141–150 of 277 posts
- Building a robot - Neural algorithm AI - Multiplayer 2048 clone
Is there any secret to all of these, like outsourcing or anything, or are you just an insane genius? (which I don't doubt actually..)
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Really worth getting yourself to a gallery. Painting is applying pigment to a page using a liquid which then dries after it has been applied. This liquid could be water (for watercolours), an acrylic polymer compound (for acrylic paints) or linseed oil (for oil paints). The liquid used has its own properties which mean you can achieve different styles and textures. For instance, water colours absorb into the paper an…
And there's really no comparison between the leather in a Rolls Royce Phantom and the leather in a Honda Accord, and yet somehow Honda moves hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year. My question was not a refutation of the claim that original oil paintings are superior to prints. It was rather an honest attempt to understand the market opportunity of a business and whether the OP believes that a market for prints exi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really worth getting yourself to a gallery. Painting is applying pigment to a page using a liquid which then dries after it has been applied. This liquid could be water (for watercolours), an acrylic polymer compound (for acrylic paints) or linseed oil (for oil paints). The liquid used has its own properties which mean you can achieve different styles and textures. For instance, water colours absorb into the paper an…
And there's really no comparison between the leather in a Rolls Royce Phantom and the leather in a Honda Accord, and yet somehow Honda moves hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year. My question was not a refutation of the claim that original oil paintings are superior to prints. It was rather an honest attempt to understand the market opportunity of a business and whether the OP believes that a market for prints exi…
The market you seem to think doesn't exist absolutely does. It has been well served for well over a decade, in regional malls and more recently online.
What the OP is offering is a service above and beyond what can be achieved with a quick photoshop filter and a large format printer. They are trying to communicate that his product is qualitatively different from this - a unique, handmade piece of art. That is their entire value proposition.
This isn't about trying to produce a knock-off of a photoshop filter with cheap Chinese labour.
Congrats on the success. Thanks for sharing the business story too. Disclaimer: this is not a paid endorsement. I don't know Chris. But I happen to be a customer - having bought a painting as a gift. It is framed on the wall at this moment. My only feedback. Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. I'm sure you have researched the market and margins and all t…
> Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. Interesting if you read my comment elsewhere here that is a point that I made as well in a different way. That said perhaps there is a way to tweak the pricing so that they have different perceptions of quality for the price paid. Don't lose the low end market but give an option for those that want to pay more.
Who knows when robots take over every job, maybe all that will be left is jobs where there is some demand preferences for handmade over machine made. Art, "home-style cooking" etc...
Of course there are multiple ways to tweak pricing to add more discrimination and differential pricing. Interestingly art sales happen to be one of the few examples where a business can reach ~perfect price discrimination, don't see that too often outside of econ textbooks. I'm not going to suggest it to a business owner or anything, looks like he knows what he is doing, just wanted to share my experience.
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Have you ever seen an oil painting up close? There was an article awhile ago about using a 3d printer and scanner to make a "copy" of an oil painting. http://www.designboom.com/art/oce-3d-printer-creates-identic... Until Photoshop filters output STL files and color 3d printers come down in price, humans win.
Given that he already has the robot which can paint, wouldn't it be easy (well, doable at least :) to really paint the picture instead of printing it? There is no reason why this kind of painting should be any different from the manually produced.
The robot can replicate recorded movements - brush angle, pressure, timing etc.
An photoshop filter can shift pixels around to make a photo look like an oil painting.
What nobody has come up with yet (and would likely be hard to develop, or at least costly) is a way to translate a photograph, or a photoshop filter into the set of movements required to render it in physical oil paint.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And there's really no comparison between the leather in a Rolls Royce Phantom and the leather in a Honda Accord, and yet somehow Honda moves hundreds of thousands of vehicles a year. My question was not a refutation of the claim that original oil paintings are superior to prints. It was rather an honest attempt to understand the market opportunity of a business and whether the OP believes that a market for prints exi…
I honestly can't tell when you're being sarcastic, when you're trolling and when you honestly aren't getting something. The market you seem to think doesn't exist absolutely does. It has been well served for well over a decade, in regional malls and more recently online. What the OP is offering is a service above and beyond what can be achieved with a quick photoshop filter and a large format printer. They are trying…
Congrats on the success. Thanks for sharing the business story too. Disclaimer: this is not a paid endorsement. I don't know Chris. But I happen to be a customer - having bought a painting as a gift. It is framed on the wall at this moment. My only feedback. Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. I'm sure you have researched the market and margins and all t…
Hi! Thanks for the comment! All I can say is that the reason I don't charge more is it'd just be lining my pockets since the artists set their prices at a pretty consistent rate. I don't get lower rates from the artists than my competitors, so I just undercut them in final retail price instead.
What's wrong with lining your pockets? This is a business no?
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> Your prices felt too inexpensive. Knowing something was handmade I would have paid more than I did. Interesting if you read my comment elsewhere here that is a point that I made as well in a different way. That said perhaps there is a way to tweak the pricing so that they have different perceptions of quality for the price paid. Don't lose the low end market but give an option for those that want to pay more.
I read your comment and agree. I also agree it's difficult to properly articulate those benefits/interests some people have for handmade things vs machine-made things. Still just things though. Who knows when robots take over every job, maybe all that will be left is jobs where there is some demand preferences for handmade over machine made. Art, "home-style cooking" etc... Of course there are multiple ways to tweak…
My wife tries to make me dinner most nights. Honestly I feel better most times if I make it myself. I find it relaxing. I also enjoy driving a 7 speed manual transmission in my car (a 911). Most of them sold are PDK's. To me that makes it to easy, even if (as they argue) the performance is better. Most times I enjoy driving, not all of the time but I wouldn't consider it a benefit to have a self driving car except in certain situations it would be helpful.
Ug, is it just me, or does that he took money before actually having anyone to paint the pictures seem unethical? Would people have ordered if they had of known there were no artists as yet, or for that matter the artist were going to be friends of the website owner?
They ordered under the promise that I would deliver the product, somehow, and I did. I hired my friends who were artists in San Francisco to do them—at a loss too. That being said, worse case scenario would have been a refund, and most people paid via credit card which is interest free for 30 days anyways.
For me it's the difference between purchasing a product and investing in your business. If presented as an investment, where my money is going to enable you to produce the item for me, then I'd be fine with it, because I would know the current state of your business. Now, if I knew you had no artists and were just floating an idea I would most likely refrain.
The worst case scenario also assumes that the value of the product purchased is only the cost. What if it was purchased as a gift, with a specific timeline?
I do understand that this is a tried and true business practice, just one that I am not comfortable with when the customer is not aware of it.