I know, i Know, nubbins led you all to believe that i would "never show my face in public on this forum again" well he was wrong. Although i do not have the time to read through the 100+ messages in my inbox, and i dont have the time nor the want to participate in his witch hunt thread. I am going to take a few minutes to clear a few things up as about 90% of what he and his band of misfits have lead you to believe is not true in any fashion. I'm going to work backwards here as its the fastest way to set the record straight.
1: Deliverymans coin (the lion)Nubbins is 50% correct.
Oh, okay, so he stole artwork and reproduced it without permission at the request of the buyer. So much better.
When you buy a commercial license for a stock image you can use it for whatever you want, In the case of Deliverymans coin the exact lion on the coin is not one i provided, I do not have the license for that and should not have carve it on the coin. I sent Deliveryman a design with a lion head on it, NOT THE ONE ON THE FINISHED COIN. Deliveryman sent me back a sketch of what he wanted stating that he was OCD about things being symmetrical and wanted the lion head that is currently on the coin. I was un-aware that he grabbed the image from a stock images site or i would have requested he provide a copy of the license for it.
2: The processyes my clients get a sketch of their designs before i begin carving, I lay out the design on canvas with charcoal until it looks the way i want it (THIS IS CALLED SKETCHING ITS WHAT YOU CALL IT WHEN YOU PUT A PEN, PENCIL, PAINT, CHARCOAL OR OTHER MATERIAL TO CANVAS, PAPER, OR WHAT HAVE YOU),then scan in into the computer to send to them for approval. i have NEVER not ONCE claimed that i drew the individual elements that make up any of the coins, but in any event, any design element that is not my own I OWN THE LICENSE FOR and can legally use them. The witch hunt would lead you to believe this makes me a fraud. If that is the case, then they better also start threads for Smoothie, Casicus, Kialara, and a half dozen other metal coin makers as they all have stock image elements in them. But we all know the mob mentality does not operate on logic or reason. If the client wanted me to draw out my own art design, i.e. draw them an original lion. i have no problem with that, but they are also going to pay dearly for that as well as my original artworks cost much much much more than i have ever charged anyone here.
3: All this crap that i own a laser machine100% false.
As i have stated before i dont need to spend $80,000 to transfer a design to wood. A sheet of carbon transfer paper costs me about $0.05. Once the final design is approved it takes about 5 minutes for me to turn the scanned design into a line drawing, then it is nothing more than printing it out and tracing it with carbon paper onto the wood. Then all thats left is to remove the wood around the lines. If that makes me a fraud then about every artist in the world is a fraud even before the days of technology and carbon paper artists use to use pot ash to transfer their sketches to canvas before starting work on the final piece.
Long and the short of it, if you were working with pine or super soft wood, most any of you could be taught to do the same thing in less than a day. the skill comes in when working with hardwoods, hardwood grain tears easy, it will splinter in a heartbeat if you are not careful, and its a quick way to cut off a finger if you dont know what your doing.
When you know what your doing, how hard to you think it really is to cut within the lines? i think they teach you that in grade school yeah? To lay out a little common sense for you, IF I OWNED A LASER I COULD SHIT OUT 10 COINS IN AN AFTERNOON, collect $50,000 and still have time to go to Disneyland. Yet it takes sometimes an entire month to clear out the wood around the design. But the mob mentality does not use common sense or simple logic.
4: The toolsYes i own a lathe, 3 of them in fact. One's a JET, one's a Grizzly, and ones a Oneway. One is used only for roughing out blanks as they vibrate like hell when out of round and i am not tearing up my $12,000 machine when i have a $1,000 machine that i can tear to pieces and replace once a year if i had to. The chisels, Yep they are clean, Nubbins asked for a picture of them, and i delivered, but since they are clean and sharp as hell i must be a liar, like he can tell that in a photo. HSS and Carbon steel is expensive, when you invest thousands in tools you take care of them. So sue me for keeping my things clean. That does not make me a fraud like the witch hunt wants you to believe. I also own a handful of rotary tools, a band saw, a table saw, 2 scroll saws, a joiner, a planer, a table router, a portable saw mill, a dozen or so drills, a drill press, and more other stuff that i dont feel like inventorying just to list here.
5: The Laserviking incidentOver the weekend after i listed IronMarvels last coin i got over a dozen e-mails of people wanting to put their name on coin #9. Laserviking was second, but he talked me into a deposit and holding off on the rest of the funds until this Friday 1/23/15. Laserviking was already only a few days in one of the most difficult people i have worked with on this forum, after only a day he made it clear his only real want was to re-sell the coin later because i am not making any more than the 10 2015 coins for this year. His greed and want of profit is NOT MY PROBLEM. When nubbins set out on his witch hunt to eliminate his competition Laserviking started messaging me with all his requests and hoops he wanted me to jump through and says " i am putting this coin on hold" until you act like a trained monkey and jump through these hoops. My reply, i told him privately, and now will share it publicly "fuck you, i am nobody's trained monkey" Is that professional? Who cares, i know i dont. Every business man at one time or another is going to find that one pain in the ass that will never be happy no matter what you do. I offered long before he even had a chance to read the Nubbins smear campaign to make the video for the community of his coin being done. Way more than i had to do as that was never part of the deal. I told him if it wasn't paid by friday he would forfeit it, and it two days coin #9 will be back up for grabs and he eats 1
BTC.
6: The art in generalLets just be clear here, I DID NOT COME HERE TO SELL YOU ART, IT HAS BEEN MORE OF A PAIN IN THE ASS THAN ANYTHING EVEN BEFORE NUBBINS SMEAR CAMPAIGN. I came here to buy wood from forum members. I still today do that daily, and that's is truly the only thing i give a rip about around here. Some months ago Blazedout asked me to make him a
BTC, so i made him a
BTC the day after it was done i got another message, then another then another, and another. I didnt have a problem doing some quick work in between real jobs (the ones that pay the bills and keep the lights on... The original 100% unique pieces i sell outside this place) to spread a little style around the bitcoin space. but the truth is, not to be an ass, but 90% of you here cannot afford me, not my original work, i knew it coming in to the forum and thats why i never offered it until the demand got out of hand that it was just easier to make a thread so i could stop answering the same questions 20 times a day.
Every single piece of art i have sold on this forum was hand carved, well i cant say that, every single piece of art i sold on this forum was either hand carved or turned on a lathe. Every single piece of art i have sold here is still just as beautiful as my 100% unique works, i just have not spend the dozens of hours in creating custom artwork to put on the art and had 0 complaints until Nubbins started in. If you own a ferrari, and your wind visor breaks, rather than spending $1,000 on a new one from the factory, you buy the aftermarket one for $200, does that make your car not a ferrari? Nubbins and his mob wants you to think so.
7: This shit about videosI have said it before and i will say it again,
I AM NOBODY'S TRAINED MONKEY. With that said, i run a business, actually 3 business. I make bitcoin art in my spare time when people ask for it. Beyond the pieces i have commissioned to be done through my galleries right now i have now 11 pieces that are needing to be done for forum members that are already paid for.
Let me tell you what i am not going to do, Put my life, my business, and my work on hold to start jumping through hoops for a badger and his band of misfits. This is my busiest time of year even without this forum. What better way to save on the taxes than to buy a $300,000 piece of corporate art for your lobby of your office building and write it off. There is no point in feeding a band of hungry badgers. Even before i have had a chance to make a video they have already told you " it will be of crappy craftsmanship and blah blah blah" These people do not care about truth or fact, that was not their mission from the start. so why be in a hurry like it matters.
What i am going to do...... I have about a half dozen projects for this forum that are having finish work done right now, that means applying the oils, sealers, poly, acrylic, and liquid glass resin. It takes time as most of that stuff has to dry for hours between coats. While its wet, i cannot have any dust in the air, i have a drying room but it is full of things going to clients outside this forum, so the forum pieces are drying in my workshop with 3 dust collectors and an air filtration unit running. As soon as they are dry, i will start carving on the next batch of pieces for the forum and i will set up a camera for those of you who wish to see how its done. NOT TO APPEASE THE WITCH HUNT. As a matter of fact if any of you are interested in learning the basics of wood carving i may even make an instructional video series for you on the forum here. Dont worry, i will put a sign with my forum name on it so you know its me. You can buy yourself a cheap set of chisels for about $20 on ebay, and to start with i recommend you grab yourself some pine. If i find there is enough interest and people serious about learning a new skill via the web and videos i will go ahead and do a video series as well.
8: Who am I?Honestly NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS. I am not here trying to sell you my brand. 90% of you cannot afford it, i make art pieces for the people here because they ask for it. There are all of 3 people on this forum who know who i really am, and every one of them would not sell that secret for $100,000 because they have a vested interest in keeping the secret. What i am is why you will never find out. I am, in fact a world famous artist, my pieces have been in the Smithsonian on exhibit at the Louvre and in the home of pompous wealthy people the world over. Even if you have the money and want to spend a ton of it, even buying one of my original artworks via this forum will not get you my identity. There is too much at stake.
In the art world, or for that matter any luxury goods world, taking a very well branded high end product and then doing lesser works and selling them for cheaper is called scalping. Scalping work is the fastest way to destroy a million or billion dollar brand. There is a reason you will never see Louis Vuitton or Prada "on sale" or "on clearance" If you do you can be assured its fake as every single distributor is bound by their contract that they are not allowed to do so, that makes the work valuable and always expensive, its called an access barrier. LV and Prada buy back their unsold merchandise and literally burn it, it keeps the brand managed and expensive. There is a book, its called "luxury brand management". Read it ! It is no different in the art world, Once i sold a piece of art for 7 figures, all my art values went up because someone was willing to pay 7 figures for a piece, because you do not get direct access to me ever without a referral my work is expensive. If it got out that i made some little bitcoin trinket for a few grand and sold it, every single piece of art i have ever made will lose value. There are some really great people here on the forum, and some of you i really like and enjoy talking with like Blazedout and OgNasty and TookDK, but i dont like any of you enough to risk millions of dollars and my life's work.
Likely story right? The only explanation is that you don't get an explanation. Well played WoodCollector!.......... Tough shit, i like some of you, but none of you enough to risk my life's work. No amount of trolling, accusations, or what have you is going to change that. The truth is, none of you people really matter to me. At the end of the day, most of you are just some kid, or adult that still has not grown up that are sitting at home behind a computer screen in a fight for virtual popularity. Collecting "likes" "thumbs up's" and "forum reputation" like its crack cocaine. Like i said, i like some of you, but none matter so much that i really have to care if i leave this place. Dont forget, i came here to buy wood not sell bitcoin trinkets. I could take a log, bash it with a mallet. throw it off a roof, cover it in poly throw it on display, call it something like "urban warfare" and sell it for more than most of your houses within a few months. That is a nice luxury to have, im not giving it up for anyone here.
9: So why bitcoin?My brother gave me some, and the technology is great. i may outright hate 80% of the people that are in bitcoin, but the technology is great and there are a handful of really great people in it too. Bitcoin saves me time and money on buying wood direct. Why make the art with so much at stake? I dont really, i have told quite a few people here no. If i make something for you when you ask its because i feel that you are vital to the community and deserve something to symbolize what you believe in. Some things are better than money, giving someone something they truly love is one of those things. So i take a few shortcuts to make something beautiful for you. Sue me. I didnt use a laser as accused, and your piece is still gorgeous. Carbon paper and stock images are not a crime. That's why they sell them.
10: the real truthDue to Nubbins business on this forum, he considers me direct competition, he is a great manipulator and knows how to work a crowd. His smear campaign is nothing more than trying to get an angry mob to get rid of me with outright lies or half truth's. If i had the time to waste on it i am sure at least 80-90% of what has been said on his thread is false, speculation, or smoke and mirrors. I dont have the time and i dont really care.
The summaryI'm not going anywhere, i'm here to buy wood, and i have talked to everyone that is selling it to me and they could care less what Nubbins is up to. I am making them money
Nubbins and his band of misfits are soon going to take over this thread with their banter as part of their witch hunt. I still dont give a rats ass, as long as it gives them something to do. I dont really have the time nor the desire to play games any more. Nobody here matters that much too me that i am going to get worked up over this any longer. If you dont like the facts or want to try and bend those as well, have at it. I can send you a bottle of ketchup, maybe that will make it easier to swallow. Truth Hurts.
If you want an art piece made, message me. If i have the time, we can work something out. If you want something 100% unique, then your going to pay for it, if you want something original in design, you get a little better price. If you want a video of it being made i'm ok with that as long as your willing to pay for the extra time it takes to set up, and do the video editing so it is a small enough file i can e-mail it to you. If your just another body behind a computer screen, i'm probably not going to make you something no matter the price.
Have a great day to some, the rest of you can choke
Edit: Pretty much 100% of anything posted below this post will not be read by me, i wasted an entire day on this issue yesterday and my clients both here on the forum who are waiting for work, and the real clients outside the forum deserve better from me. I have deadlines, i keep them.
