raptor wrote:
It was a hard thing on the staff too, and so a little break is likely a good thing.
The first one only had 4 people show up for it. The best one (in my humble opionion) had about 3 vendors and was held under a bowling alley. It grew to several figures and vehiclce exclusives and hundreds of atttendees.
But as these things scale up, the work to do them grows dramatically, and worse, it seems more and more like work. I dropped out of the support team because it was feeling like another job rather than something that I enjoyed. (And I was doing about one millionth of the work that Mike was.)
It started to wear on the people (of which we're talking about maybe a maximum of 6 + the awesome joewives) and the stress started taking a toll on the friendships as well. If that's the price to put it on, it's not worth it no matter how much people enjoy it.
Maybe it will be back, and maybe it'll be 30 guys in a bowling alley again. I am a little sad to see it not going forward this year, but I really do think it's for the best.
- R
You hit the nail on the hammer on that one Charles.
Breaking it down to 1 figure per person makes sense.
Until you've walked a mile in the shoes it's hard to honestly explain everything that goes into a project like this. In 2011 I had to rit dye 1000 figures in, boil and pop (and dremel) 250 arms, swap around most of the legs, paint 800 bodies (I think, been a while on that) and 125 heads, plus receive all this stuff at my work, take it home, open it all, sort into bags and at the end drive 2 hours to hand off my part of it. It was a lot of work that physically left me hurt and I was told by the doctor "Dave, stop painting army men" but it was a labour of love. I still have a copy of the spread sheet I was running on my time somewhere and it was around 250 hours between my wife and I, or about 11 straight days for a job that large. That is just for my part of the job. Others painted the other heads, the other 2 characters (Trace Route by Pluv and Take Down by Loop), finished assembly of figures, paint, etc... It was a team effort but there is a lot that goes into a set. Plus all the boxes, file cards, comic, paperwork, etc. That's just talking about the toys.
It burnt me out from wanting to make customs for a while but $350 worth of physio and a couple of months later and I was fine.
I'm not with the CJC anymore, and that's fine. I wish them the best in their future endeavors. I'm happy with the part I played and the fact that some of my work is on display in some people collections. I just wanted to share my part of the story.
_________________
Grepicon wrote:
You have earned the title "Chrome Renaissance Man" in my book!
