Commissions: ROUND SIX.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
My resolution this year: cut my Death Note usage to just five names a day (and ALL CRIMINALS, AARON).
KInd of wriggling things around here at heartshapedskull.com at the moment, doing a little Almost Spring Cleaning and suchlike. (Man, how long was that radio thing dead?) I’ll probably be adding things (hey, banners!) and shifting bits around for a little while yet, but nothing too drastic. The next big site update won’t happen until Vol. 3 is ready to roll out.
I decided to ditch most of the Google ads and go with Project Wonderful instead, mostly because they let you pick and choose which ads to allow on the site (“Yes on 8?” No on Google). If any of you guys use the PW, advertising here is super-dirty-cheap at the moment, so by all means, let’s get something cooler than Amazon up there.
I’ve got a couple of other money-making schemes in the works here, too, all in pursuit of what I like to call “living the dream.” Which in this case means “sitting in my own home, at my own desk, getting all my bills paid doing nothing but drawing Serenity Rose comics (preferably two a week) and maybe a few fun little sketch commissions every month, and never having to worry about getting any freelance work ever again.” God, it’s so close… I only need like $600/month to live right now. It’s like the dream is just barely pokable right now, but juuuuuust out of grasping distance. You guys have been just amazingly supportive of me and the comic, but I need to come up with some more interesting stuff to offer and some new strategies for bringing in more eyes…
Grasping schemes (upcoming):
1) PRINTS. Goodbye Crestfallen will definitely be published in paper form as soon as it’s done, but will it have all the color intact? Yeah… pretty unlikely, at least for now. So I thought I might offer full-color, hi-res prints of individual pages either through this site or something like etsy. Some new color prints would be lot of fun, too, if I could carve out some time. God, that’d be awesome.
2) NEW ORIGINAL PAGES. Several decades ago I promised to auction off some of the new Goodbye Crestfallen pages on good ol’ ebay. THAT TIME HAS COME. By the end of the month I’ll have a batch of four or five pages up for any and all possible bids. Requests?
3) LOCKETS. Heart-shaped skull lockets. Metal ones. I would dearly love to make this happen, but I just haven’t the speckiest of a speck of an idea how. We’ve thought about making them ourselves, but man, there just isn’t enough time in the day. Anybody have an idea?
4) ADVERTISING. Did I mention I made proper, I’m-serious-about-this, grown-up web proprietor banners? IT IS SO. One of them even has a little animation tucked in. If the Project Wonderful thing works out okay, it’d probably be a good idea to throw that money back into advertising on other folk’s sites, too….
5) COMMISSIONS. Oh wait… I’m already doing those! And hey, I have some pictures, even!
More stuff all up in the commissions gallery.
Anyway, if you’d like to commission your own wee drawering, send your request to serenity@heartshapedskull.com. The base price is $50, and $30 for each additional character on the same page. Shipping is all kinds of free within the U.S., and a mere $3 to parts beyond.
You could even etch it on your body permanently:
AWESOME.
Discussion (13) ¬
God damn it! Everytime I see a tattoo in your blog it’s one I wanted to get…
Ooh, lockets would be neat. Unfortunately, I have no idea where to get such a thing made, either.
Thank you again for the Death Note drawing! Definitely one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever received. 🙂
Hmmmmm…. i know how to do lost-wax silver casting, but not how to make molds for multiple copies….. plus i don’t have the gear, alas….. too bad, ’cause if if i did i could prolly crank ’em out for around $10-15 each (assuming a little under an ounce of silver, & guestimating for the fuel etc)
I do know of a place that will make molds for reproductions, but still would need at least $1-200 in other gear.
Ooooooooooo….I do hope you’re able to make the lockets!
I’ve wanted one for a long time!
The new commissions look epic, as always…
and as soon as I scrape some monies together I plan on asking you to drawr a little something for me.. XD
I can’t wait…T.T
and prints? yes…that sounds good. you should do that. <.<
I think the site looks quite spiffy Aaron! I may have to bid on that Project Wonderful space sometime soon. It’s especially nice to see you on Twitter though!
If you’re able to manage the lockets, may I be so bold as to also suggest lockets or even plain old necklaces of V’s scar-heart? I’ve wanted one of those for the LONGEST time. Anyway, can’t say I can help you as to wear to get the heart shaped skulls made, but I will say once they are I’ll definitely order one.
And I see my Hope and Vicious commission made it to the gallery like you had said in the e-mails. That’s awesome.
I would suggest looking into custom jewelry places in your area or online. Not sure what kind of prices you’d be looking at, might be expensive. Although if you’re not too picky about the shape, you could get regular heart shaped lockets and have the eye-holes and tooth-lines engraved on them. It wouldn’t be very authentic though, given that you’d lose the heart-shaped skull’s signature square-ishness.
Also, on the topic of merchandise, I seem to remember you stating, quite adamantly in fact, that there would be Sera dolls. Quite a few years ago that was. Just saying. Plushies of goblins and trolls and ogres would be cool too. or maybe humbly. or fangee.
lockets would be wonderful,I know I would purchase one.
Get in touch with a retailer that specializes in alternative jewelry, i good one I can think of off hand is Alison who runs RockLove out of NY http://www.rocklovedesigns.com/ I purchased the scalpel necklace she made (from her face to face),and i am really happy with it.
YAY!!! IS CALVIN I LEARNED THE HISTORI WHEN JUST ONLY HAPPY NOODLE BOY (CHILD)
i see the banners of sera and just only wonderfull yeah i like that
i think you could easily self-produce lockets at relatively low cost overhead if you did them in pewter instead of more costly metals. making the inital molds and such would take casting equipment- here’s a pdf that might help if you want to go that route:
http://www.pewtering.com/pdf/PewterCastingSupplies.pdf
or you could, as others have said, have someone else mass-produce them for you wholesale, like these guys:
http://www.castinghouse.com/
really, though, it depends on how many you would want to be made, how professional you want them to look, how functional, materials, engravings, etc… i’m all for the d.i.y. methods, but i also have to say- there are lots of little foundrys all over america owned by private people who would love to have the business. so, it’s a win-win either way if you do that… also- have you thought of making serenity rose single-cast action figures? there are sites that’ll do that way cheap, i know- look in the magazine “previews” for examples- and doing it yourself wouldn’t be hard if you don’t plan on having any packaging other than small cardboard boxes to put them in. i just know they’d be a huge hit. and as long as you’re on the merchandising train, you should make some more t-shirts- with logos on the sleeves, and on the lower side parts or other creative ways. -just some ideas.
I think Joseph has a great idea with CastingHouse.com. I’d love a real Heart Shaped Skull locket. Fuck yes.
Also, that Calvin and Hobbes tattoo is bitchin. Kudos to whoever penned that on to someone’s arm.