Is it difficult to work on order?
My name is Victoria Kostina, I have been making designer dolls for over 15 years. I would like to share my experience of working on order.
I'll tell you how I came to this and why I'm going to give it up.
My history.
My passion for dolls has long remained a hobby for me. I studied a lot, tried different materials and designs to create dolls.
It took me a long time to create each work. And it so happened in our family that my husband took all the finished work for himself. He really likes my dolls, and he cannot refuse them, almost all.
Over time, I began to work faster, began to participate in exhibitions, and I really wanted my dolls to live with other people. I wanted to feel the feeling of being in demand, which is so important to every creative person.
Work to order has become a way out.
Over time, customers also appeared. Gradually, orders became more, more often they ordered a repetition of the same images from the budget line of my dolls.
On these orders, I honed my technique. Working on inspiration, my dolls turn out to be very different and the technique is developed more slowly.
Gradually, I came to understand that orders take time for creative development, and work on them turns into a routine.
Now I have increased the price of orders in order to reduce their number and, with pleasure, return to spontaneous work and study. And so that there are enough dolls both for home collection and for sale, I will create small thematic groups of 2-3 dolls.
The experience of working on order was generally positive for me and very suitable for my formative period.
The work to order has its pros and cons:
- suitable for dolls that will be in demand.
- the status of works decreases, these are no longer dolls in a single copy.
- repetition of the same image can lead to burnout.
- you will depend on the terms limited by the customer
- prices for work can be used to regulate the number of orders.
The question of sales is very personal for each master.
Some depend on sales revenue, others do not. Someone makes dolls suitable for work to order (portrait, reborn, easy-to-perceive images), while others do not. Someone is very hard-working, others work for a long time over each doll. Many different ideas come to someone, while others are close only to certain images. Someone has a lot of free time to quickly get the job done for the customer, while others have little.
These and many other factors will determine whether a bespoke job is right for you.
Material prepared Victoria Kostina
TOP 100 Daily Doll 2023
TOP 100 Daily Doll 2023
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