This summer and after

It's been a while since I've published a "written only" post... and since it's the middle of summer, perhaps it's the right time to give a little background and outline the schedule I have in mind for the coming months.

As I wrote in a previous post, the fifth Marvel wave is almost over.

The publication of Virgo (another member of the Zodiac Team) is almost upon us, and the last five figures I'm already working on will follow. These are, not in the order they'll be published, the following:

1-Prism

2-Lady Dorma

3-Megaman

4-Shard

5-Lady Deadpool

Consistently with my work (the real one...) I hope to complete all of the five by the end of the summer.

This way, I can start the second wave of X-Com Custom Figures.

The second wave of X-Com includes another 27 miniatures that I've already printed and have been waiting for a year to be customized, painted, and placed on their bases.

I selected most of these figures as excellent candidates for the X-Com collection, requiring only a few small adjustments with green Milliput—in short, a lot of painting and very little sculpting.

Since the beginning of this blog, the conversion to 3D has been a major innovation, minimizing the material costs of this hobby. In fact, I'd say costs have been reduced by 90%, while production has quadrupled, as the numbers confirm.

Over the next few weeks, I've also planned to print the figures that will be issued with Marvel Wave 6 and with X-Com Wave 3. I started out with the idea of extending both the Marvel and X-COM collections by another 25 characters, but I have to say I got carried away... Now I find it very easy to work with softwares like SculptGL and 3DBuilder, and as you can see in my videos, I'm also supplementing my works with some small AI tools and add on.

Instead of expanding with another 50 figures... I've basically already published 169 on the Cults3D website!!!

Meanwhile, I've procured 4 liters of resin to be ready for production, but if I've done my calculations correctly, between bases and figures, I'll need at least double that amount.

I'll only count what I've managed to print at the end of the summer, and what I'll have printed will all (finally) be 100% e-Custom, created by me, along with a few e-sculpts made from scratch.

Soon you'll also see the first bases with my logo printed, again thanks to the 3D printer. They might look a little crappy... but it's stuff I printed, as I said, a year ago, and I'm certainly not throwing it away, but I have to be honest: after a year of training on e-sculpt, the difference between how I worked at the beginning and how I work now is huge. Bt this will be visible probably in a year or two when this stuff will be published!

Finally, I'll leave you with a comment on the management of Skif-Socials... Aside from the work I put into each miniature (from selection, printing, modeling, and painting, for a total of about 30 hours per figure), I also put a lot of work into the videos and YouTube channel (always with highly "creepy" tools worthy of the worst hobbyist ever... a cell phone camera and a camera stand made out of cardboard...). On average, with about 30 minutes of footage, I manage to keep videos under 3 minutes and shorts under 50 seconds, which are my standard. Publishing a video, especially choosing the soundtrack, takes me at least 6 hours, which is quite a lot...

The response to my videos is paltry, barely more than a few dozen views and 20 followers, but at least my shorts often get over 1000 views, and that, let's say... helps morale!!

It's a different story for the Skif_MC channel on Cults3D, where I have almost a hundred followers and a lot of people who appreciate my e-customs.

The blog, this Blog, on the other hand, remains silent, with very few comments... and the silence is like deep space... I hope this changes, because the blog is over 13 years old, and I'd like to bother you for at least that many more!

Best regards from your little Skif.