Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi guys and welcome back to my channel or kilodelta, can you hear? So today I'm going to be doing a tutorial on how to make a mammal cannon from start to finish. So I will show you guys how I have done high design and for my ten using yep, you can, of course do it and Photoshop if you haven't our Illustrator, which are usually the methods which started to use. But if you're like me, you're fairly new to digital art. 10-year orbit traditional artists, like you would like to JPEG format and to be able to control the colors better. You can use the free software called Campbell. And I will do a very short, very quick tutorial in this video on how I use him to do that is free software, and it works almost the same as Photoshop. So I highly recommend it if you're a beginner and you don't wanna invest too much yet into kinda any kind of software because you're unfamiliar with it. And it does the trick for what we're going to be doing with this project. So this is my little enamel paint here. I'll do some kind of way so you guys can soon as that goes far better. But this guy is about an inch big and his name is periwinkle, the bundle. I had a lot of fun making him and the process. The S terrifying as i thought, which is why I thought I think that video, because nobody else that I have watched so far on YouTube and made a very clear video on how to do this process from start to finish, to kinda get the highlights and then let them rest up to you to decide. Now, I understand that they do that because they do not want competition and I do not want to basically give away their business secrets. But I don't see this as a big secret because I'm not going to give you the names of the companies that I am directly working with, but I'm giving you a way to find them. So by doing that, I'm not giving away the thing that I'm worried about giving away, but I'm also hoping you guys to be able to fast track it because I know there must be some designers out there that have amazing ideas, but have no idea where to start. So in this video, we're going to do the following. I'm going to take you from start to finish one. We're gonna do give tutorial very quickly to show you how you get your design done in JPEG or vector style to. I will then walk you through Alibaba.com, which is a manufacturer's website based in China where you can source through several different manufacturers, talk with them, asks the prices compare, and then run with that. After you've done quite loved comparison might juices not easy work, but it is far more work that is going through an independent third party that is faced with your country. Usually also the control that you get back is not. So be aware of doing that. And no love people prefer to use a third person between them and the manufacturer in China. But I went straight to the source and it works perfectly fine. I've got the best possible result or I could have possibly hoped for. So happy with the service that I got. And I am proud of myself for figuring out how to do. And so I want to share that with you. Third, we're going to do the unboxing together and then we're going to check for seconds. What are seconds? Seconds are pins that are missing, colors have a scratch or the lines aren't perfect, anything like that. That does not make them tough. Calling to cell can still sell seconds at a half price or a little bit cheaper price, because they are still perfectly good. You just have to let people know that they are a second pin and make it very clear when you listed what is wrong with the pen so that people don't misunderstand you. So we're gonna go through and see how many pins are seconds out of my batch. I'm ordering a 100 pins for this batch of periwinkle. And then we will go through the process of how you can do the backend cards. There are several options to do that as well. And then we will compile it altogether and we'll take pictures of pin when it's finished, and then we'll list it. And so that is going to be what we're going to be the end goal. Let's hope everything went smoothly. I can already tell you I'm very happy with that result with this. So I hope you've enjoyed this video. You'll find it very informative. And I can't wait to see any kind of pin designs that you come up with. If you guys go to the same process and you find a great manufacturer and you get your fin design. May please drop me link down below so I can see what the news comment let me know if there's anything in this video that you would like to know more about, please feel free to ask, but let's get started.
2. Designing Your Pin -Using Gimp: Hi guys and welcome to the game tutorial. So if you don't know what Gim is, it is free software that you can download online. And it basically works the same as Photoshop, just a lot more simplistic. So you can't do a lot of the fancy features that you can find in Photoshop, but you can make vector art on here and make j and so on and so forth and do basic editing. So I'm gonna do a very, very brief quick run-through of how this works. So I'm gonna go to File New, and I'm just going to make 1920 by 18 or by 1080 psi sheet. And now the first thing you need to know is the background here is white. So you do not go straight on to this one. Otherwise you cannot make vector art if that is your purpose. You need to then go up here to layers, new layer, and then press OK. So it's going to lay a new layer on top. And this is the layer that you're working in. Always make sure that you are clicked here on the layer that you need to be working on. Okay? And if you need to hide layer, you click on this Aibo picture here, like that, and then it disappears. So the background disappears. But it's nice to see what you're doing. Here are your tools. And basically, I'm just going to do this very simplistic. You guys can experiment, but right now I have it on the pencil tool. Okay? And I want to do this is your color wheel over here. So we're gonna do basic black and oppress, ok. And here you can check the size of the pencil. So obviously if you click larger, you can see by your cursor it gets bigger and so on. But I need to have a fairly lot smaller size, aspect ratio, angle spacing, hardness, you can play around with that. And all the basic stuff. And then erasers over here and paint brushes over here. Those are basically the only ones that I work with if I'm not putting text in as well. So let's do something pretty basic over here. And I'm gonna move this over just a second here. And I'm gonna grab my way com tablets so I actually have my pen that I can drop. So basically, when you're trying to design are now often you have an idea in mind, maybe you have a pencil thing. You can also, if that's the case, if you have a drawing that you'd like to just trace, you can say often is layers. Go here. And let's see. Do I have those here and all anything? Maybe like this one. Okay, this is my little avatar here. So if you have a picture that you've drawn somewhere else as was obviously quite large. And then if you want to resize it, you have to go to this one. So that's the move layer. This is a draft. Yes, this is a very size scale one. And then you just drag and drag. And I went smaller scale edge. And now there must be a faster, more efficient way. But this is basically the beginner's guide here guys told me, If you know, please drop it into the comments below so that our users can actually see the faster way to scale this. And not lose proportions. But I am just a new but this and I've done it my way, which works on just fine scale. So if you're wondering why I'm clicking this one, this is so we can move. This is the booths button. Ok, so now we have it here. What we wanna do is we want to move that now under our layer on the side. And then we go back to our pencil. Always remember to click on the pencil or the pen, otherwise, you're not going to be on the last tool that you are on and then you can trace from there. So just like that, trace your picture that you can have. Now I'm just gonna do this really quick and really terribly, because I'm not going to do a full tutorial on this guy. This is just an outlook and hardness. The tennis like that. Air, air, air, air. Okay. Let's just say we're just gonna do the face. This is horrible. Naturally, of course you would take more time to take your picture than I am. But that's basically what I'm just running with here. So now I have the outline of what I want to do if you're working off of a picture, otherwise, you just draw straight onto your new layer, which I will also show in a minute. So now we go back here to the right, to where our layers are. And now I've traced it, I'm happy with it. So then you right-click on it and then go up here to delete layer. You just delete that. Oh, it looks like I was drawing on that layer C. That's why you have to check that you're always in the right layer. Ok, so then we just go back here, edit and undo to fit here. So now we go back in here to the proper layer we're supposed to be drawing on. Make sure you clicked on that layer, that mistake so you guys can see, and now we're just going to retrace this because we're silly. And we weren't paying attention to our own rules because we're think we're do good for this. But so you learn, okay? Another thing you can do while I'm here is you can make the opacity, which is up here less so that you can see the under part better what you're doing. Okay. So the gray part is the part where you are currently ma because you've made it peak or you've made the opacity list, excuse me. So you can see the layer underneath and then you can see what you aren't casing. So you don't lose detail settling. And then you can tie that one and then you can see it. Okay, so now we have it on the right layer. Now we can go back to this one, and now we can delete it. And then we go back, click onto the proper layer so we can see it. Alright, layer, new layer. And now we're going to start with coloring free basic. You go over here and then you click on this side is the basics of the colors and then. Within that color. So I've already got a brown here, so I'm just gonna go with that. Okay? Now I have this layer underneath which is opaque. And then again, I want to go here and lower the opacity of the current layer that we are on. And then I'm going to go for my brush because it's easier to color in with the brush. I don't use the bucket tool on here because it doesn't work so well. And then, for example, the hair, you can see the outline where you're going. And remember I at least this is a tip that I can give you guys always make new layers for when you're coloring different things so that they are separated. So if you were to go back and fix things, you're not affecting any other area than that colour that you have to work on. So it goes a lot smoother and a lot faster. So unless like that. Okay, so now we make another layer, new layer, again. Also going to lower the opacity down. It doesn't matter how much that's up to you. And I'm gonna make her skin like that peachy color her and don't worry too much about going over the line just yet because the more layers you put, the more you'll be able to hide the other ones that are beneath. So the finest details obviously you do last. So first you do the bulk colors just like with a artistic endeavors, you just to bulk first. And you can of course, move your layers around if you need to. Layer and you, OK. Let's do the mouth now. Remember this is gonna be really terrible. Hope he to lower the opacity so I can see the lines. Just the mouth really badly done layer near again. So over here, white. For the inside of the eye, a little bit like that. Didn't make that one opaque. Or lower the opacity but not big deal. Next, I'll make it blue. So from here, capacity, just like that. Okay. So there's my extremely simple piece. All right, so now what I'm gonna do is I'm going to opacity, fact Normal. Go through each layer, make sure they're all a 100100, 100%. Okay? So now you can see that everything looks really weird. So now if you need to, you can rearrange the layer. So obviously we need the hard lining up here. And then if you need to submerge or Burnham layer things might be abruptly keywords enough, notably, east layer, nature above the skin. So you can cover the skin. So you just you can move the laser under spike, clicking on them and dragging them up or down. If you want to make a vector art, then you just do that to check that everything looks okay and that's how it will look once you're done with it. And then usually what I do because this is not necessary, I go and I delete the backup. Because a background I just used to make sure that the colors are nice and neat. So here's my really terrible example of just a really quick drawing. Obviously, you're going to do much better than I am. But now you have the piece done that you wanted. So now you're going to go save as and always save it as a C FCF. Go to your folder where you keep it. So I'm gonna put it here. And next sample, x o. And then we're gonna save. And now if you want to make it a JPEG to be able to send to the manufacturers, which we're gonna do. But later you export as and then you can make it a P and G, which is vector art. Or you just go in here and change this to dots and J, peg and export. Ok, and then click again, explore. And then I will show you in a minute and what that looks like. So now this is what it looks like as a final JPEG, you've done it. So that's the very extreme quick basics of given. Ok. So I'm sure you guys can figure it out from there if you want me to go into more detail and do a full rendering or something in Gimp, just let me know. But this is just a really quick idea, really badly and quickly done. But just so you guys get the idea of how this is actually done. And then this is N results. And so this is the guy you will attach in your inquiry later on when you go through one of the manufacturers. Okay. So thanks for sticking with me guts and I will see you back for the second part where we hunt down a manufacturer.
3. Finding a Manufacturer - Alibaba: Alright, you guys, so this is Alibaba.com, the place that I was telling you guys about earlier. So just be warned, you must be at least 18 years old to be able to start an account here because this is actually a business run places. So they are doing business with other big businesses and small businesses. But obviously to be a business owner and you must be at least 18 years old. And they mostly trade only with 18-year-olds. And up at so once you've made your account, like you can see that I have done here. You can see everything on this little drop-down menu, contact requests. You increase inquiries is where you will check on your PIN information and basically had your discussion with them. And your orders will be down here. Okay. So that's all the stuff that you conduct later. I'm not going to show you now because I have my private information there. But that is where you will handle most of your business. This is also in a mobile app which I also had on my phone. So I can see as soon as I got a message from one of the manufacturers. So what we're gonna do here, as you can already see, I already had two searches here for this. Hard and ammo pins customer design. And make sure when you're looking at the results that come up, that it's actually not the design of the company, so the specific design of theirs, but that they'll do yours. Because sometimes you'll find one that it is a design of theirs that they want to do like this one, QED cat cartoon batch. This is their design. That's not what you want. You want to do your own. So you need to make sure that you find somebody that can do it for you. So let's say, let's take a look through what we've got here. Some nice designs here. They often switch these up. So it is one. Every time I've come back here, I've got an a different listing. So I guess it gives a bit of a fair shot. Some people so actually this one is kind of advertise your I think it's because I have actually check these out before. Let's see, premium related products, okay? So at least some of these look familiar to me, like this guy. So we're gonna click on this one. And now here we see a bunch of different things. So there are lots of things that you should look out for. So check the pricing range for each unit and that you can see right here. Okay. So this is between $0.09 to thirty-nine cents a piece. And there minimum order is right here. This is 50 pieces. That is the minimum amount that you can order. So whatever the ranges in between these two times that by 50 to get the base price of what you're going to pay. Next thing that you should do once or checking out the pin that you like. Obviously check out the pictures, make sure it's something that she would like and that it's the quality that you're hoping for. And then next you should check the ratings. So this one has a 4.9 and the ten to a 113 reviews. Always check out the reviews because most of the time people are very honest. So here you can see what the star ratings are. It's never gotten to one store or two-star, it's usually about 345. So five being the most. And that's exactly what you want to have. And then to able to read up on what some people have said. You can see everything here. So you can go through these by yourself and read them, but make sure that you do read them. Sometimes there are slight warnings where they say something like there have been more seconds and they would have liked or something of that nature. So just check that out. Always check the reviews on the company. This company has been around for four years and they are a verified suppliers. So that means that Alibaba has done the checks to make sure that this company actually exist and your money is not going to disappear into a hole. Here you see other things like response time within 24 hours, response rate 97%. And then they're taught markets, so where they sell to the most. And then here they have examples of pins is really nice for hard enamel and what kind of backings. So here you can see one of the backings, That's a rubber backing. And then this one has a butterfly clip back in. And you can see the different kinds of finished. So that's obviously like a nickel or alloy finish. This is a gold finish. That one's probably also nickel and so on, black finish here. So if you like what you see and you can take a look here and see what else they can do. And so the logo is yours customer logo. So it's not there's free sample. I'm not sure what that means. I've never found a company that's willing to give a free sample unless it's one of theirs. So usually what that means is they have some product in storage and they will send you a pen to show you what it looks like. All right. And then you can check out other things, what it's made of and measurements. So this one's a 1.5 inch mine was a one-inch pin and thickness and so on. And then here are things to notice as well. So estimated time, so that basically the lead time is seven days for between 100 pins, ten days, 12 days, so on so forth. Okay? So once you're happy that you've seen that information and there will be more things that you need to ask. You can either go here to chat now with them if you want somebody who is live, or you can contact the supplier using this button. Start order is if you already know exactly what you want and you're pretty sure that you already know how much it's going to cost you. If you've done an order with them before, then you can use that and it will bring up something else. So if you click that, this is the type of window that opens up, okay? And then here you have to fill out the information and the shipping and so on. Okay. So that's how that will look. And then negotiate with a supplier. If you're not happy with the price, if you think it's too high. And then they will talk to you and they're usually very flexible, so it's good. And then you go through all the steps until it's done. Okay? So that's if you know what you want. But if you're like me and you didn't know what you want or your first time and you're not sure how much your pen is going to cross. Go ahead and do contact supplier. Once you've done that, you'll be taken to another window like this. And then you can say the amount that you would like in here, which helps already. And then just to make things clear and you should have this already ahead of time. You have to say how many colors are in your PIN. So count how many colors you've used within your pin. Say if it's 2D or 3D, If it's hard or soft enamel, how big it is. So the size is at one end, J1, 0.5 inches. What kind of metal finishing wants? So the golden, the goal or rainbow, et cetera. How many pins you would like, check the minimum limit, obviously of the manufacturer like we had in the beginning. So the minimum here is already showing its 50. Say what kind of backing you would like rubber, the butterfly collection, and so on and see what else. You can also ask if they have other options, if you don't want those. And then you have to attach your design and a JPEG or Adobe Illustrator format for them. And then lastly, you need to give your zip code and country for shipping estimate. And then once you have all that, then you go ahead and you send inquiry. Just a quick note here before we go on, guys, if it's your first time using a specific design, you will also have to pay a mold PHP, which varies and price. If you remake More of that same design later, that fees usually dropped. So for every new design, ask how much the mold fee will be and add that to your final calculations. Now let's get back to the video. Other things that you should ask from your manufacturer and things to look out for. Ask the price per unit specifically for your piece once you've started the inquiry. So once they have had a look at your design, ask them what the CPU is for your specific design. And usually they will give it to you automatically without children to ask. But if not ask anyway. And then you can decide based on their examples. If you think that's too expensive. Let's go back here to the front page. Asks for shipping costs separately. Because you might need this later when paying import taxes depending on where you live and they will not always give you the shipping costs separately. So make sure to go ahead and ask that upfront. Another thing that you should look out for when you're looking at these pins is to calculate the total cost of your order. So the PKU times the amount you're ordering plus shipping, plus possible import taxes. Then divide the final amount by the number of units you're ordering to get the minimum amount you need to charge to recover your pins cost. Another thing to ask again, if it's not showing here or anywhere in the profile. Is production time. Always make sure you know how long it's going to take them to make. Usually it's an average between about seven to 15 days. And then again, also because it's not listed here, ask for shipping times. So mind took about two days to ship, so it was fairly quick. Another thing you should ask for, as you can see here, they have really nice examples of their pins, but that doesn't tell you anything from their pictures. You should ask for a photograph of the Finnish model of your pin design before they ship so you can approve it. A lot of them will do that anyway, but it's still best to ask just in case another thing that you can ask, which I should have done but I hadn't done, is to ask them to ship your pins in a box, not anaplastic shipping bag because sometimes they can rattle around. So just be aware of things like that. Okay. Lastly, when you're fairly sure you've contacted As many of these different manufacturers as possible because there are lots. And you're happy with the one that you're currently talking to or few of them, then you can make an excel sheet off the different manufacturers that you have. Like I had done myself. And I mean, go through lots of them. I mean, don't just stop at around ten, go through as many of these as possible, and ask for quotes. Give everybody the same sheet with all the questions that you have. That's what I did. I basically just send out lots and lots of questionnaires and then go through an excel sheet, write down your impressions of the employee that you were working with. So also remember who answered all of your questions. Who gets back to you quickly where they pleasant to work with? Remember, you'll be working with this person throughout the whole process so you have to be sure that you can deal with them. Once you've done that, then you should go ahead and calculate which manufacturer is the best value based on their price and the quality of their work plus your opinion of them. Because that's kind of important if you don't like working with the person that's on the other side. You're not going to want to work with them again. Once you've done that, narrow down and pick the one that you are planning to manufacture your pen width. And another thing that you should do, which almost all of them do anyway, is once you've chosen the manufacturer and you send in your artwork already in JPEG format, and they have now worked on it. Ask them for a proof of the final artwork before they start manufacturing. Again, this is something that they will usually do anyway, but asking is still a good idea. I will throw up here a picture of my own. I will throw up my own artwork that was approved by me of their design of my pin. So with obviously with the color swatches and everything to make sure that was matching my design and the way that I would like. And once you approve the artwork, they'll begin production. And then the whole time you will keep in touch with them through your message center. So through inquiry is here, through the new inquiries, messages will come through there. And you also, if you just go to your own account, you will find the message centers over here on the right side. And you just keep in contact with people through there, also the chat, whichever the case may be, and then you follow it through to completion. Once your pin is done, they'll send you a photograph which you have to approve of, which at least that's what I asked for. And once that's done, they'll ship it out. Once it arrives, then you should absolutely go online. You have to do this, come back to your account and say that you have received the package and you can also then leave a review for it. You have to do this because if you do not, then the Alibaba does not release your money back to the menu manufacturer. So until you have confirmed that you received your product, Alibaba hangs onto whatever you've paid for the pin making process. And then once you have confirmed that you've received it, they release it to the manufacturer so they get paid. So you have the assurance that the manufacturer will not get your money before you get your pin. Which I think is great. So that's why I like Alibaba. It's that fair assurance. And then of course, leaving review is always a good thing because then future people who are coming on looking for manufacturers get an honest opinion of the manufacturer. And so I left a review for the manufacturer which I had worked with. And I thought it was just fair because I did get really great service and I would recommend them in future to other people who end up stumbling upon their profile. So that's basically how this works. It's really simple. You guys, Alibaba is not scary. Your information is secure. And these companies have all been verified. So no worries. Give it a go and see if you like it. If there are any parts of this that was a little bit confusing or you'd like me to go into further detail about, please let me know and I will probably throw up another tutorial for that later in future. But this should be fairly clear. I hope, and happy hunting. I hope you guys find yourselves a great manufacturer that you can have a wonderful pin making relationship with. And please let me know down in the comments below what you thought of the experience. If you do end up using Alibaba. So happy hunting you guys and see you back here for the next part.
4. Unboxing and Sorting Seconds: Welcome back. So now your pin has arrived and it should look something like this. And nice clean product. So now we can actually start the unboxing. That's the exciting part where you get to see the finished result and hold it in your hands. Now seconds are pins that have false with them. So missing enamel, scratches, things like that. So you need to be on the lookout. When you're sorting through them. You're going to have to do this on an individual basis. And it's going to take awhile depending on how many things you've ordered. And my batch, I ordered about a 100. And here you can see me going through each one individually and checking carefully for any kind of scarves, scratches, missing enamel, things like that. You can see I've come to the end of my count and out of 100 pins, there were ten seconds. So what does a second look like? Well, let me show you. Here. I'm gonna go through the different kinds. So here you can see a very faint Scratch there. I'm going to try and focus in on it in just a second here with my camera. There you go. You can see it in the reflection. So that would go into the seconds pile. Seconds generally have just small things like that. Here you can see that some of the infant, the iris had actually blood into the white of the eye. And on this one, you can see that there was a white mark there, some enamel missing. And here you can see that there is a scratch there next to the Paul. Here. There's a bit of the actual outline missing. It got drowned. There's a black mark. So these things are actually quite common. So just check very carefully here again, we have some of the bleeding from the eye. Here we have again missing enamel. Here's a small scope, so this will be okay is the second to so. And that's it. Those who might tens. So check out your batch. Kofi don't have that many seconds, but if you do, who could still sell them?
5. Photography and Backing Cards: So you sorted your pins, you have your seconds all sorted out, set to one side. And your first qualities all ready to go. Now it's time for photography, product photography is very important in the sale of your pins, obviously, like most products. So the best approach is to try and set it up in the most appealing way. Make sure there's good lighting that your pin is being shown from its best possible angle. Take many, many, many different photos and then play with editing software to try and get the best light on. And try to make the scenery around it suit the pen, so the theme of the pen. So here I have Perry, One girl. And he's kind of a fun, sweet, and kind of cutesy pastel things. So I had some of those papers laid out in the pastel colors and with some candles and just to give it some atmosphere. And then actually as many pictures as I could and I pick the best ones for the product photography that I listed on that scene. So just like with our beginning tutorial on how to actually do the design, to do the backend card, I'm doing my design as well in Gimp. As you can see here, I've done native text. Have you met periwinkle? He's a very curious and cutlery bunny. And then Bianca hog art for my company. And I've done this in the size of a business card. So you just need to look those up on mine for what your country's business cards sizes are. I ordered my business cards from the company moon base, United Kingdom. So I did the size from the file again here. When you create new, again, you can go on pixel size from here and just look up the width and the height based on your countries business cards. And so I went with what the UK standard wasn't able to do this. And that's it. And then you design your little backing card here. I also do backside, which is just basically polka dot. So I'm not going to show you that one. And then I ordered that batch from mu along with some thank-you cards there'll be using later. So that's the basic standard of how to do those. You can also, if you don't want to have to wait for a printing company to do it. You can just print it from your own computer in the size of these business cards and print them out and then cut them out by hand. Or if you have something like a cricket, you can have that cut for year and some nice card stock. So those are some ideas of how to do back in part, my whacking cards and should be here by Monday. So then I will show you what those look like and we will start to mount my level penance on to these guys. So I'm super excited about that. So that's it. You guys, I hope you found this tutorial useful, interesting and hopefully fun too. And please do. Let me know if you go on your own adventure in pin making, I'd love to see your design. So as you can see here, I'm busy finishing up the mounting of my pin up periwinkle onto its back end card. If you're interested in buying one or periwinkles pins, you can check out by fc linked below. Thank you guys so much for watching and I hope to see you back on my channel. And if not happy hunting with European making any way and have a jury or a St. Louis guys, bye.
Bianca Haeck, Drawing on Inspiration!
