| When
are the next dolls coming out?
Where can I find Precious Miseries
merchandise?
Where can I find a StiTcheS Plush?
What merchandise is available?
Why don’t you have a Precious
Miseries online store to sell Hot Topic made PM
products?
Can I help spread the word about
Precious Miseries?
I am part of an online graphics group;
may we use your art?
I’m a fan, what are the rules
about using your art in a project?
What other web venues are you a part
of?
How did you get your
‘big break’?
How do I put together a well-organized
portfolio?
I’m interested in having a
line of merchandise out too, what do you suggest?
What printer did you use for your
postcards?
How do I find toy companies that
will make my line?
I made an original character design/Precious
Miseries orphan. Will you use it?
How did you come up with Precious
Miseries?
How did you decide on the name,
Precious Miseries?
Is StiTcheS/Precious Miseries going
to be a TV show?
I have a good question that was
not on this FAQ page!
I am a Company, Magazine, Convention
or Professional Artist and I’m interested
in Precious Miseries…
Update 2009: Right now we are funding
the dolls and are asking fans to donate $26 for
a Goth or Alise doll. Details can be found on
the Precious
Miseries Alise & Goth Plush Doll Donations
page.
Things have been moving slowly.
In the beginning, 6 dolls were scheduled to come
out with in a one year time period. (2006) As
of now, there are only two dolls out, Flower Girl
and Ragdoll, with the tentative hope that two
more dolls will ever make their debut. Alise and
Goth were scheduled to come out in the summer
of 2006, but because of some unforeseen circumstances,
and the mild popularity of Precious Miseries,
their release date was dropped. Toynami is currently
working very hard to try and push Precious Miseries
and find a retailer who will commit to at least
purchasing 2000 of each doll.
PM merchandise has been out on
the market since the beginning of 2006 and only
a very limited amount of products were made. So,
there is no guarantee that you can still find
merchandise at Hot Topic. However, there are places
to find merchandise online. I have a list of places
to find the dolls, Flower Girl, Ragdoll and StiTcheS
on my links page.
There is also a CafePress
store that I opened for people interested in purchasing
shirts.
There are very few options for those
who wish to purchase a StiTcheS plush, seeing
as he is a limited edition that was capped to
500 pieces. However, I have found an online store
that sells him worldwide. If you are interested
in purchasing a 'Precious Miseries' StiTcheS plush,
please go to http://store.imageanime.com/.
Hot Topic made a few things from
the 6 characters they chose:
Magnets
Stickers
Patches
Key Chains
Buttons
Dolls
You can view some of these products on my merchandise
page.
While that is a superb idea, I have
no time to manage an online store. Unfortunately
I do not have many hands working for me at meager
pay; I am a one-woman show. Aside from the manufacturing
and distribution of the PM merchandise once found
at Hot Topic, everything about Precious Miseries
I do myself. I also work full time for a living,
so there is very little time for me to do art,
let alone manage all these online venues.
While I don’t really know
what good that would do for the immanent new release
of products, spreading the word just might give
PM the momentum for future possibilities. Send
people to the website,
add Precious
Miseries and/or StiTcheS
to your myspace, join our BBS,
adopt a PM orphan, make
signatures and icons for Precious Miseries fans,
draw fanart, make short animations etc! There
are so many ways that you can help!
I have been getting so much mail
from these groups, mostly through DevArt. I love
it! Yes, you may use my art as long as you adhere
to my requests. (Which are standard and are usually
in your rules anyway.) Nothing you make from my
art can be used for profit. You must have a ©Melissa
Diaz somewhere on the graphic as well as a website
URL. You can either point people to http://preciousmiseries.com
or http://gro-wings.com.
That’s it. You can tube to your heart’s
content.
The rules for fans are very similar
to that of the graphics group’s. (Meaning,
read above.) I don’t care what kind of art
you do…as long as it is clean and respects
my girls’ integrity. You can do 2D art,
animation, make dolls, do some creative writing;
you as the artist have that freedom, just please
follow the very few requests that I have made.
You can find me popping up at many
places, at very random times. I have three websites
that I still try to maintain: GroWings,
Precious
Miseries and StiTcheS.
(The poor StiTcheS site hasn’t gotten any
love since it’s birth.) I’m on LJ,
DeviantArt,
Myspace
and GaiaOnline.
I also have a BBS,
aka message board, which was once a flourishing
community 2-3 years ago until it’s abrupt
and untimely demise. I have finally rebuilt it
and am hoping that it flourishes once again.
Well, if you really want to know,
let me tell you my silly little tale. I was at
SDCC 2005 and I brought everything that I could
have needed for presenting my art: My StiTcheS
Plush, a well-organized and professional portfolio
and postcards of my Precious Miseries characters.
It all started with cosplay. I forgot my socks,
so I went around to all the vendors to try and
find someone that sold socks. I ended up at the
Emily Strange booth where I talked with the girl
that worked there about my StiTcheS plush. (View
Here) I ended up pulling out one of my portfolios
and showed her my art. So then she told me that
my Precious Miseries series would make excellent
dolls and said that I should go to the Toynami
booth. I inquired about 'Toynami' and she showed
me an Emily the Strange cat plushie that the company
had made. I trekked to the Toynami vendor where
I was directed to a gentleman who I introduce
myself to. He asked me what company I worked for
and I said that I was an independent artist. He
was hesitant, but then agreed to meet with me
later on that day. When I met up with him at the
appointed time, I realized that I was talking
with Toynami's president. As soon as I showed
him the series he fell in love with it and we
talked for over an hour about licensing possibilities
as well as marketing options. Somewhere in between
talking about making dolls of my characters and
my life's goals he asked where I saw them being
sold at. When I said 'Hot Topic', he said to me,
"Well, I am meeting with them tomorrow, why
don't you give me your postcards and I'll make
a casual presentation." He conveniently was
going to meet with them the next day, so I gave
him my postcards and copies of my new character
designs and he told me to come back after a certain
time. When I returned to the Toynami vendor, George,
Toynami’s president, pulled me aside to
chat with me for another hour or so, telling me
how enthusiastic Hot Topic was about my series.
And that is how I began!
Go to a good art college and learn
there. That’s what I did!
Very few people can just say one
day, “I want to have a line like ‘so
and so’ and actually make it. It takes a
lot of preliminary work. Hot Topic would not have
picked me up by if I hadn’t already visualized,
created and marketed an entire line of characters.
By the time I met them, I had about 17 fully realized
characters. I had also put hundreds of dollars
into printing professional looking postcards to
sell at conventions. So basically, half the work
was done. If you are interested in trying to create
your own line, it’s going to take more dedication
and work than you’ll want to put into it.
Like in most cases, you may fail
numerous times before you are successful, but
you only truly fail when you quit. Take it as
a sign to refine your art and always strive to
get better. Hopefully, one day, if you keep trying,
you’ll get your big break too.
I found a great online place called
http://iprint.com.
I use them for business cards as well.
That’s a good question; unfortunately
I don’t have a good answer. Finding Toynami
was, well, really unexpected. My goal wasn’t
to find a toy company, the timing was just right.
My suggestion is to do your research. Find dolls
that are similar to your vision and find out what
company made them. Once you find the company name,
go online and look them up to see how you can
get ahold of them. The rest is up to you!
Personally, I think that it is best
for you to actually meet the people in person,
so put money aside, once you have your line complete,
and go to places like the SDCC. (San Diego Comic
Con)
Wow, that’s wonderful! I’m
glad Precious Miseries has given you some sort
of inspiration. However, the answer to your question
is ‘No’. Among other things, there
are legal issues. PM is copyrighted to me and
if I were to use someone else’s characters,
I would no longer be able to claim it's originality.
But, even if there were no legal issues, I still
would not. Why? Because. If you know what it is
to be a true artist, you’ll understand my
reasoning.
I have that information for you,
but you will have to go here.
Well, I always had it in my mind
for it’s name to reflect something sweet
and edgy. The underlining concept for PM is simple
enough, characters that are cute, but have a sort
of awkwardness to them. I never intended this
series to be morbid, like other series of this
genre. Precious Miseries has innocence to it,
which I wanted to protect. I had played around
with a few name ideas, but nothing said what needed
to be stated. So, I went to a friend, showed him
my art, explained my concept and asked him to
spit out a few names. He gave me a few, but the
name “precious miseries” was exactly
what I had envisioned.
It took me a while to decide on
the name, even though Precious Miseries was perfect.
It sounded too much like Precious Moments and
I didn’t want people to think that I was
responding to that series in any way. I also didn’t
want them to think that I was trying to rip them
off. But, I lost my inner battle and used the
name anyway. Now I must go through life hearing
about how my series is the ‘Goth’
version of Precious Moments…oh well. It
could be worse.
Well, not yet. There is no design
for Precious Miseries to be a show, even though
it could be a cool animated series. However, there
is something in the works for StiTcheS to have
his own show. I had a contact in Sony, but I have
not spoken to them in a year. So, maybe one day
I will show my StiTcheS story concept to another
animation studio.
Great, if it is something of importance
and might have a home on this page, please email
it to me at preciousmiseries@gmail.com.
To
Companies
If you are
a company that is interested in Precious Miseries
as a merchandising opportunity, here are some
things you should know:
1. Toynami
owns the 3D license to Precious Miseries
and will for as many years as they wish to.
In short, they maintain the exclusive right
to make Precious Miseries toys.
2. If you are interested in selling the Precious
Miseries dolls in your store, you will have
to contact Toynami in order to purchase them
at wholesale. Toynami.com
3. Headline Entertainment had the license for
t-shirts, buttons, magnets, bags, key chains
and other printed merchandise, but no longer
own the rights.
4. I will only sell the rights to make and sell
Precious Miseries merchandise, not the creative
license. I will always maintain the rights to
the art as well as have final say in all merchandise
design.
I am very
interested in such venues as apparel and animation
for Precious Miseries and StiTcheS.
To Magazines
If you are a magazine interested in writing a
piece about Precious Miseries, please read the
‘about me’ section. If you feel that
your questions have not been answered there, feel
free to email me.
To Conventions
If you are an Anime Convention located on the
East Coast and would like to invite me as a guest
to talk about Precious Miseries, email me. If
you are a convention located anywhere other than
the East Coast, with the exception of SDCC and
AX, you will have to provide me with a full ride;
Sorry
To Other Artists
If you are an artist who already has something
published and would like to collaborate on a Precious
Miseries project, like a comic or animation short,
I would be love to hear from you. Unfortunately,
I do not really have a lot of free time, so keep
in mind that things will move very slowly. I also
cannot guarantee a partnership.
When emailing
me at preciousmiseries@gmail.com, please make
the subject very clear. |
