Really not just artists, but even with the big companies, marketing, accounting, PR.... all those jobs, NONE of them are easy or fun. they are ALL hard work.
With my IMVU work, 3ds max itself cost $3,500 and I spent nearly every waking hour for a month and a half learning how to use it (many people say it takes about a year of study before you can really work with it). I worked about 60 hours a week for a loooong time to build up enough inventory and advertise enough to start generating some business. I did all my own layouts, catalog pics advertising and marketing. Bought a $2,500 screen tablet to make texturing faster and easier, although the bulk of my business came from meshing, not texturing.
Point is, I don't know about you all, but every job I've ever had, no matter what it was, I always worked hard and did my best. I don't appreciate anyone saying that my work is less important or less worthy of protection than someone else's just because they handle multiple facets of the business themselves, or put a lot of hours into their work. Because they aren't the only ones! Faaaar from it!
I've just been really depressed lately and the over-glorification of bjd artists and the disregard for the employees that handle other aspects of the business and other types of artists has been even more depressing for me. I mean yeah it's one thing to focus on bjd artists because this is a doll forum, but still, even though some dolls may be mass produced and may not look as good, those artists still work hard as well. But they have even more limitations on them being that they have to stay within guidelines for mass production.
Also have to add that I COMPLETELY agree here:
It is the simple fact that I, personally, find it less disgusting to give my money to a recaster, than pay the insane prices people ask for some discontinued dolls on the market place. To me, it seems phenomenally unfair that an owner makes more of a profit on their dirty, damaged, often incomplete doll, than the original company did.
from what I have see with recasters, (and I may not be fully well informed here but this is the impression that I get) they tend to offer dolls like what Okami posted above there or copies of VERY expensive dolls where their reproductions are less than half the cost of the originals.
I think that if it was between paying $200 for a recast or $300 for an original, that most people would just save up a little longer and buy the original. But the recasts and buys seem to mostly be things like $700-$1,200 dolls being bought at $200-250 (typically 1/3rd or less the the price of the original) so I tend to think that the people that buy these particular recasts really wouldn't buy the originals anyway.
Again, not saying it's right, it's just my observance.
I don't know why I keep reading this thread... it really compounds my depression.
