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Behind the Scenes #25
🕑 Added 2019-02-13 14:56:46 +0000 UTCWhat up, mini family?
Pretty exciting week! As some of you may know, I'm in the process of having a miniature made for the purposes of selling/using it in physical and digital miniature painting class as discussed toward the end of this video: https://youtu.be/DS3HS3wUmcs?t=411
I got right to finding a concept artist and a 3D sculptor. I contacted a few of each and got a few replies and picked the ones I liked the most to do work with. I didn't skimp on cost here at all because I want this product to not be amateur. The concept artist I landed on was Tatiana Vetrova. I loved her work on artstation and felt she could capture the character I wanted. You can see her work here: https://www.artstation.com/northernchild . She asked me for a "mood board" aka a collection of images to give her an artistic direction so I whipped one up: https://imgur.com/a/DIgXduq . I wanted to create a Victorian era female vampire. I wanted her to be equally as beautiful as she is evil. Tatiana came back with a few rough sketches:
Oof. What a start! I loved the body of #1 and the head of #2. I felt that if I was going to use this in classes, having a full/uncovered face would be best for demonstrating how to paint faces. The body of #1 had a little too much fabric going on, so I asked her if she could break it up in some way and that lead to rough sketch #2:
I love so many things about this rough sketch. I love the rapier. It fits the character perfectly; equally parts agile and deadly. I love the circlet, I love the hair, I love neck tie, the poofy shoulders, everything! The last piece of feedback I gave to Tatiana was the face. We need to work on something a little more violent or sinister, and that's where we are now!
The 3D sculptor I landed on for the miniature is Ali Jalali. I'm so excited to work with this guy because he has experience 3D sculpting miniatures for larger companies that I myself buy miniatures from. I was scared I was going to find someone without industry experience, but I'm glad Ali has a lot. Once the concept is done, I'll ship it off to him.
Next up, what's going on with Kill Your Friends? Well, recently my wife and I went to a furniture consignment store we frequent looking for a dresser. Every now and then I peruse this stuff looking for chairs for KYF. I want something with character that also matches the set decoration that I'll have and I found the perfect chairs.
I found some white and red tulip chairs! I love the 70s chique and the red color. These will be the chairs we use on the set of KYF for myself and my gaming guest. This made me think about all the other items I still need to purchase before actually setting a production date. I need an HDMI switcher so my camera operator can see all the feeds from one location, and I need another 25mm lens for one of my up-close shots and I think that's it...I can buy that now and get rockin' but I have a lot of stuff going on in Q1 of this year so I think it'll wait for Q2. Woot!
Lastly, I'm on a mission to make youtube videos about plastic toy soldiers full time, so what's the status on that? Well, recently my wife and I counted up all our expenses but there was one piece left to figure out and that was taxes. How much am I going to owe in taxes essentially working for my own small business. I got in contact with a Certified Public Accountant or "CPA" to discuss taxes and also what I might be forgetting. It was kind of an upsetting conversation as I'm sure anyone with their own small business might know. In the US, you have a few different taxes. For the tax bracket I'll likely be in, there's a 22% federal income tax + $8,096/year (ya know, because a quarter of my income isn't enough?), and a 7.05% state income tax and a 15% small business income tax that is normally paid for by your employer but since I'd not have an employer, I'd have to incur it. This brings taxation up to ~45% which is....upsetting to say the least, haha. Tack on another 5% for retirement fund contributions and I finally have a bottom line for what I need to be earning as a content creator to not impact the livelihood of my family by transitioning. I am approximately 60% of the way there but could be closer because I'm not considering what kind of tax deductions I might have, so maybe that's closer to 65% or 70% of the way there. We're getting close, but not there yet! I appreciate all the support you guys give me in this endeavor from your literal money to your words of encouragement. Thank you.
PAINT MORE MINIS!
Scott
EDIT
Tatiana sent me the concepts with some colors!
Comments
That 2nd concept color is really awesome. I mean they are all but that one is fire
Thanks for saying that, Nicholas. You're too kind!
I absolutely love your work and I'm 100% going to drop whatever doolarydoos (that's the Australian currency, i swear) on that tutorial and mini when it is available. Those tax rates are crazy, I'm not sure what they are here in Aus but I don't imagine they are much better. Hope to be able to bump up my pledge tier as soon as possible to support your endeavours more and help you get closer to achieving your dream. A happy, stress free and full-time Scott means more, better quality content and I am all about that. Keep up the good work my dudarino.
Scott Norris
Fantastic work Scott. I love the mini so far and can only imagine it will get better from here. Sucks about the taxes and business challenges. I've been an owner of a small business in the past, and can say with certainty that the government sure knows how to stick it to anyone trying to go their own way. Hang tough and keep at it man. You'll find an angle. Oh, and I'll take one of those minis when they're ready ;)
Well those concepts look dope. Take my $$$
Gorgeous! Great job Mini-man 🤘🏻
She looks gorgeous. Super excited to see how the end product looks. Taxes suck. No getting around it. We will get you there, by brute force!
Rooting for you my dude. The mock ups look great for the model. Took a after school class in highschool as an enrichment program and learned some basic mini-modeling sculpting techniques and I SUCKED. Hopefully you found the right people :)
I'm looking forward to figuring it out and I'm hopeful that members of the community respond well to it!
Love the viability you're giving us here! It is great to see that you are making some serious progress toward your goals. Accounting is certainly not the most exciting aspect of starting your own business, but taking the time to really understand the finances is super important. You are making some serious investments in equipment for your videos, so be sure to deduct everything you can and depreciate the cost of ware and tear if you can. Looking forward to hearing more about the model/tutorial and the business model around it. (business nerd here)
Maybe you can explain to me what a balance sheet is in discord!
Nice to hear the progress on going full time. I will second paying taxes on profit only. Get yourself a good balance sheet and a good accountant!
That Vampire is amazing, can't wait to see the final Mini and get one! As for Taxes, I feel really blessed to have started my own businesses in Finland some 10 years ago, it's really a breeze and Taxes are not even 1/5 of my Turnover, with personal income taxes being even less than that. Anyway, I am off to paint some Minis!
I just did the LLC thing this year and the CPA I spoke to mentioned something about how being in an S-Corp allows you leverage further tax breaks, so you're right on!
The generosity of you guys continues to amaze. Thank you!
Love the insight on the model creation, the next video series and business building. I've been in a couple of business over the years and I would suggest and LLC if you're not one already. As a business you should only be paying taxes on your profits. An S-corp can be good too if makes sense for the business to build up cash and assets and pay a salary. Good luck, it is a fun and scary time when you make the leap.
Those tax levels look as horrible on your side as they are in Poland. The worst thing is this is for self employed small businesses. Crazy Stuff. No worries though, Primer Boi, you will get there and we will help. The vampire lady concepts are great, looks like a good direction and choice of partners there.
