We would like to welcome and thank Bast for volunteering her expertise and knowledge to this forum. I leave her to say a few things about herself, and i hope you all welcome her to the Team here at Renderosity.

Hihi to all who have plans, hopes, wishes and general thoughts on the new online store! I believe that this will enable artists in this community to finally realize a bit of well earned respect professionally (and a dollar or three) for the many many hours of work that go into some of our creations. Money of course is good, but RESUME credit is BETTER. Sell something and you are able to say so in your next job hunt! I will be working with each of you to help make the store competitive, responsive, secure, and yes, even affordable I hope. I have noticed alot of concern on things to do with credit cards of late, so I thought perhaps we could begin by pointing out that in my experience, most banks also offer a Visa check card. This draws funds off your existing checking account, but works identically to a Visa card as far as ecommerce purchases go. These Visa check cards are free! Go to your bank if you do not have a credit card, but have a checking account, and that will enable you to make online purchases all over the net :) Wishing you all many happy hours of creating, selling, shopping, and bragging on those Resumes! Liz Birdsong hbg@kreative.net

Bast - Welcome.. This is an exciting time for all. :) Clint

Welcome! Bast! I read you post in the "C" forum too. Very true, sad, but true.

Too true in my life at least... Folks either think there is a secret look good button and we can achieve what we do instantly (not realizing they may in fact be asking us to work 48 hours with NO break and no sleep to bail their arses out as in some of the contracts I have gotten called in on in the last moment before something goes live), or they think we are having such great fun and since we were "born" this way, after all, why should they pay?

Welcome Bast!! Nice to have you here ;-)

Sorry to be so late in welcoming you, Bast, but I've been away for a while. I know exactly what you mean about the lack of respect people have for artistic work. A few years ago, I was going to trade not one, but two, logo designs to a body shop for some bodywork on my car. The guy had previously given me a quote of $250 for the work. Now I naturally assumed that he was getting by far the best end of the deal here. He, however, felt that because he could have his local print shop make a logo from clip art for about $25, that I was trying to rip him off. Started talking about all the taping and sanding and painting that needed to be done on my car. Like I could just knock out those logos in a couple of minutes!!! After all, I have a computer... Needless to say, I didn't do the logos for him and he didn't do my bodywork. (And, I've noticed he still has the same amateurish logo on his door!) We artists get no respect. About the only people who get less respect are writers, and I know this from personal experience. At least most people feel that not everyone can make art. EVERYONE thinks they can write! Anyway, it's good to have you here. Your sensibility, expertise and wit are a welcome addition to the forums. Diane