• Step 7, back on track

    Johan R. Botha • 10/26/2015 at 08:12 • 0 comments

    Right, so the good folk over at House4Hack jumped in to save the day. I don't really have photos of all of this.. but I'll give a quick rundown of events.

    After A LOT of manual labour the new master copies got sanded and prepped for molding. The new silicone mold is for rotomolding, and the Dinos come out pretty great.

    Only issue remaining is that I need a RotoMold.. the new material is too sticky to be rotocasted by hand.

    Along with that, courier service is secured, website up, pre-orders sold out, every detail ready to rock and roll.. except of course the rotomold and packaging.
    (Why is something as simple as packaging always the hardest part? I swear if someone can just start a competent packaging company, they'd make a killing. Even if it's a little more expensive. #feelingTheFustration)

    Oh, and the website is www.cutethings.co.za


  • Step 6, Epic Fail

    Johan R. Botha • 10/26/2015 at 08:03 • 0 comments

    So the above mentioned Johan managed not only to waste a lot of money and time, but also to destroy the Master Copy. That was quite a setback... financially and almost 2 months in terms of time.

    So I ordered 2 more 3D Prints, having learnt that a backup is more than just a good idea. And started from scratch, again.

  • Step 5, Unexpected Help

    Johan R. Botha • 06/18/2015 at 07:43 • 0 comments

    Someone, also named Johan (Johan's are just awesome), offered to help me with the production of the Dinos. Whooohooo! He said that he'll make the mold for me, on loan, which will be paid back, and with the setup for production. I'm planning to have an initial batch of 100 made. To do that, there's a lot of work to still be done. But I'll keep you posted. :)

  • Step 4, where things go wrong

    Johan R. Botha • 06/18/2015 at 07:39 • 0 comments

    Having done something similar with Candles, I was quite confident that I can make the mold and cast the resin version myself. Oh, how wrong I was..

    The silicone I used for the Candles was RTV24, it takes a while to set in, which means you have all the time in the world to get the bubbles out. However, the Mold Max 30 that I got from AMT gives you 6min.. it was just impossible. There's less bubbles in an Aero. (And AMT didn't give me enough silicone! When all your clients work with volume, why would you only supply products in kg!!!!?)

    Anyhow, this was an expensive mistake that literally brought the project to a stand still.

  • Step 3, Sanding and prepping the master copy

    Johan R. Botha • 06/18/2015 at 07:24 • 0 comments

    This nearly killed me! Took 3 days of sanding and spraying primer. The only limit being how strong my hands are. I used 3 different types of sandpaper, and normal red-ish primer. The reason I went for red (green would work better) was so that I can see all the bumps and imperfections in the light. You can't do that with white or black.

    But I got it to be perfect. So it was time well spent. Time to put him into production.

  • Step 2, Order the 3D Print

    Johan R. Botha • 06/18/2015 at 07:18 • 0 comments

    Although I know a lot of people with 3D Printers, the simplest way to get my hands on the 3D Print was to buy it from one of the guys in a Cosplay Group that I follow. Cost about R100, but was done the next day. So I'm happy. :)

  • Step 1, the 3D Model

    Johan R. Botha • 06/18/2015 at 07:15 • 0 comments

    Because I already had the 3D Models from the CGI Renders, this step was the easy one.. cleaning the model and prepping it for a 3D Print.