

Originally Posted by Kaderin Triste

Awww. Bummer!
I don't know how common the one she wants is. Hopefully fairly common. I haven't really bought dolls in like 4-5 years (because I realized I was never going to display them, so there was no point in buying more) so I haven't kept up with them for a while.
Although the Venus dolls have the perfect skintone for one of my characters so I wish I had bought one of those even though I can't do any of the repainting that I would need to.
XP
I used to browse Etsy for people to make custom repaints, but they all charge up to $200-300 depending on how much you want done. And I don't think I've seen any for cheaper than $150.
I mean...I can understand charging for time, labor, and supplies...but that much seems a bit excessive for repainting such a small doll...
*shrug*

It's because it takes a lot of prepwork and it is actually very labor intensive, and it can take awhile to get everything done, especially really complicated things. Using the $150 as an example, after you take out the cost of paints, sealer, pastels (in some cases, chalk pastels are used for certain effects), and miscellaneous supplies (paper towels, water, etc), that leaves anywhere from $80-120.

Depending on the work being done, and the artist, it can take anywhere from eight to almost 48 hours for a faceup/repaint to be done. Sometimes, it's even longer. That's anywhere from four to six hours a go of sitting, hunched over a desk, doing very detailed and fine work, with a lot of risk of eye strain.

This means, depending on how complicated of a faceup/repaint the client wants, most doll artists might not even be making minimum hourly wage on one job.

[Kaderin Triste]

I mean, I get that supplies cost money, but how many dolls can you do with the supplies supplies? Because if I used the same logic with my loom knitting or chain mail, I'd be charging $50+ for a stuffed animal, $100+ for a baby blanket, or $60+ for a bracelet. And no one's going to pay that.

[SparX]

That depends on the cost of the supply. Buy cheap supplies you get dolls like the one I have with lumpy paint. And Paint in general is not very cheap.
And depending on the size I can forsee 50 for a stuffed and 100 for a baby blanket, depending on the size of the bracelet and if you can find chainmail fanatics would be if you could sell that for 60.
The biggest thing is not selling yourself short as an artist. I see this happen often also with my friend who does hobby professional cake baking, where people expect things super cheap because it's a one time use item. But it takes her at least 2-4 hours to bake the cake, then up to 6 hours decorating with fine details and even spray painting details on late at night, so of course shes gonna charge 200 for a 2 tier 25 person cake.
Artist often sell themselves short just to get their product out -enter starving artist joke- so when it comes to making sure you get paid for your work, people trying to make a living off this will be charging what they feel they are worth.
It took me 5 days in between real life and work to make that one doll. Even if someone was just sitting there doing it for hours, they have to let the paint dry and spray a set before they can continue on the next layer.

Another thing is marketing. The OOAK Doll collectors are also the kind of people spending hundreds on other kinds of dolls too (Like porcelain or resin ball-jointed) So considering that 150 would be a regularly priced doll.

[Kaderin Triste]

I mean, don't get me wrong, even though it sounds like I am, I'm not saying that $120-150 is unreasonable for an ooak doll. It just seems like a lot to shell out. It's a reasonable price, just more than I'd normally ever pay. And that's really only because I currently can't afford it. I'm not saying at all that the price isn't fair. When the costs get upwards of the $200-300 range is where I start to question it a bit...for that much, I better be getting a reroot and/or custom clothes too.

And believe me, I can't even sell a baby blanket at $60. I have tried. About $20-40 is the most that people are willing to pay. Quote a price any higher than that and you get the "I'll think about it" response.
Same with the jewelry, stuffed animals, etc.
And it's because hobby crafters, with full time jobs can make and sell stuff for super cheap prices because it's just something they do "to keep busy" and not because they need the money. Which screws the rest of us out of money.
About the only thing I really could sell for a real price are my scaled gloves and that's only because they're not super common yet, although people are getting into making them more.

And with the supply stuff, what I mean is that yeah, sure the supplies can run you up to $100 easily probably more than that even, depending on what you use. But how many dolls can you get out of those supplies? If you buy $100 in supplies, but only use 1/4 or 1/5 of the supplies (paint, etc) per doll then really the supply cost is only $20-$25 per doll.

[Den]

Not to mention, those smaller dolls are harder to paint and do work on than the bigger ones. So most of your costs are labor. Especially for quality work. and like was stated earlier, gotta wait for layers of paint and sealer to dry.

[SparX]

I designed these a while ago and my boss made it into stickers finally =D
Now they get handed out at stores that we are in across western washington =D

[Kaderin Triste]

Nice! I remember you working on that design!

[daikokunyo]

That's so cool SparX!

[SparX]

It took so long XD
Hopefully he will do the posters soon too now

[Den]

I'm still trying to find a knitting pattern for a cow so I can turn it into a Belted Galloway... and I also wanna make a Highland cow...

[Death by Mirrors]

Ask and ye shall receive. cow #1 (slightly cartoonish), cow #2 (more realistic)

[Den]

*griiiiin, bookmarks site*

[Kaderin Triste]

Hmm...I should try to make a shark soon.

[SparX]

My new derptime project, playing with symmetry and perspective with my new brushes. . .

[Kaderin Triste]

The image shows as broken/doesn't show...but that could be my phone. When it is out of it's data it doesn't like a lot of images.

[Death by Mirrors]

Probably your phone, I can see it fine. It's a black street leading to the horizon, with silhouettes of trees to both sides and a galaxy background sky. Mainly blue and purple color scheme.