Whats New. . . Portland Wizardworld Comic Con O.o

Comic Con

I have got the go ahead from the managers from the Wizard World Comic Con that is coming to Portlandfor the FIRST TIME! Great balls of FIRE this is HUGE! 

Here the link to their website
Wizard World Portland Comic Con Website

This is a big event for me! I have so far 2 other firends of mine putting in the money for the booth! They will help me sell and talk to people since those that know me, knows that I am not that great on this.

Together the three of us have come up with a lot of good ideas for what to make and what colors to use. I am always open to new ideas and would love feedback!

What would you like to see color wise?

I am planning about $300 of supplies! Now I am going to be getting a ton of mixed sets of rings of different sizes so I can make many many different things!

The booth ispaid for already but I could use help paying for the materials! For those that wish to assist with the materials, let me know! I have some good ideas on paying you back for the assist as well as some products that you will get for free depending on your donation. Think of it like a kickstarter without being directly on kickstarter.

Something new~!

I will be doing something new. A Candy Cande Cord with a flower to make a complete bracelet.

Overlapping Scale Flower with a Candy Cane Cord Bracelet back

Front of the Flower CCC Bracelet

Overlapping Scale Flower

The flowers are relitively quick to make which is GREAT! I will be making some more of the Candy Cane Cord (CCC) in different colors!

Well let me know what you think! I will be posting pictures of the event and such!

Incoming supplies and a Referral system

Incoming supplies!

SO I am glad to announce that I will be getting about 10,000! rings in a day or so! *does a happy dance!*

This is exciting news because not ONLY will I be able to finish up a few commissions (like the responsible mailler I am) But I will get the chance to try out some AMAZING new weaves! 

There are about 20 weaves in all I want to try out and I will have MORE than enough rings to make each of them! MWUHAHAHAHA!

Thanks to this I will be doing another one of my teaching articles in the next day or so that goes over EACH of these weaves. I will be explaining their differences, my thoughts, etc so stay tuned for that!

Referral System

I am pleased to announce that I will be starting up a referral system! Now most of you are thinking "why is this so important?" Well let me explain. This system will allow you to make a percentage off of what I make when you refer a friend. 

So lets John does not get anything but he has talked to me and refered a friend that has made an order. Well John will get 20% of what ever I make. That includes the wage cost and even the material cost! 

Now I do have to know you in order to send you the money that is due to you if you do indeed refer someone. I can not have some one claiming to be John and ordering something just so they can get 20% of their money back (that would be cheating me and a gross abuse of the system) 

IF you have made an order in the past this bonus will increase to 30%! 

That is it for now! have a great day and show this off!

SCA Commissions!

So at the end of Heavy Armor fighter practice on the 10th I showed a few of theguys there my Full Persian 18g 1/4" 8" bracelet. (here is a pic of it)

Full Persian Bracelet in the center!

Now afew of them were REALLY excited about the prospect of a custom made Knights Chain! They had asked me to get them some prices and pictures of what it will look like etc. One of them asked for a Copper and either brass or Bronze mix. He wanted a picture and since Facebook gives me trouble I figured I will kill all the birds with a single stone and post this up here.

Now lets look at some bracelets and the costs. I am going to focus on full persian for the beginning and move on to half persian at the end.

Full Persian:

First let us see some pics of differnt materials and FP!

Aged Brass with Copper lines

Stainless Steel and Copper

Another pic of the aged Brass and Copper

These look great huh!

Now at 18g like my bright aluminium bracelet is only 8" long and the chain will be roughly 3-4 times that length. This makes materials with shipping come to about $20 for the 18g. 

Now because bronze, copper, and brass are somewhat softer material to deal with, I have to increase my hourly price because Ihave to be careful with them, now that does not increase my time, thankfully. 

Now when looking at a BIGGER version of this in Copper (14g) Material costs come out to be $60! That includes the shipping. The reason it costs so much is the place I order my rings from (since being homeless robs my capability to make my own rings) sell by the Ounce. So smaller gauge wire is thicker so heavier which means less in a ounce, not to mention that shipping gets higher. Thankfully  I do not need as many rings though. I still want about 800 rings for saftey purposes (have more than enough rings and you make sure that you do not need to order more!)

Half Persian:

Here is a picture of mixed half persian

Copper and Stainless steel (gives you the feel of how it alternates)

This is a square ring Brass and copper HP

Prices are about a 3rd to a quarter less than FP. So the costs for materials for a 18g is $15 and the 14g is $40.

Thoughts? Just let me know I do know other weaves such as Byzantine, Viperscale, and even Dragonback.

Pricing breakdown

How I price:

Ok some of you are wondering why I have the prices I do. Well this is simple really. I use the prices I do based on a simplistic equation. This equation has what I consider my hourly wage to be ($10 an hour for the time being) cost of materials, and a 40% profit margin.

A lot of you saw the 40% and are freaking out! Why so high! you ask. Also simple. I am a new business, I need to get my name out there, I need to attend events so that I can sell more product, and I need to acquire more materials.

Now 40% is actually on the low end of most peoples pricing guides that do this for a living. I have seen 55% and up as the norm here.

Also some of you are thinking that I am getting more money then what my items and products are worth. So let me ask you a question and this concerns why I have a wage and a profit to my equation.

If I chose to do a different job that paid me $10 an hour instead of chainmaille then that would be my wage right? That is what the job considered my time worth to them. Same is true for this job. $10 an hour is what my time is worth to be doing this. The profit is as I stated to help expand my business!

Plans for my business:

Now for those of you who are looking at this and thinking that I may be a bit ambitious. . . well you are RIGHT! Lets start off at the current situation shall we.

For those that do not know I am a Homeless 23 year old in Portland Or. Now do not take this as a way to garner sympathy, I do not say this for that. Rather I would like you to see more of what I am trying to accomplish.

Currently I am working towards making over $300 a month in profit for at lest 2 consecutive months,  so that I can get a place to live. When you do the math the profit of $300 means that I have sold upwards of $1200 which should cover rent with roommates, and increasing my business.

I am also working on setting up several consignments and such with some very high end names in the Portland area.

Within a year I plan on hitting some major events in Portland and Washington. These include Ren Fairs, SCA events, and many many Cons.

I plan in the next 2 years to hit 2 MAJOR events in the US. 1 of them is a Ren Fair in Texas. There I am looking at sending roughly $12,000 worth of product and coming back with 2-3 times that (Not all of it will sell. . . ) The second event will be PENNSIC which is a HUGE SCA event (roughly 10,000 people at a slow PENNSIC) Here I will be taking as much product as I did to the Ren Fair in Texas and I plan on having a blast. I will also be bringing 2 of my models with me if the Texas Ren Fair pays off and it will be an all expenses paid trip for them.

Now a lot of you are wondering "Why the frack is he telling us this!" Well I believe that if you know my goals and what i am trying to accomplish, as well as from where I am coming from you will want to be apart of this and get your own Majestic Maille Custom piece done. This is no marketing ad or anything like that.

This is a simple show of how far I want to go with this. I have the ambition, the capability, the tools, the imagination, and the will to learn.