Updates

Hi!

Being a self employed artist is filled with small obstacles that need quick solutions. I'd like to share with you few updates surrounding some more technical stuff that's affecting my work recently, and some of the outcomes  💪

1.Print House closing

Recently I've received an email from my print house that they'll be closing their online services aimed at the smaller businesses. May is the last month I'll be able to order photo prints from them which pushed me to search for alternatives. 

a) Local stationary print house - It was my first instinct to jump straight into this solution. Unfortunately, during the Covid pandemic all of the local shops of that specific print house got closed. I could wait for the pandemic to end so I can go back to buying prints in the local shops but nobody is sure when the pandemic is going to end. I'm not willing to risk you guys not receiving your goodies during the upcoming months.

b) Different print house - Second option was requiring some research. Getting some samples from different print stores may take a long while. Time - which I didn't have much to spare. Another factor that was a big con for this option was the nsfw material which is not always welcomed in the print houses. 

c) Printing at home - Solution that would require a lot of work. First researching to find a fitting printer, then finding a paper that would be right for the prints (which most likely would differ from the one I was provided with by the print house. A big pro to this solution thought would be the complete control over the proces and no problems with the mature content during printing. 

Due to the next problem that showed up, choosing an option became much easier though. 

2. Printer

I had to say goodbye to my old Brother All-in-one printer. I was sharing it for a long while with Runshin who recently opened his Patreon under the name of "Lucjan Pakulski" (go check him out if you have a moment ✨). He was in a big need of a scanner and since I already had a problem with the print house and was considering buying a new one for the prints - that was a sign for me to go with the option c)

After long hours of research I've decided to buy a printer that is ecological, economical and high quality - EPSON L7180.

3. Paper

At this point I had to accept that no matter what paper I'm gonna go with it will end up different that the one used in the print house. They were using a complete different technique of printing which I would not be able to replicate at home. That was a pro and a con at the same time. A con was that from now on all of the prints will be looking different than the previous ones, but a big pro of them all was that I could choose and fit paper to my needs. 

I bought few different paper packs and some variety packs to test.

I worked on some settings of the printer, run some tests and noted the results down. I got the best results on the fully matt papers. Semi gloss and glossy papers came out looking blurry and dark whilst matts came out looking very natural and close to the original. 

Three of the favorites are:

1. Smooth, Museum Natural Rag, 0550121998 MediaJET Artist Line, 260g/m2
2. Tecco Photo, Selection, SAM200 Smooth Artist Matt, 200g/m2
3. Tecco Photo, Fine Art, PCR310 Premium Cotton Rag, 310 g/m2

All of them look beautiful, brightness of the paper is just right (in the case of some other papers i tested super white paper didn't compliment the sketches), and the natural texture of the surface makes the sketch look very close to the original.

I'll be consulting my artist friends soon to compare our opinions about the print outs so I can decide on the best option. 

So far my favorite is the first one of the noted options. Blacks are just a tad deeper than on the second one. Third is hard to compare with the previous ones because it has a completely different texture. It is more grainy but still looks beautiful. All of those slight differences are very hard to capture on the photo so hopefully my written review will be enough. I'll be answering your questions in the comments ✨

4. Goodie bags

Change of the paper will affect the goodie bags from May forward. Prints from April will be the last ones made by the old print house.

❗There are some problems surrounding shipment to Chile and Australia at the moment. I've received few returns from those countries, and will be informing all of the affected patrons in the upcoming days. This may also affect future goodie bags, so please take note that if you are from these areas, goodie bags may take longer to arrive, until the borders open up again. 

✨Since May is the month of my birth I plan  on adding a special gift do this month's goodie bags. Stay tuned, I'll be announcing it in the upcoming days~

That would be all for now, I'll be informing you about possible changes in the next posts! Thank you so much for your engagement and support! Without you I wouldn't be here 💪😤💪🔥