Silver Boar - Small Status Update - 27th September 2016

[Lethn]

I have gotten myself set up on the decentralised Twister: http://twister.net.co/

Feel free to add me, I'll be posting up updates there as well as on this thread. my username is "@lethn" I also have a seperate account for if you just want updates on my Jewellery "@silverboar".

[Lethn]

You'll have noticed I've been pretty quiet lately on this thread, mainly because I'm busy working! I currently have 9 Oval gemstone settings on the go ( two of which are from earlier and I've decided I'm going to get them finished off ) I also have a rectangle setting lying around that I need to finish and will find later to show you for a Roze Quartz gemstone, most of these I plan on turning into necklaces but I have a couple I will turn into earrings as well using some Malachites and Amethysts I have.







These ones are getting there, just need a bit more soldering and polishing and they'll be ready to go



On the drawing part of my work I think I have just about figured out after bickering with people what was going on with my artwork, artists will probably only get this and be interested but the rest of you will have definitely noticed how annoyingly flat my artwork was, well, turns out I can scientifically explain that now. The way I do artwork I practice my anatomy and memorise the shapes involved when creating characters, there is nothing wrong with the method I was using to learn as artists use it all the time, what I did wrong was I only memorised the front and side ( At this point I'm sure most Artists reading this will go DUH! but that shows you I'm still learning ) so whenever I tried to draw original characters using my knowledge of anatomy I would always revert to the front view by default because that was the only anatomy knowledge I had in my head, I had looked at angles but not enough. What made me realise this was that I had memorised how to draw a mannequin from several angles and could construct a character from several angles absolutely fine, but I just hadn't memorised the shapes I needed to draw for the full figure at the end stage from different angles.

Since you'd hardly draw manga directly from the front all of my work has ended up looking very flat and unrealistic even at times when I'm actually aiming for realism or I want something to look believable, I'm happy to report now though that I am now drawing at angles and everything is improving pretty dramatically, it will take a bit more work before I will show it but you'll see what I mean the moment it's posted up, I think I'll use that manga page I posted earlier as a way of comparing the two images.

Hopefully this will mean that I will be able to put out more artwork now and in greater quantities, in other Jewellery news I have done some researching and I know how to refine scrap silver etc. now, I have also found somebody who can professionally make me a Coin Dye ( Coin Stamp ) both of these processes will take some setting up, more research and also money, so it's something that I'm keeping in mind for the future, whether or not I can expand into coin minting and silver refining will depend on how well the products I have got planned sell.

[Lethn]

Small update to show you how I'm getting on with my artwork and the manga! As I said I would before, I'm posting a comparison shot between that old crappy manga page I drew and the new one, a few obvious points, this is still a WIP, I have to finish the hands off and I'm re-thinking my colour scheme to make it more like how a manga should look because I keep using too many dark colours. The main difference you will see is in the character as I never really had too much of a problem drawing the simple shapes involved in backgrounds before but now the character looks a lot more like it's part of the background than just a weird flat character.

Shit flat character drawing that I had earlier in the thread



Improved character drawn much more 3D and with more form and a cleaned up background

[Lethn]

Just to let you know guys I'm still carrying on with things, I am currently working to get everything finished and will be posting a BIG update in time, meanwhile though I've continued practising and improving my skills, I am currently learning how to do granulated pieces ( small grains of silver soldered onto Jewellery to make patterns etc. ) and I'm almost ready to set my first faceted Topaz gemstone, I have four of these and I will be putting them up for sale!

Faceted Topaz Necklace WIP









Granulated Ring WIP

[Lethn]

I'm continuing my studies with 2D Artwork so I can keep improving and holy shit did I stumble on what I could possibly describe as the most amazing tutorial on light and shadow in artwork I have ever seen, if you're struggling with the painting shadow etc. properly this tutorial may help you a lot, simply because it goes into lots of detail on the actual science of how light casts shadow and so on so you don't feel like it's some random difficult to understand process.

http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/improve-your-artwork-by-learning-to-see-light-and-shadow--cms-20282

I swear the best stuff is always in the deep web

Edit: Another construction technique specifically for foreshortening as well! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJWLaDSNBAI < I've been only experimenting a little but it's already dramatically helping me, I just need to get used to it.

[Lethn]

Small update on the manga, the proportions as you probably know were horribly borked so I fixed them, going to work on the hands some more too, the rest of the manga is being finished, trying my best not to give any dates until I'm actually done it's so hard not to give any dates and be too optimistic lol

[Lethn]

New Update! Two new necklaces with more to come!

Rectangle Topaz Necklace - 0.13BTC











Oval Sunstone Necklace - 0.13BTC














Both gemstones are natural, I also imported the Topaz from an online gem store in Thailand ( http://www.gemselect.com/?ModPagespeed=noscript )

I have three more of the Topaz stones on hand and I'm trying to decide what to do with them so if you guys decide you want to see more Topaz necklaces let me know, if not I've got plans to maybe try a small showcase piece with them and do something fancier.

[Lethn]

Vote on a cheaper Jewellery Design! I am currently designing a large amount of simple Jewellery pieces compared to my gemstone settings to try and attract sales, to help things along and involve more people I've decided to post my sketches up and let people vote on the ones they like the most rather than risk wasting time and money making a design nobody wants. The winning design will of course be the one that I focus on making but if there's a lot of interest in others as well I'll be happy to make them if people actually want to pay for them.

These designs will most likely range from £10 - £20 so that's roughly 0.04BTC - 0.08BTC at current prices, even less if the Bitcoin price goes up again.



If you have any ideas or slight changes you think would be nicer for these designs feel free to post here and let me know what you think. I will be posting up more an updating the poll as I come up with more ideas, to vote, vote for the number that matches with the Jewellery design on the drawing.

[Lethn]

Second set of Jewellery designs! Help out a small start up business and vote! Comments are welcome!

[Lethn]

Price: 0.05BTC


I will be posting up some of the cheaper Jewellery designs I have drawn as a final product, if you've noticed that my website has suddenly broken don't panic. I'm making some changes, if you want to make a purchase you can still do that with Bitcoin manually while I sort everything out, this piece is now up for sale, since it's so simple I could also have them and some of the other designs done as earrings.

More coming!

[Lethn]

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SilverBoarJewellery?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Good news guys! I now have an Etsy shop up and running, meaning I can accept credit card payments!

[jarvanIV]

I dont see much on the jewelry site..

[Lethn]

I'll be stocking up more over time, just getting things set up.

[Rawted]

Have you tried Etsy yet? The customers there would eat up your jewelry, especially if you produce more of the grungy/industrial style pieces. Plus, you'll actually have a targeted demographic, unlike here. I can help you get setup on etsy if you need, just shoot me a PM bud.

Great work thus far.

[Lethn]

Have you tried Etsy yet? The customers there would eat up your jewelry, especially if you produce more of the grungy/industrial style pieces. Plus, you'll actually have a targeted demographic, unlike here. I can help you get setup on etsy if you need, just shoot me a PM bud.

Great work thus far.

I just posted a link to my Etsy store.

[Rawted]

A couple of quick tips.

1. You need a minimum of 8 product listings before you will show up in etsy's internal searches, as well as their google shopping links.

2. Fill out your personal information. You don't need it to be factual, but you need to have something there with a picture. These women that frenzy on Etsy are big into that stuff. Make up a good story with a fake name if you want to remain anonymous.

3. Invest in a small light tent with photography lights. You can pick one up for around $20 on amazon. This will help stop the washing out of the colors in your photos. I would also recommend getting a grey card, and using a program such as Lightroom to post edit your photos. Alternatively, try using free sites such as picmonkey for the photos you already have taken (increase colors +white/black balance). The more your photos stand out, the more attention they will get. As it stands now, your photos don't represent the dramatic colors and superb craftsmanship of your items.

4. Add more descriptive text to your listings and tags on Etsy. People will want to know length of the chain, size of the gemstone, etc - common stuff. Adding more descriptive text will also increase your relevance rating within Etsy (leading you to show up in more targeted searches). You can repeat key phrases by slightly adjusting your wording. One of your chains can be described early on in the description as Sterling Silver, and later referred to as .925 silver. This way you start attaining relevancy for both terms people associate with sterling silver.

Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck bud.

[Lethn]

In that case I've got some pieces to finish! Oh and don't worry I'll fix the descriptions, these ones are just basic, thanks.

[Lethn]

You know something? I totally forgot to post some amber earrings awhile back that I did and I've also got some teardrop amethysts that are on the way too and yey! I now have 8 listings on Etsy so I can now be searched for.

[Lethn]

[Lethn]

Small announcement guys, I am getting set up on Open Bazaar now that they've released the windows version! So if you want to use their system to trade with me using an arbiter/escrow on there then you can! All my items will be listed up on their as well as this thread, my main website and Etsy.