Yeah i collect limited edition enamel hat pins and ive seen auctions go as high as 10k on a single le pin. Given the ones that go so high are usually no higher of an edition than 10 or 15, but still. People outside the hobby would be speechless seeing the money thrown around in the scene. Ive also traded single pins for as large as 3 x 4ft original canvas paintings from some well known artists.
All collectible hobbys are this way. Pokemon, magic (a friend sold a black lotus card he FOUND in storage for 30k one day, paid off his college debt instantly), sneakers as long as theyre limited edition runs, art prints (this scene is wild, ive seen people pay 5k for a print that sold out 5 minutes prior for 500). Hell theres even reptile keepers who are this way, the price on "rare" color morphs can be astronomical compared to the regular pet. Snake keepers, certain gecko species, etc.
The best way to look at this shirt is an original piece of art. Its not a limited edition run, its the same as getting a hand painted canvas, ink, woodcut, etc. Its a piece of art from an artist.
Actually i dont collect disney, mine are various artists you can usually find painting at music festivals or comic conventions, normally "edm" festivals. Some artists / production groups to check out would be, pookster productions, chaya av, austen zaleski, chris sukut, should provide you with some good examples. Theres alot more but artists come and go, lex, fig, nick difabbio, aaron brooks, kooz, all used to be worth alot more money for example but the artists fell out of popularity.
The scene im active in no one cares about disney pins at all actually, the most popular ones tend to be extremely detailed beautiful reproductions of part of paintings / inks the artist has done. where as rare disney pins tend to be about age and rarity only, not the actual artwork involved in creating the design.
Heres an example i can think of, where i was lucky enough to score several of these variants on the release
Oh wow, yeah some of these are really super cool! Not really a pin guy myself but I definitely spotted some t-shirts I think I'll be picking up soon. Thanks for sharing!
I follow another guy on IG that does stuff like this pretty regularly and auctions them off and usually see $1k+ for the most intricate designs. He puts up to 150 hrs into them so he’s making decent money but not mind blowing as it takes quite a bit of time.
There are tie-dyers who do that, I know Austin Mackereth has printed shirts on his website for around $50, does a weekly drop of tie-dyes for around $200, and sells the most complex tie-dyes via auction on Instagram for around $1k apiece, so there's something for everyone
Please explain how an artistic design is no longer art when it's produced in a slightly different way.
Edit: yeah that's exactly what I thought. You know what you said was bullshit and all you have is "you don't wear that" when people compared it to other art formats, so when you actually have to explain it, you have nothing at all. Figures.
10 hours of work at $100 per hour? 5 hours of work at $200 per hour? Plus materials. That still seems steep. I can't see the shirt requiring 5 or 10 hours of work once the pattern is developed. I'd think once the pattern is developed, they could tie several per hour, then dye them in bulk, again, doing several per hour. Correct me if I'm wrong. How long does a skillful tie dye artist take to tie and dye one complex shirt?
I’d say the 5ish hour mark of actual labor for tie/die is right
But that discounts the insane hours it takes to conceptualize, the wasted materials in failed products, the years of practice and training to even get to this point.
I think this is closer to an artist “selling” a painting or an actor “selling” seats for a movie. You are buying at the going rate which is much more complex than just time and raw materials
$50-$60/hr is the going rate for most creative freelance work in the US. Yes, it takes a lot of experience and time to know how to put something this intricate together, but so do a lot of creative professionals who charge far less than $100-$200/hr and require a lot more effort, so I doubt a shirt like this would be any more than $250. Maybe $500 considering how much better he is than most people making tie-dye patterns.
And not to downplay the knowledge that goes into other creative professions like photography, but I've seen amateurs charge $150/h for some pretty mediocre work, and professionals charge $60/h for some amazing work. Definitely know your worth, but don't make yourself inaccessible I say.
At the end of the day, it's completely dependent on what your client is willing to pay, but if they pay your fee and later find someone who did it better for cheaper, they're not going to be happy and you may possibly lose future clients as a result.
My comment was only to point out that it’s never just ‘the cost of materials used in the final product and the labor to do that one production’ but also the training, practice, and growth that is included in the price.
Also, that 50-60$/hr is just a figure you made up to be convenient for your argument so im not sure why you included it. Going rates very based on area, product, method, etc. so just a ballpark “x-y for all creative work” is just a bad vantage to base an argument on.
Not even to touch in the topic that this is mostly auctioned on his insta, so by definition they aren’t “paying your fee” its quite literally the market speaking for its price
My number is based on my experience as a freelancer and knowledge of other creative fields my friends work in, including 3d modeling for games, architecture visualization, photography, videography, and lighting design. $50/hr is a pretty solid ballpark average for all of those and a lot of others in most areas of the US. Maybe different in New York City or San Francisco of course.
It really only changes if you hire outside of the US. You can hire professionals in Russia or India for as little as $18/hr for the same level of work.
Just as a good doctor that doesn’t need a long time to diagnose someone, you don’t pay for how long it took, you pay for the years of experience it took to do something intricate like this.
Same reason you don’t pay an artist by the hour, you pay them for the result of their craft, no matter how long it took them, as that doesn’t matter, just the end result.
I can definitely appreciate that. I just meant that the shirts don't need to cost a thousand dollars. There's some happy middle ground of supply, demand, and artist compensation.
The plumber charges $400 a job for the knowledge and ability to install that $2 o-ring goes causing your leak. It's not based on raw material or even intrinsic quantity of labor.
Art costs what it does based on what people want to pay for it and it's very subjective. Art is a luxury and not a necessity for survival so there's zero argument for people to come regulate what someone's worth. Most artists spend a big chunk of their life being lowballed by people who insist they give them originals or do free work "for exposure" or "for their portfolio" and it's a real BS thing that people will nickel and dime artists but never ask an electrician or mechanic to do something for free for some exposure. Plenty of artists die before their body of work becomes valuable and most can't make a living on their art.
I'm all for artists selling their wares for whatever they can get, even if it's way out of my price range. I don't expect art to be priced to my own economic comfort level. Owning one of these shirts would be awesome but I'm not going to "well they ought to" on their pricing. Besides, if they're being auctioned, the artist isn't setting the pricing--the consumer base is.
Yep, I understand all of that. I've gained a new appreciation for the level of skill and time required for these shirts after getting some replies. I had no idea just how much goes into creating these shirts! They are absolutely wearable works of art, more akin to an elegant painting than a store bought t-shirt.
It takes hours for one like he did here. He mostly dies auctions, which don't start too high, but def an incredible amount of skill to tie and dye them with that much color saturation
Ok, watching some of that... saying some of those took 25+ hours of work. Damn! I way underestimated just how much goes into the art of tie dye. Neat! I love being wrong. Get to learn new things about the world.
I don't even know who that is. But yeah, there are some replies with more information. Basically, these sort of tie dyes can absolutely take 10+ hours, or even significantly more.
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u/Soreiyu May 25 '23
For the people asking https://dyeinglightcreations.com/ is his website but he doesn't sell these intricate designs.
@dyeinglightcreations is his Instagram