The Great Wait
13 Sep 2025
So, about that dice thing that was mentioned last time.
Roll The Bones, I’m Chippin’ In!
I decided to go through with the idea to make resin cast dice, after all. Motivation for drawing has been entirely out the window for the past while, but the driving force behind making colorful sparkly rocks hasn’t gone anywhere in the past year or so that I’ve been simmering on the idea. Part of me is hoping that this isn’t just another special-interest-of-the-week phase, because I’ve already invested in $900 worth of equipment to make it work. But more than that: I don’t presently have an income. So this really has to turn into something!
The good news is that pretty much everything has arrived, and I could get started right away! The bad news is that the air compressor I have is huge, on wheels, heavy, and massively overrated for dicemaking. For how cumbersome it is, carrying the thing downstairs from the garage and back up again would be metaphorically and literally painful. So rather than get started with making dice right away, I put in an order for a much more portable air compressor that should be delivered by Tuesday. With any luck, I’ll have something cool to share before the end of next week.~
And So, We Wait.
One of the big roadblocks I faced in getting everything set up was the lack of space I have available for crafts. My workspace up until now has been one small corner in an already small section of the house’s ground floor, with enough room to comfortably fit my bed, my computer, and a plate of munchies. While making dice wouldn’t require much more room than that, the space itself isn’t properly ventillated, and any silicone or resin fumes that plume up from my crafts would inevitably waft into every other room in the house! So, fortunately, I won’t be working where I’m sleeping. This leaves two options.
The first, and the option I’ll be immediately going with, is the house’s back patio. I spent all last week trimming back overgrown ivy, powerwashing tiles with impressively resilient dirt stains, cleaning up outdoor furniture, bringing chemical warfare to the local ant colony, and blasting spiders out of long-unused umbrellas. While I doubt I’ll ever be able to rip out the bases of the cornstalks that grew as a result of birdseed falling down from the deck above the patio, everything else cleaned up pretty nicely! The only thing left to do is fill the flower pots back up with plants - Though I’m perfectly fine with procrastinating on that, if it keeps the bees from coming near me while I work.
The second option I could go with is a spot called Urban Workshop. They rent out workspaces in a nearby town for $200 a month, which doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things, and would offer a much larger dedicated crafting space than what my tiny backyard has to offer! Assuming I don’t mind the 20 minute drive and risk of having to socialize with other humans, it could be a good deal once I begin to scale things up.
So What’s The End Goal?
Given how rapidly my bank account is shrinking, I don’t really have a lot of time to make things work. But I can make this work if I push for it, I can feel it. By month’s end, I want to have a few practice casts done so I know what I’m doing, and at least be getting started with making my own silicone masters for dice I plan to make. This will likely involve ordering masters from other dicemakers, at least until I can secure my own 3D printer and get enough space to use it consistently. That might take a while, given the outdoor space I’m having to use for the time being.
I also need to look at setting up places to actually sell my dice at. Maybe I’ll end up transforming a part of this site into a storefront! But before that, I’ll have to test the waters on a site like Etsy, move some one-of-one sets before doing anything consistent. And of course, figuring out what kind of paperwork goes into running a business, if any - I’ve already seen chatter in the dice makers discord regarding putting together an LLC, and I’m already not looking forward to sorting that out.
But I guess that also means I should start brainstorming a name to work under. I feel like I can come up with a more appealing name than something like Sophont Makes Dice.
~ sophont ~