How much thought do you put into what you build?

making signs is tedious, and not a bad way to make a SL income.

This is why a lot of the things sold are badly made. Some people sell things they don't put any real effort into making and making it correctly. Either by not having the knowledge on how to complete it the right way or just because they don't care.

This and by some of the comments here just shows how much we can count on sl builders to get it right.

Making signs is my favorite (and most lucrative) work.

I aim for that sweet spot: stuff that I think people want that I will enjoy designing. I won't chase fads. I won't make those ridiculous high heel shoes as I don't like looking at them.

Some of my best sellers are items where the limited resolution of the sculptie gave me disappointing results. Shhh, don't tell my customers that.

But I do consider what sells and try to make more. They liked the shiny star, I'll make a shiny moon and sun and silverware. We like shiny things. They like the duvet, I'll make pillows and curtains. But I won't make things that don't turn me on artistically.

You soon learn to HATE your best selling products, because you look at them and think "I could have done that better... in fact I have, but people STILL buy it... WHY?!??!??!"

Withthat in mind, when RL allows, I'm working on a total rebrand; scrapping all the old stock and trying to bring everything up to a level I'm happy with...

...and pigs'll fly...

I totally agree...there are a few products I want to do the same with. An example is my Moviecam--when I first made it, I used bits of camera textures on Google Images...this works, and it's a great seller--but some of the textures are higher rez, some are lower...it looks poopie to me.

I want to take my digital camera, find a real-life version of HD cams, and take my own high rez snapshots...GOD it would look so much nicer. Not only are some of the textures lower rez, but some of the less conspicuous areas aren't even textured! How dare me!

Anyway...I'm on the same boat as you Kallisti...at least with a few of my products.

The solution is indeed to rebuild. I'm on my final house rebuild after 3 months of effort to rebuild all of my older stuff. One thing that happens as your building skills improve over time is that your older works will start to really look like crap. Even though they still sell, YOU look at them and see nothing but flaws. It sucks, but you will be immeasurably happier once the old stuff has been brought up your new higher standards -- after all, it is YOUR name on that stuff as the creator. It's called professional pride.

One huge frustration for me is I like detail...small prims positioned to make things look awsum....what I end up with is a 150 perm piece to an already huge prim project

since i recently gotten into building, i put a lot of thought into whatever it is i making, if i would buy it, what can i do to improve it, is it to big, is it to small, etc; i just gotten the nerve up to display my new found talents(?) in my home and in a friends. maybe i will take that next step and offer it up to the sl populace(gulp)

My personal philosophy (having been building for 3 years now) is that there are 3 markets: low prim, medium prim and high prim. You can make things that sell at each of these levels. People who want detail and are willing to pay for the prim allowance to have detail will buy high prim items, so don't be afraid to build them. A smart way to do business is to make a low prim line that is very low priced - you make up in volume what you lose on price. Your mid-range line has more detail and is priced accordingly. High end stuff reflects that amount of time it took to create it.

There is usually a lot of thought that goes into a build, but not so much pre-build for me.
If I want to make a birdbath for the garden, I start with the rough shape. Then go where it takes me. Maybe a sculpty for the base to cut down on prims. Flowers and vines? Texture or prim? Flowing water like a fountain? All the details come out as I build. I start with a rough idea and let it tell me what to do as we go along. It's a lot like sex; if you know what is going to happen every step of the way you do achieve the final goal but it is a bit un-fulfilling.

I wish I knew how to make sculpties *puts that down on my list of things to learn some day*