Crayle Vanest

At conventions, people often ask, “How did you get the idea to start making these?”

In 2018, I was scrolling social media and found a post full of art concepts of “what it’s like in a pokeball” like the example below.

I thought to myself, “Oooh, I could probably make that in three dimensions.”

So I spent months researching diorama-building techniques. Mostly, I watched YouTube videos from model-train scenery builders.

Then, one day, there it was in my suggested videos… “DIY Pokeball Terrarium.”

I was a little disappointed. I thought to myself, “What? I didn’t invent this whole idea?”

I almost didn’t continue on to actually ever making a Pokeball.

But I pushed through the disappointment and finally decided to try what I found in the DIY video.

By this point, I had been talking about whether or not I wanted to start making Pokeball dioramas so much that my family gave me a set of starter supplies that I would need for Christmas.

So now I HAD to make them.

My first attempt was terrible. The video was very oversimplified, and suggested several things that don’t actually work they way the looked in the cut-together video that was posted.

At that point, I took it as a challenge. I was going to have to figure out how to do this on my own after all.

After messing up a lot of materials and practicing things my own way on a smaller scale, I finally managed to make the Vaporeon pokeball below.

This Pokeball sits on a shelf in my living room to this day. I often consider taking it apart and improving some of the elements, as my “water” shaping and circle cutting abilities have improved a lot since then.

But it just wouldn’t be the same.

See? They’re much better now.

My product photography skills have gotten a bit better since then too, though I’m still not a professional at that.

Even after I started getting better at making them though, I was never going to be able to store as many as I wanted to make. Not to mention the mounting supply costs.

The obvious solution was to sell them, but I never expected this to become a job.

I just thought I’d get my hobby to pay for itself, if I was lucky.

Now, here I am with almost two years of conventions and over 300 sales below my belt.

And now you know how it all happened.

The moral of the story is: You don’t have to invent something to have fun with it, get good at it, or make a career of it.

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