[jurgenwerk]

I sell handmade sculptures of influential people and famous monuments on Etsy - https://www.etsy.com/shop/jurgenstudio. Revenue is 2-6k USD depending on the season. I hired someone part time who took over production and shipping. it's mostly passive revenue for me apart from growing the business by developing new products when I feel like it. The profit margin is around 50% after all material and labor costs are paid.

[kylecazar]

This is super cool. Admittedly, I know nothing about creating concrete figures -- I imagine the real artistic work is in creating the mold? Can you share how that is done -- is a sculpture created and then surrounded by the mold material?

[jurgenwerk]

1. I hire a 3d designer to create the 3d model I want. For example, I send him a couple of photos of Alan Turing

2. After I am happy with the likeness, I 3d print it. In this phase the 3d model comes to life and it's usually quite different from what we see on the computer as a 3d model. It has something to do with the difference in perspectives in which the designer designs shapes and in which we observe the item when it's produced as a real physical shape. This is very hard to get it right. Then we repeat the steps from 1 until I am happy with the likeness and the facial expression (this can be many iterations)

3. When I have the 3d printed positive, I create a mold using silicone rubber

4. The 2-part mold is then ready to be used for hundreds of castings (I use concrete)

[guywithahat]

Out of curiosity when you say you hired someone to take over production and shipping, do you mean you outsourced it? Or like that from craigslist is producing them now?

[jurgenwerk]

It's a an artistic person I found who is happy to produce copies of sculptures for me to get some side income. I teached her how to do it and gave her all my molds so she can do it from her home.

[fm2606]

Is it a safe assumption to say she is relatively local to you?

[xcambar]

I was expecting Rihanna or Gizeh, not Zizek ans the Berghain, and I love every bit of the surprise!

Congratulations!

[omnimus]

Exactly! Spomenik! The choices are great. Probably people who like raw concrete are not exactly Rihanna fans.

[julienmarie]

I love the selection and I'm thinking of buying a couple! Is it possible to have special requests made? Wittgenstein would be a great addition (the tryptic Nietzsche / Freud / Wittgenstein has been what forged my weltanschauung )

[jurgenwerk]

Thank you for your kind words. I have Wittgenstein on my TODO! Should be in the shop within a year.

[AdityaSanthosh]

An Year?

[mattl]

How much do you spend on likeness rights for the people or the similar thing for famous monuments?

[jurgenwerk]

I get that question a lot. I do not worry about it. There's plenty of similar fan art selling around and I haven't noticed any actions taken to shut them down. I wouldn't reproduce anything under a trademark (for example, Baby Yoda), and as far as I know, human faces are not trademarkable.

[noah_buddy]

I think it depends on how the work is produced for celebrities. If it’s a mass produced product and not one off artisan creations, OP might run into problems

[worthless-trash]

Seneca going to be real mad.

[mattl]

They look to be making several of each person.

[noah_buddy]

Making several is not the issue, I believe. You could make several slightly different hand crafted statuettes, it’s the mass production of one likeness that’s the issue as I understand it.

[ryandeebs11]

Could it be that he does not use the name under the likes of Elon and Jordan, so it could be left for interpretation?

[Aeolun]

I imagine nobody is going to bother with them until it reaches a certain scale.

[jspash]

The description says these are made from "concrete & cement". Is that to help out with Etsy SEO?

I'm curious because I have an Etsy shop and love to talk all things about optimising the shop front. The competition is steep nowadays over there!

[jurgenwerk]

It's intended to immediately differentiate from shops who sell cheap plastic sculptures. My customers appreciate heavy brutalist material I use. I spend zero time optimizing SEO, my product images and descriptions are pretty crappy, so I currently don't have much advice to give in that area! What's your shop?

[topicseed]

Do you accept commissions? For example, if I want an F1 driver sculpted?

[jurgenwerk]

Which one? I am planning on doing Ayrton Senna.

[topicseed]

M Schumacher for example :) (the father!)

[dbancajas]

Are you doing this automatically? or labor is doing the sculpture?