What am I doing wrong?

**kave** · 6th October 2010, 14:00

Originally Posted by disturbedair

what am i doing wrong?

Your problem is that you seem to be a good airbrusher but a shit businessman. Running a business is not easy or cheap, you need to advertise, you also need a decent website, and you need to operate in a professional way when you are representing your business. I am into fantasy art, and have considered custom work. I have googled custom airbrushing in New Zealand, and have never noticed your site. Even if I had noticed your site, without even a rough idea of pricing, I wouldn't bother getting in touch with you.

If you do want to do this professionally, I recommend that you do a business course or even sign up for a business mentor. Your product isn't bad, you just don't seem to have a clue about the business operation side.

**White trash** · 6th October 2010, 14:13

Fucken cool fantasy art, that's for sure. But I'm not into that unfortunately.

the portfolio you have on eyour website is going to attract full on custom bike builds, and not much else due to style, but then they're going to turn away due to only being able to see small shots of your work.

Have you considered a career in Tatooing?

**imdying** · 6th October 2010, 14:22

Originally Posted by kave

If you do want to do this professionally, I recommend that you do a business course or even sign up for a business mentor. Your product isn't bad, you just don't seem to have a clue about the business operation side.

Have you considered calling up somebody like that guy Lee here in Chch who does this sort of work (and regular custom paint work etc etc from what I understand). Every time I hear about him he has moved to bigger and better premises, and everybody reckons his work is pretty good. Presumably his business is going well, perhaps somebody like that might be happy to mentor you?

**avgas** · 6th October 2010, 14:44

Don't give up - you have good work.
If your serious about it, get some help about running the business.
I will be free in December if you want me to talk you few a things. However I am happy to talk over phone or email if that helps (yes all this will be free).

Otherwise simply keep the guns - talk to other paint shops and simply go freelancing and let them manage you promotion and costings etc.

**disturbedair** · 6th October 2010, 16:41

yes you are all correct, i am no bisniss man infact i can't even spell the word proply most of the time, problem is i spent to many years teaching myself how to draw and use the airbrush, i will try to clarify something before anyone else takes offence to my coment, imdying no offence mate but that first post you put up was pure competitive airbrusher speak, secondly my coments on other
airbrusher's contacting me to qoute work for them to learn how to qoute and to under cut me is directed at those people only, if you contacted me for a quote and you were a genuine customer then take no notice of that comment and i am sorry that i couldn't do the job in your price range
As for doing freebee's for advertising that is off the cards for me as i have done more than $60.000 worth of freebee's in the past and i have been stabed in the back every time, i found that people i did the freebee's for "my so called mates at the time" they didn't want me to do better work on any one else's car or bike so they wouldn'd give out my fone number or speak positivly about me or my work, i even had a carpainter mate that i did a flame job for on his hotrod and the asshole dogged my name all through the hotrod and custom sene then he opened up a paint shop named it after the flame job i did on his car he then parked it out the front of his paint shop to advertise himself as a custom painter and told everone that he painted it, iv'e had enough of that sort of crap and crap that is involved in the custom industry, but i thought i'd give it one more shot and it's just not gonna happen, as Conquiztador said, new zealand is just to small, so i'm gonna have to give it up, cheers guys

**imdying** · 6th October 2010, 17:28

Originally Posted by disturbedair

imdying no offence mate but that first post you put up was pure competitive airbrusher speak

None taken, I just wanted to give honest feedback that I thought might help.

**robo555** · 6th October 2010, 17:33

Getting a file not found error on your website?

**Renegade** · 6th October 2010, 18:19

Originally Posted by robo555

Getting a file not found error on your website?

me too,hope you haven't thrown in the towel and pulled it

**scracha** · 6th October 2010, 20:57

I've never heard of you mate...sorry. Complex fantasy stuff doesn't float my boat. I'd personally be interested in some GP rep stuff or a nice Scottish flag. Everyone is different, but a lot of guys n' gals want some sort of coherent theme going on with their helmet, leathers and bike.

If you're good then I'd suggest you hook-up with guys like Billy at racefairings.co.nz, Brett at Quasimoto or Sam at Celtic leathers. If any of these guys recommended you (or even just took a cut and resold your stuff to match their stuff) then I'd feel more confident you weren't going to fuck up my helmet and/or rip me off.

**Mental Trousers** · 6th October 2010, 21:36

Subtle the Scotsman is not

Painting helmets is really only done for new helmets and people only replace their helmets every couple of years or more. I don't like replacing my helmets because they're comfortable and I know they do the job. They're also damn expensive (the Shoei XR1100 I bought yesterday was $615.00 without a tinted visor) and nobody has a lot of money at the moment.

As for custom jobs on bikes, my race bike gets white all over and that's it. Easy and stands out.

**disturbedair** · 7th October 2010, 06:10

this threads a dead rubber now guys iv'e decided to give it up and i have deleted the website and sold my sprayguns and airbrushers but i do have one airbrush left to sell but it is a specialist brush and you really need to now how to use it if you want to buy it, again thanks for all your support, cheers

**wysper** · 7th October 2010, 06:46

Originally Posted by disturbedair

this threads a dead rubber now guys iv'e decided to give it up and i have deleted the website and sold my sprayguns and airbrushers but i do have one airbrush left to sell but it is a specialist brush and you really need to now how to use it if you want to buy it, again thanks for all your support, cheers

Thats a shame dude. It's a shame you couldnt find your market, I can't draw a straight line with a ruler so I think it is awesome that you have the talent to draw. Who knows, maybe in a while you will find a way back to it if it is something you really want to do, hell, maybe you might even start doing art shows, local metal bands album art, designs for someones tattoo (even if some one else does the tattooing, skinks springs to mind).

Good luck with what ever you end up doing.