New Store Layout! Hope you enjoy!
It’s not very often that we open up for these sorts of orders, so I’m going to lay out some expectations for anyone out there who has a hankering to grab one of our Guided Surprise or Custom reservations. I’m going to try to explain what you should expect when ordering one of these from us.
This is a great place to start! I’ll load a limited number of reservation tickets for Guided Surprises and Custom orders. These will each be their own separate listing. A customer can grab ONE ticket to place a reservation. You can order up to 4 or 5 items with that reservation, so it’s not just one per toy.
Your reservation means I (Meesh) will contact you with the email on your order to start a conversation about what you want to order. It is important that you are ready to respond quickly and be clear with your desires. Have an inspiration and an idea of what toys in what sizes and firmnesses you’re after. If you want to have colored line art to illustrate your idea (in the case of Customs), that is also welcome! No matter how crude, it will be helpful!
You’ll be expected to respond quickly so that details can be hashed out as quick as possible. Once details have been finalized you’ll be given a price for the work/items. You can accept it or reject it. If you accept it, you will be sent an invoice for your order that has the simple details and you will be expected to pay it within 48 hours of being sent. Once paid, work will begin! If you do not accept the price quote, that’s okay. Your reservation will be canceled and relisted so that someone else can claim that slot.
Guided Surprises will be $25 on top of the cost of the toy.
So if you order a Medium Tyv Guided Surprise the cost will be $65 (cost of a Medium Tyv) + $25 (cost of Guided Surprise upgrade) = $90
I will be making NearClear 31 available as an option for Guided Surprises, and that will add extra cost to the price depending on the size of the toy (+$5 for Small, +$10 for Medium, etc)
Customs are a bit different. There’s no telling what a person will want, so it’s hard to give a good quote. Customs will START at $40 for simple ideas and go up from there depending on complexity, types of silicone, etc. Lots of room to explore possibilities there!
A Guided Surprise is like a Surprise pour but with more direction. You can provide me an inspiration photo, a whole album of color combos you like, or even pictures of toys we’ve made in the past. Or you can come up with a phrase like “a marble of autumn colors, but no red”. If there are colors you want excluded, that’s no problem. If there’s a pour we’ve done that you’d like to see us attempt again, that can be considered!
The thing to remember is that it’s going to be a Surprise and open to our interpretation. If you want us to try a pour again, you need to be ready to accept that what we make may not be exactly the same as before. It’s very hard to replicate things in silicone because it’s a liquid medium and prone to doing unexpected things. I’ll have more words of caution further down for those wondering how to get the most out of their Guided Surprise
What do you want? We’ll try to make it! Want to get specific about what colors you want in your toy and how best to arrange them? We’ll do our best! Want us to try to replicate something we’ve done before with a higher rate of specificity? We can try! Do you know what you want your toy to look like but haven’t seen it in the drops…ever? Well, you’re in luck! Customs can fit all these situations.
This is for folks who have a very specific vision about what they want and are willing to cut right to the chase and pay a bit extra to get it. There are definitely things we can and can’t do, and I’m going to do my best to not promise something I can’t deliver. Customs will likely take a little longer to hash out, but it’s to make sure I can deliver what’s promised. I’ll get way more specific to ensure you get the toy of your dreams!
There are ways to end up with good Guided Surprises and there are ways to guarantee disappointment. I’m really trying to avoid over promising and under delivering with these. So there are some limitations to what we can do that i’ll go over here.
1) For Guided Surprises, don’t go into it with a specific image of the toy you’re going to get. I’ve seen people try to “reverse engineer” a toy color by trying to figure out what sort of inspo image will get you closest to the desired toy you’ve seen. This way lies disappointment. You may see a toy and think “Oh, that looks like opal” and we see it and think “Oh, those are beach colors”. So if you send a picture of an opal hoping to get something we consider a beach, you’re not going to end up with something you like.
Instead, aim for inspiration that has colors or effects that you like to see in toys and trust that we’ll get you there. And again, if you see something we’ve made and think “I’d like something like that”, don’t be afraid to show it to us.
2) There are things we just cannot do, even for customs. Hand painting is on that list. I have no experience with it and I’m not comfortable charging money for a technique I don’t currently have experience with. That leads to frustration and wasted silicone. Sometimes there are effects and techniques that are beyond me and Steve’s reach. Maybe it was a toy that was poured by a shop member who isn’t here anymore and they took their secrets with them. Maybe the toy you’re so stunned by is one made with the leftover silicone at the end of a pour (the “dregs”) that is impossible to replicate. Maybe you’re asking for clean, smooth drips but we’ve only ever done messy splatters. Maybe you want colors that we just don’t have anymore or have trouble getting our hands on (we have very limited access to colorshift pigments and they are expensive). There’s lots of reasons why we may say no to an idea, so just keep that in mind.
3) We’re not interested in replicating pours from other shops. Don’t come to us with images of toys from other shops unless you’re asking about colors on a toy (example: a toy from another shop has a gold that you’ve never seen in our shop). We’re not in the business of knowingly copying other shops. Don’t come to us asking for a Rainbow Ribbon.
4) Keep your expectations realistic. Be ready to receive feedback on your ideas and be open to compromise. We’re going to do our best to meet your desires, but you’ve got to be willing to take our advice as people who have worked in this medium for 6+ years. You also need to expect that what you see on your screen may be different to how things look up close. We photograph toys under bright lights in a photo booth, and a toy photoed like that is going to look different in the dim light of your bathroom.
5) Don’t expect unlimited re-pours. Silicone is very expensive, so we do our best to be honest and up front about our limitations. I’m willing to try anything twice. After that, it’s rare that I will continue to try to make a pour work. If I try twice and fail I’ll come back and ask for adjustments or to change the idea. I’ll accept a full change ONCE before deciding to cancel and part ways. Keep in mind that I will not make infinite attempts on customs. As well, any failed attempts will be sold in our shop in future drops.
That’s all I have for now. I’ll add more information as people ask questions and get more information clarified. It’s been a long time since I’ve done these sorts of things. They can be very rewarding, but also very nerve wracking. We love to make dreams come true! Please be patient with us as we navigate the process of reopening these sorts of orders.
