Thursday 25 July 2013

Status ... we have our printer!! First mailings going out soon!

Hi,

Firstly, I apologise for the fact that it's been approximately forever since the last update - I've had to put a lot of time into other projects for a while, and also have a couple of hospital treatments (one done and two coming up...) to contend with.  Nothing serious, happily :-)

Two significant pieces of news ...

Firstly - thanks to everyone who contributed to the crowd-funding campaign on indiegogo.com, we have been able to purchase a second-hand Epson R2400 printer on ebay, and went up to Colwyn Bay a little while ago to pick it up from a lovely couple who were completely honest and conscientious about making sure we knew exactly what we were getting and what state it was in!  We had a nice day out as well into the bargain - lunch on the beach and a trip to Portmeirion, which has now become a favourite hangout.

So  here we are - installed in the studio...

The nerve-centre of wowlookwhatigot.com operations ...
Not the brand new A1 printer we were aiming for, but as we said in the beginning, the business concept was meant to be scalable.  The 2400 makes fine-art prints using fade-resistant pigment-based Ultrachrome inks (that's the important bit!) on heavyweight fine-art paper in sizes up to A3+ which is enough for us to get up and running. There was a bit of maintenance necessary to get it working properly - now done, so it's full-steam ahead!

The next task is to make some test prints to make sure everything is calibrated right so our subscribers get the best possible quality, then the first mailouts (to indiegogo contributors who claimed some of our perks) will go ahead ASAP!

At the same time, I'll be updating the wowlookwhatigot.com website to remove the crowd-funding links and 'go live', then we can start trying to get more subscribers .... hooray!

Second bit of news ...

"Tempest/Eymesti" : Ink, pencil and gouache on watercolour paper by Martin Herbert -The prize in our prize draw give-away !
Apologies for the delay due again ... but we did finally do the prize draw from the names of our first contributors for Martin's original dragon drawing "Tempest" (a.k.a The Eleventh Dragon - see the full story here).  The drawing, framed and ready to hang, was won by our neighbour Andrew Capel, one of our first and most encouraging contributors - congratulations Andrew!!

So - the next new should hopefully be that our first mailings have gone out and we're open for business!

Best wishes to everyone for now!
Martin & Vivi-Mari