everyone norm from tested here at designer Cana 2019 you guys know Melissa
Aang the blue macaw Stern how you doing ELISA I'm good I'm great
you have a booth here your set up yeah this place that feels real now doesn't
it yeah it's totally different I this is my totally first convention booth
experience it's amazing to see people actually know my work which might sound
kind of strange but I've only done things online
yeah this is my first experience seeing people who recognize my work and
actually enjoy it which is kind of thrilling and as an independent artist
who's setting up shop to share your work and let people you know by them having a
convention deadline means you're gonna be manufacturing or fighting your entire
lineup and that's why here you're showing for the first time your lineup
of the Phoenix College yes yes so this is the first time a lot of people get to
see all the tiers and what I hope is you know and all their glory but these are
the ones I bring around show around to some people but you know you can see
here you have your your highest tier now which I haven't revealed before I wanted
to take the time to really enjoy the process but you know there's a lot more
detail Tier four is the highest level armor Tier three which is what Adam saw
and his the video that we did together your tier 2 which gets a little bit more
simplified less modularity some more tier twos here and then there's also the
simpler tier ones which are still stylish but as you know you know there
are a lot of uses fashion Costume or just simply art or day to day wear yeah
and we still do that I feel like you can get away with that a la la yeah but for
people to see it in person or to realize that it's actually flexible it's really
fun to see they're shocked but uh yeah and at the same time I just I just hope
people see that there's a lot more that I love to do because I'll as much as I
love the armor I love my toys I love the miniatures and I love jewelry and I I
want to share that side of me too and there's so many sizes I mean some people
know your work in the very early days with the dreamer regalia armor 3d
printed in mass but you've evolved so much it's so fun to follow your journey
you know this is not through your printed your manufacturing them your
casting them your experiments with material type flexible rubbers resins
here they'll even the the soft parts right that has become a journey you know
what's the thing that you're you're most proud of now in terms of like that in
getting this to people the most proud of in terms of yeah yes is realizing I
actually know what I'm doing I think the the exciting part there was the making
part and the prototyping and designing and figuring out all the materials but I
think the moment of truth was realizing okay getting this into the hands of
customers which is it's an exciting and terrifying cut process but like
realizing you know making the custom glows working with manufacturers doing
all our casting in-house and then knowing that we're actually bringing it
together it makes it that much more precious to me and I really hope people
cherish it the way I do but I really hope when I share it as I share more as
best stuff that they they see a lot of the love that I put into it because I
really love this but it also really hurts sometimes doesn't amount of energy
that goes into it so the people coming by seeing the work and then they tell me
like we love the work they put the articulation the research what they saw
when we talked with Adam to know that that's actually appreciated makes it
that much more worthwhile and you've been so generous with sharing your
process all the learnings you have not only for manufacturing but just you know
the business side of it as well because it's not just like exactly we can carry
your self Todd and it is a journey and that's what why you're here to also
figure out what people want but it's so great to see in person something that's
also striking because we met up with you in New York and you were yes thank you
for being part of that but now that the finishes look so nice tell me about some
of these paint finishes hey right when we were talking on the Debi our oculus
we didn't really have the the finishes pinned down yet but so the are you do
you mean like the colors and the colors and also the look of it the gloss so the
colors like I we try to try to find unique methods unique mixes so we also
work with this great company named turbo dork and they were actually coming by to
show off some other new colors but you can actually see it here they make these
amazing color ships and we even talked about like how we can come up with new
ideas new new books and the fact that they've been so so willing to experiment
and experiment with me and also I just love supporting you know local
businesses ya know it just makes the experience of you know creating this
work that much more meaningful I mean that iridescent right they have in fact
that you found each other and on this perfect marriage of your unique design
with their unique palette yeah it just makes these unlike any type of gauntlet
yeah it's amazing because it's maybe because they they were focused mostly on
miniatures but the fact that they wanted to see and we want to help each other
like see how we could apply it in new ways I'm like let's do it yeah yeah but
holding it down you know working on the right flexible coating now that was a
process and it's a process that continues today you're you're literally
trimming up this stuff when you go to sleep right yeah it is your life day to
day out ition yeah other stuff yeah and you talk about miniatures one of the
benefits of course of starting in 3d is that your stuff can be scalable exactly
until you have here some miniatures yes so tell me about what's collectible
here so some people may recognize this the sovereign this is the same armor
that people probably recognize the most which is the sovereign armor which I
created a few years back but it's something that people attach to a little
cluster motion it's something that's very dear to me so we thought why not
make a miniature and my sister who is a toy designer her name
she's the one that was able to make that larger design and bring it down into
this compact little chippie body so cute and it actually has interchangeable
accessories so you can you can give it a flame or give it some flowers or ask if
you're a Dark Souls fan Wow cuz a lot of you will think it looks like a Dark
Souls boss yeah yeah how's that coffee caramel it's alright I like I think have
a good armor in there so are you doing all the armor you can find yes sir to
make judgment calls on design yeah for that totally I try not to too much it's
a hard habit to kick there's also pendants miniature as I
love these here having fun with the kindest thing in the painting the
materials for that so we were experimenting with like dual colors so
you see it's a much deeper color richer colors underneath and this is it as you
know this is like my luma clustered logo face so this is the dreamer mask
breakthrough which is also the mess you saw me wear at near yeah but uh it's
nice because you know you have something that's nice and small but I noticed when
people were holding it they were holding it like a worry stone so I don't know if
you want to want to give it a feel oh yeah nice yeah it feels good the whole
that's great you know it's just a sleeping face in your hands I mean
you're not only building kind of like these designs there it's a identity yeah
right it's the luma cluster identity that people when they see this out in
the world they know it's you and that's part of the fun of it and Melissa these
will be available at some point online yes so eventually after designer con you
know we'll go online and people can check it out there too will have a whole
bunch of photos and hopefully people will just enjoy it as much as I have you
know fun making them yeah and hope you're enjoying being at
this show having direct connection with fans it will replace your word surprise
it's been exciting and frankly pretty surprising it's great to see you here
Melissa and we'll catch up with you next time thank you
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