WoodMarvels.com 2011 Year in Review

Each month, I do a review of the previous one and now that 2011 is behind us, here is a review of where things are now vs a year ago. If you are interested, you can skip through the monthly reviews for January, February, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October/November and December of this year. You can also read the reviews for 2010 and 2009.

What my goals were for WoodMarvels.com 2011

• Release at least a few models in 3DHD @ the current resolution of 720p

Due to rendering bottlenecks thanks to industrial 3D animations and 3DMarvels.com, this won’t become reality until sometime in 2012… though I’d like to have ALL my animations produced in 3D in the very near future.

• Release WoodMarvels.com Volume III
• Last year, I was at 3 major conventions, this year, I want to double that to 6

I actually blew through that number, I had my medieval castle showcased at the Trotec booth at the Nürnberg International Toy Fair and models are traveling across Australia and the USA via Maker Faires.

• Hit 1 000 000 video views

Just made it with YouTube.com alone but a while back across all video sites in May of 2011.

• Get my products into retail stores around the world

This is SLOWLY happening, lots of contacts, a few commercial licenses were sold so I see this developing over the course of the year.

• Release 20 new amazing models

I actually managed to release 31 new models! I released 11 laser and 7 new CNC projects while other designers on the site launched 13 new laser cutting projects!

• Get a commission to have a very special model shown in a gallery or private exhibition – I’d love to design a really HUGE model!

This is SLOWLY happening, I had a few inquiries, nothing firm yet but will happen sooner than later.

• Expand the number of cutting hubs that I have access to dramatically so I can basically get anything cut at comparable prices in the country of a customer’s order.

I managed surprisingly to do this! I can now pretty much get anything cut where the customer exists when it comes to physical laser cut kits… CNC is a bit behind but luckily, most shops with lasers have or know a local source for CNC too!

What I didn’t predict was getting my very own CNC machine and partnering up with ShopBot Tools out of North Carolina (USA). This happened in October and since then, I got a little (only a little) sidetracked updating models specifically for CNC cutting.

Goals for 2012

• Nail down and release a few animations in 3D 720HD.
• Get a new industrial workstation to blow through these crazy rendering queues that slow things down across the board.
• As I’ve been doing with the CNC models, I want to produce a video show for at least 50 laser cut models.
• Release 20 laser and 20 CNC new projects.
• Release WoodMarvels.com Volume IV which will have a combo of laser and CNC projects in it.
• I’d really like to get my very own laser cutting machine (and 3D printer too).
• Keep having a heck of a lot of fun!