#lem0ns_speaks

[lem0ns-art]

This isn't art, but I made a Bill Cipher sticker for my laptop and I thought it was pretty cool

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

Hi!! I participated in your grid sale and I love the dice I got!! I wish I had bought more slots!!

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like them and I hope they roll high for you!!

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

Here's a list of everything that will be available in tomorrow's anniversary sale! Etsy shop will be updated Thursday Oct. 29th at 5pm CDT!

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

In which I, a fool, confused talking about dnd on stream last week with actually playing a game

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

How in the heck did you capture a cloudy sunset in dice form??? The d6 in the first picture of the recent post honestly looks like it has little clouds in it 🥺

Thank you! And it honestly is just the luck of the pour, I put in the resin and it does what it's gonna do!

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

I wish I could buy your dice, they're so pretty, but they just seem to be gone so quickly! You're well loved in this community :)

😭😭😭 yall are killing me today! Thank you so much, I hope someday you'll be able to snag your favorite set!

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

I have a question, and i feel like asking it might be rude but I'm genuinely curious, I understand making a-grade dice around 80-100 depending on complexity but why do some dice maker's sets cost 100+? Is it more related to how much time it costs and price of materials? I'm sorry if this is a rude question

This is a question I see very often and while it may not be intended to be rude it is not polite either. Each maker prices their own work based on a variety of factors that include time, material costs, skill, and risks that go into creating their art. I'm going to try to be very thorough here in explaining why handmade dice cost so much from my perspective because I will not be answering this question again. Please know I don't intend to be rude or belittling in my response, but I feel like an in depth understanding of what goes into making each piece will better the understanding of why handmade dice are priced the way they are.

To begin with materials are expensive. If you decide to make dice professionally it is likely you will be investing in not only the basics (resin, add-ins such as color/glitter/etc., safety equipment) but also in master dice and mold making equipment which can very quickly add up. Most makers also eventually purchase pressure pots (mine with my air compressor cost me a total of $700 on sale) in order to reliably create A-Grade sets with no bubbling.

Next there are safety concerns. I work with epoxy resin. I work with one of the safest resins that is certified fume free and skin contact safe. This is more expensive than most other epoxys and even with those safety labels it is still not advised that it is used without good ventilation and/or a respirator mask rated for fumes and if it does come in contact with skin it should still be immediately washed off. On top of this the dust created from sanding resin, a necessary step in finishing every die, is extremely harmful to breathe in. This means that the workshop has to be in a separate place far away from other residents/children/pets who would not be wearing a respirator.

Then comes actually making the dice which depending on the complexity of the pour can take an hour or multiple days of pours in order to achieve the desired look. I have 8 sets of molds currently and pouring into all of them at once takes 5 hours. This does not take into account the dozens of sets that do not turn out either due to curing errors from under mixing, the temperature being too hot or cold, humidity being too high, and a number of other factors that can be very difficult to control without additional equipment. Once the dice have soft cured and come out of the molds they require another two days to finish curing before anything else can be done to them.

Then they have to be polished and sanded. When I first started making dice this took eight hours for a single set of dice. Now I have invested $150 into a pottery wheel which allows me to sand a set in half an hour, but it still requires a lot of focus to keep the die perfectly level in order to create crisp clean edges and a mirror shine.

Once the sanding is done the dice have to be cleaned, which means standing at a sink scrubbing resin dust from the numbers with a toothbrush for half an hour. (I'm working on getting a new piece of equipment which will hopefully automate this process but that is an additional expense.) Then once they're clean and dry its finally time to paint the numbers. This also takes time, each set about half an hour, and they then need about an hour and a half to fully dry before I can clean any stray paint off the surface of each die. After they've been painted and cleaned and dried again they then finally get their last polish with a soft cloth and plastic polish to recapture their mirror shine.

But the work isn't done. Then each set has to be photographed, named, given a description, listings made on Etsy, listing fees paid on Etsy, packaging supplies procured and then eventually taken to the post office. From start to finish the amount of time, materials, and additional labor that goes into a handmade set requires the sets to be priced as such. And none of this takes into account the difficulty of making certain styles of sets, be it due to a challenging and unpredictable pouring method or due to the difficulty of making or procuring special inclusions (I will find you someday snake skin).

Handmade dice are a luxury product because they are works of functional art and they are priced as such as payment for the artist's time, skill, materials, and effort. I have been advised by other makers that my prices are too low, advice that while well-meant-- like this question-- can come off as rude. Because I am seeking to keep my prices as low as I can in order to allow more accessibility to those who want to have their own handmade dice but cannot afford higher costs. That being said it is absolutely fair for dice sets to be priced at $100+ (I have purchased a $275 set for myself from another maker which was a very special splurge and not one I will be doing again frivolously), that price reflects dozens of hours of work not only on that individual set but also on the hundreds of hours and failures that were required before they could even achieve that final piece. And if that seems outrageous or excessive then perhaps the handmade dice market is just not the place to be procuring dice. That's also alright, not everyone can afford them. But each maker has every right to charge what they believe is a fair price for their work.

Again I hope this response doesn't come off as belittling, I intend no ill-will. But I hope this explanation helps to illuminate why handmade dice can cost upwards of $100.

[dicedungeons-and-dragons]

Question - are pre-order dice (like the Vex'ahlia and Mollymauk sets) buy now or forever hold your peace, or will they come back to the store at some point?

The preorder sets usually are popular enough that they tend to come back into the shop, but I do tend to take a break from casting a design after doing a preorder