This is an information thread for my bigger Project Custom items. Mostly stuff like how I came up with my ideas, as well as item sale info and recolour permission. Feel free to ask additional questions.
Information will only be posted when the ticket product is granted to my inventory. I'm hush hush when it comes to custom items (I'm sorry).
I'm not including recolours at the moment, unless people really wanna know why I'm 70+ RTs, 6+ parcels, a few dozen stubs, 10+ BLs, 3+ MOKs, and 12+ DRTs deep lol
This will be a consistent work in progress while I'm busy af IRL emo
Please do not quote any of my posts on the first page. Thank you!
I bought this ticket before I had an idea what to do with it. It was a fairly cheap custom ticket and I love hair, so I decided to pick one up. I don't remember how I decided to just do a reference hair instead, but I did think about refs I recognized, and Full Moon wo Sagashite was one of them. I was shocked there wasn't an item based on this series... at least not one I recognized? So I decided to go with a reference hair for Mitsuki Kouyama from the series. I wanted to maximize the scissors cuts, so in addition to the signature drills Mitsuki has as her 12-year old self, I also included long hair with end curls, which Mitsuki is depicted with in certain parts of the manga/anime and in her 16-year old self.
Timeline:
Submitted: September 06, 2016
Accepted: October 06, 2016
Mocks: March 23, 2017 (round 1); March 28, 2017 (round 2)
Received: April 16, 2017
It took a LONG time to get the official mocks. I ended up emailing about them after I waited over 100 business days, and I got them soon afterward. The artist followed my poopy mocks to a T (cries) so I had to ask for a lot of revisions, like repositioning the ribbons to be more proportionally correct... add more hair strands to the back... basically way too many changes that I felt guilty suggesting ); As well, I originally had pale bubblegum (amaranth) and offwhite as colours, but I decided I'd use BBG pink more (cutie pie) and offwhite looked a little dingy ; v ; So a change to sherbert it was.
I got a second mock round, I wanna say it's because I requested to see the scissors cuts (which weren't attached the first time around) but maybe I got it because I waited so long or needed a lot of revisions? Idk who knows. Mocks looked a lot better this time around, though admittedly I couldn't suggest better changes to the bangs... but it's okay, we have a lot of bang mods.
Product:
The description is a translation of selected lyrics from ETERNAL SNOW by Changin' My Life (a theme song featured in the anime series).
Overall I like it - it's not perfect and I would've preferred a slightly different pixeling style, but it works and I can still use it and people like it. Do I regret not maximizing this ticket and including multigradients and sparkles? Nah... this is a recolour for the CS and I prefer if it were in colours people could use (solids) vs. random multi-gradients that won't match with other items or is only limited for use in a few schemes. And with it being sold in the CS, I'd like for it to sell well, so the artist's hard work is appreciated and Gaia makes profit to continue running the site! That was legit a mindset I had when I decided on colours. I wish I got to pick 10 colours instead of 8, but rules are rules.
Distribution Info
No spare copies available!
I ended up giving out a bunch of them to friends, CBers, and users who asked me about purchasing a copy.
Q & A
Q: How/when did you get this ticket?
A: I straight bought it from LV in September 2016 for 24,900 GC.
Q: Who is the artist for your ticket?
A: My best guess based on the pixel style would be Rejam!
Q: May I get permission to recolour your hair?
A: I will likely extend recolour permission, as long as you're not picking some weird colour I'd never want to see it in emotion_sweatdrop Please PM!
I again bought this ticket without much idea on what to do with it... my original idea was going to be a reference hair of Haine Otomiya from Shinshi Doumei Cross, but I decided the hair was too simple and similar to other hairs on the site, so I thought about other options. After finding out I could make extensions with this ticket, I decided to do something different and make bangs. This item was inspired by the bangs from the Bramble Blossoms item (I don't remember which is the original item of it), but I wanted it to be shorter and not so... big-foreheaded? lol I like side-parted fringes, and I thought this would be an interesting addition to the extensions we already have on Gaia.
Timeline:
Submitted: December 26, 2016; original order replaced May 23, 2017
Accepted: August 01, 2017
Mocks: August 07, 2017
Received: September 16, 2017
Mocks were surprisingly very fast to come in as you can see... I assume it's because bangs are relatively easy to mock up? Mocks were already perfect (and better than my own mocks of course) so I made no changes to them, just tweaked some colours * o * It's nice to see the silver scissors queue move this quick!
Product:
The description is a quote from Kelly Clarkson's "Hello" blaugh
Overall I love how it turned out, and I hope it becomes a staple extension for people to use or even consider recolouring! * o *
The original debut sold out in LV, so I was able to redeem a free recolour for these bangs as well.
Distribution Info
No spare copies available!
I threw my hoard up for bid after it sold out from LV LOL.
Q & A
Q: How/when did you get this ticket?
A: I straight bought it from LV in November 2016 for 24,900 GC.
Q: Who is the artist for your ticket?
A: Rejam!
Q: May I get permission to recolour your hair?
A: Like my other SS, I will likely extend recolour permission, as long as you're not picking some weird colour I'd never want to see it in. Please PM!
I obtained this ticket before I had an idea of what to do with it. Eventually I decided on making a flow-y, lightly tousled hair that could be altered to different hairstyles using the main scissors cuts. It had to have a ponytail cut, because I'm a sucker for those. I actually had a different idea prior to this (pigtails that cut to ponytails on either end) but after I had this ticket in queue for several months, I changed my mind to the idea that was made.
This hair is partly inspired by Erio Tōwa from Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl, in particular the bangs (I actually have no idea what this anime is about tbh). It is also inspired by the Deity of Ossidian hair, since the ponytail is one of my favourites on the site. I also like bells and stars, so I included those. After I received my official mocks, I do see this hair resembling the High Priestess Tresses as well, mainly for the front strands and the long hair at the back.
Timeline:
Submitted: October 30, 2016
Accepted: April 10, 2017
Mocks: May 16, 2017
Received: August 14, 2017
For some reason my ticket was marked as "done" before blue took over as the Project Custom lead... so after I emailed about its status on April 9th after noticing the silver scissors dates moved past this order, my ticket was taken from me the next morning.
Compared to my first silver scissors mocks (which came about 5 months after acceptance?), the mock turnaround time for this ticket was impressively fast (about a month). I was very satisfied with them - I only suggested a few small changes to the hair shape and made colour tweaks. Yuroppa made my hair; such talent much wow, Gaia hired a super talented artist ; u ; (Thank you!!)
Products: +
The description for the RIG colour sets is based on James Arthur's "Remember Who I Was" (it's a good song okay, I used/parodied the lyrics twice). The exclusive description is a parody of the Chainsmokers "All We Know"... it alludes to the fact that many of my ticket friends I collabed with or talked to aren't really doing tickets anymore, though we still do talk and chill every so often T u T It's like an "it may be over but we'll still remember our crazy journey" kinda thing. Yes I'm lame ok bye.
Using the golden scissors was a fun process overall. I'm glad I was able to pick up this ticket (same with the Diamond I used). I would love to see more golden scissors used by others, so I hope this ticket doesn't get retired from Project Custom anytime soon!
Distribution Info
Four copies of my exclusive were ABed in my auction for Beautician Licenses and a Rainbow Ticket. Due to popular demand and I having very few copies left to part with, I will only consider offers of pure/GC/tickets valued around the cost of a rainbow ticket.
I reserve the right not to sell to specific users if I so choose.
I also do not intend to Perfect Parcel my hair, nor will I be allowing any other user to PP it. This decision is firm.
Copies gifted: 13
Copies sold: 7
Copies available for sale: 4 (updated 2017-09-11)
Q & A
Q: How/when did you get this ticket?
A: I straight bought it from LV in October 2016 for 99,000GC.
Q: Why golden instead of silver scissors?
A: For one, I have always wanted to own an item that I could control the distribution/sales of.
Second, this ticket is like 2-3 RTs and 1 DRT combined all in one, and that's not considering the custom nature, as well as the plat-like exclusivity of the ticket. With this in mind, as well as decent GC discounts at the time of purchase, I felt the price I paid for this ticket was quite fair IMO, especially if you like making custom hair.
Q: Why did you use my favourite colours in your exclusive? It's not fair that most others can't get it!
A: I apologize if my choices ruin anyone's colour scheme collections... but frankly, it's my ticket, my choice. The chosen colours are ones I like to use and I see working well with my hair.
Q: Who is the artist for your ticket?
A: Yuroppa emotion_kirakira
Q: May I get permission to recolour your hair?
A: I'm sorry, but I don't want to extend recolour permission of my hair to anyone else at the moment. I may allow recolour permission in the future if I change my mind.
Q: I'm interested in using this ticket and have questions. Can I contact you about your experience?
A: Sure - I asked a few questions myself during the process, since this ticket is rarely used, if ever. Chances are you'll have the same questions I did.
After burning through 231739825 recolour tickets, I decided to go for one of the biggest tickets on the site to make a custom doll item for myself, because why not (though you could say the Golden Scissors was already a pretty big one...). I had a vague idea of how I wanted the third pose while I was saving up for this ticket via GC. Ended up buying it within a month of saving, because I got impatient and didn't know how often Gaia would be selling plat tickets in the CS at the time.
As seen in the mocks above, it's a pretty simple idea: a fur-lined jacket with a bunny hood hidden pose. Plus a smol surprise at the back.
The hardest part of planning this ticket was picking avatars. I have a lot of favourites saved in my outfit slots and it was hard to narrow down to two. The second doll is a reference to Kero from Cardcaptor Sakura / Cardcaptors... a.k.a. I basically equipped a bunch of copies of Bearer of Cards lol It turned out so cute though. No regrets picking it as a pose.
Timeline:
Submitted: November 30, 2016
Accepted: May 29, 2017
Mocks: July 13, 2017 (Round 1), September 18, 2017 (Round 2)
Received: December 28, 2017
My plat was accepted without initial revisions needed.
Mock turnaround time (Round 1) was not too bad, considering it's a relatively bigger pose (pixel-wise) to work on. I did end up suggesting a few changes to the pixeling and placements of certain parts, but it was fairly spot on to my own mocks. I asked for a Round 2 of mocks, mainly because I wanted to make sure the back mocks were fine.
The wait for my doll to release was a little longer than I anticipated, because I thought it wouldn't be much longer of a wait if I already had the front and back mocks, but I was wrong! LOL. I found out later that my assigned artist is one of the main pixel item artists, so she had an understandably large workload and thus the longer wait.
Product:
The description is a translation of selected lyrics from 陀飛輪 (Tourbillion) by Eason Chan. It describes the importance and preciousness of time, and is a reminder to not focus on work/money so much, to treasure our lives and the things/people around us. It's a particular favourite song of mine, and it's been a good reminder for me whenever I've encountered issues in areas like career and money, so I chose this for the description. Though if I could go back and fix this, I would have directly quoted the song itself to make it feel more personal to me emotion_sweatdrop But it still works I guess~
Distribution Info
Gifting: As I've noticed that people I usually gift to don't really wear my items, I've limited my gifting to those I talk to more often and whom I've seen using my item gifts. If you didn't get one, it isn't because I don't like you anymore, but because I only have so many copies to distribute, so I prefer if my copies were gifted to someone who would actually find use for the item.
Selling: I will likely not sell/auction off too many copies, because I want to know who has possession of my doll, and I don't want too many users I don't know that well in possession of it.
Q & A
Q: How/when did you get this ticket?
A: I straight bought it from LV (I forget when) for 150,000 GC.
Q: Why a platinum ticket instead of a golden?
A: I've wanted an exclusive item of my own for awhile, and I didn't think my doll would be that in-demand for most people to care that it's an exclusive. And it's seabreeze, so really... who cares... emotion_awesome
I've debated making the original in many different colours (amaranth was my other top choice). I submitted the ticket when seabreeze was still "hot", and received my mocks at a time where seabreeze was "dying". I still like seabreeze, even though I have shifted my colour priorities at the moment. Second, I decided it would aggravate users less if I went with a "dying" colour vs. a trending colour that may hurt peoples' wallets and kokoros... LOL
Q: May I get permission to recolour your doll?
A: Please PM all recolour enquiries! This is so 1) I can let you know if the recolour is being done, and 2) I want to make sure my dolls will be recoloured in appropriate colours or schemes. While I am not allowed to demand a copy of the recolour as per ToS, I would appreciate if I could receive a copy in return as a friendly gesture for extending recolour permission to you.
I didn't think that 1) the Golden Scissors ticket would return to LV while the custom queue was still backed up, and 2) I would actually pick up another one for myself. I already had about half the GC needed for the ticket when it showed up, and I ended up buying giftcards and dipping into my savings account for my "last hurrah" ticket spree. So yes, I was one of those three crazy people who bought a ticket on Sept 10. (You're probably thinking now, so much for a last hurrah, right? Because yeah it was totally not a last hurrah lol.)
I had no idea what I was going to use it for at the time, since I yoloswag purchased it. There was an original idea I was originally going to use, but then I found a hair reference image that I rough pixel-mocked up, which I showed to my friends. They were quite drawn to this idea over my previous one (although I'd love to make both ideas happen eventually). I figured since I was fine to go with either hair idea and there was greater interest in this design, I went with the Cottontails as my final choice.
The hair was intended to be versatile in terms of the hair styles it could be converted to: pigtails, regular ponytail, side ponytail, short cut. I had intended for a similar cut concept for GS1, but I made a last minute adjustment after the ticket's acceptance. I also intentionally kept the scissors cuts simple, so I could still wear many of my favourite accessories with it without worrying about layering conflicts or Princess Clips clipping off a side of a horn. The name was decided after several days of thought, and named simply because the hair shape in a way resembles bunny ears. I don't like naming items, so this is the best you're going to get lmao.
To make it extra special (in my head anyway), I also submitted this order exactly one year after GS1.
Timeline:
Submitted: October 30, 2017
Accepted: January 11, 2018
Mocks: January 29, 2018
Received: February 13, 2018
Mocks were impressively fast - supposedly to make the deadline of the hair CI it was to be scheduled in? While the mocks showed deviation from the ones I sent in, I did ask for the product to look different, because I actually traced my mocks from a reference image that I lost. As well, I'm no artist, and would rather have the assigned artist do what they think best with the design.
I made no changes to the hair shape - mostly made colour changes, because I can never secure a final decision on those...
Products: +
The description of the basic sets is an English translation of a line of lyrics from Mayday's "In the Blink of an Eye (轉眼)", with the original Taiwanese lyrics being directly quoted into the exclusive set itself. The song (at least from what I understand anyway) is set at a point where one is nearing the end of their life journey, recalling memories of the past, particularly with a loved one, and wishing that the memories with them won't disappear. Many of the song's lines resonate with me very strongly, in particular the one I quoted. If I could, I would quote the entire song, but I'd be stepping on copyright boundaries lol
(Honestly, I would have saved this description to use for my original hair design if I ever found the chance to put it back in queue... but I was also not sure if I would ever get another opportunity to use another GS to lock in this description. My original design has a lot of sentimental value to me to want to release it as an SS, so it would have to be reserved for a future GS, platinum ticket, or not be created at all.)
Distribution Info
Gifting: I will be limiting who I am gifting copies of my exclusive set to. If you don't receive a copy, please don't take it personally!
Selling: Whether or not I sell any copies of my exclusive will be at my discretion. As a rule of thumb, if it is not listed in my store or I do not have an exchange thread advertising it, I may not be looking to take offers at the moment.
I do not intend to Perfect Parcel my hair, nor will I be allowing any other user to PP it. This decision is firm.
Q & A
Q: How/when did you get this ticket?
A: I straight bought one out of the three sold in LV on September 10, 2017 for 180,000GC.
Q: Why another Golden Scissors?
A: I basically explained it above, but tl;dr I had the money for it and I wanted a last hurrah (which didn't happen lololol)... so why not?
Q: Who is the artist for your ticket?
A: Yuroppa!
Q: May I get permission to recolour your hair?
A: I don't want to extend recolour permission of my hair to anyone else at the moment. I may allow recolour permission in the future if I change my mind.
I get asked a lot of the same questions and have read lots of comments wondering the same things regarding my tickets... so here's some answers to quench your curiosity. Ask me more questions if you're still curious.
Q: Who is / why C?
A: C is the first initial of my real name. You may have seen me around being referred to as "Car".
I started the "C's" series when I went on a quartz stub rampage, and I've continued to use the initial on most of my stub creations, as well as my custom hair tickets. Basically I have zero creativity when it comes to item names, so I went with this naming option.
Q: How did you afford all of your tickets? You've put in so many of them!
A: It's all made possible via a combination of several factors.
I still live at home, which lifts a huge financial burden off my shoulders. I currently work at a job with decent pay, so I can afford to splurge on Gaia per month. I did/do make an effort to pay for my own things IRL too (school, dentist appointments, surgery) - I'm the only one of my siblings to be pretty much financially independent from my parents, aside from still needing their shelter lmao.
Prior management pushed significantly heavy GC flash sale discounts to users in late 2016, and I bought into it. Sometimes the discounts were "mispriced", to a point where users could purchase 10,000 GC for $5, for example (this was real and went on for an hour without being fixed). Sometimes I caught overlapping coupon discounts with GC flash sales, which also saved me a lot of money. It was a dark time for the site, but I admittedly wouldn't have been able to pick up so many tickets without these misprices and sales occurring.
Recolour collaborations eased a lot of financial burden on my end, since the ticket cost was significantly cut with additional parties involved. It's been more difficult for me to collab these days, mainly because I'm slow to warm up to collabing on new projects with new people. I'm also pickier these days due to ticket costs, and whether I'd have use for the recolour/item.
While I wasn't involved for too long in the "$eabreeze recolour profit phase" around Fall 2016, I was involved in creating some recolours that netted me a good return on profit when I sold my copies. Some of them I undersold for sure, but whatever. Some of my regular recolours also sold for decent prices too.
I've won a few tickets in RIGs as well - some of which I used, and others I sold or traded for other tickets I had more interest in. My pulls include:
☆ Rainbow Parcel Ticket + Perfect Parcel
☆ Ombre Quartz Stub x2
☆ Quartz Stub x2
☆ Doki Doki Ticket
☆ Rainbow Ticket + Agate Ticket
Because I spend a significant amount on Gaia, I end up with a lot of junk from RIGs to sell in addition to my recolours... so I don't find it too hard to make back gold after buying tickets. Holding trillions is a norm for me. If I need gold, I usually throw bid sessions in my store and let the vendors have at it. lol
Q: Why did you make so many seabreeze recolour "redos/variations"?
A: It's bothered me a lot that users comment on this issue, but I'm 90% sure they're looking for a reaction or tips. It doesn't hurt to ask? lol
The main reason is because I was unhappy enough with how certain poses were recoloured by Gaia themselves, so I took the initiative to use tickets to "fix" them to my/others' liking. The other reason is I make recolour mocks in my spare time a lot, and sometimes I or my collaborators think a certain variation I mock needs to happen... and so it happens.
It is less likely for me to redo anything now, due to the awfully high prices of tickets these days.
Q: Do you have anymore of your recolours/items for sale?
To summarize, I probably don't have the item you want 95% of the time you ask. I tend not to keep spares of my recolours for too long after their initial release.
If you're looking for my 25-copy exclusive items, I do have minimum asking prices. If you're not prepared to pay more than 10t for items in general, then please don't waste my time and inbox space. These items have sentimental value for me and have generally high demand, so I will stay firm on my asking prices.
Q: Why does it seem like your items are being released earlier/faster than others?
First, let's get one thing cleared up: I am not given favouritism or special treatment from Gaia for my ticket items. I submit tickets, and they go into the same queue and through the same process as every other order. Too many rumours have come up regarding me and my allegedly accelerated ticket progress, so I would like to clarify my stance.
Sometimes my items do release earlier than anticipated, and this happens because of varied artist workload and speed, which any Gaia artist can confirm. This happens beyond my control and is not intended on the artists' part.
I am also aware some users are wary of my vervain recolours seemingly being released very soon after the scheme's official debut. When a ticket is in queue for acceptance, you are allowed to submit multiple revisions for it, including completely changing the order, before the 7-day deadline post-acceptance. This was what I did for my prior sootberry ticket orders when the vervain gradient was first debuted in Glamorous Faerie Bedhead. It gets confusing if I try to explain specific dates, but that's the gist of it.
If you at all suspect any favouritism with my items, please ask me about it so I can clarify the situation. It is likely a misunderstanding.
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