Sneak preview: How to Make a Hexaflexagon (video and shirts!) (Patreon)

Hello good humans! 

This week I'm working on two things that has been a long time coming. 

Firstly, a simple video on how to make a hexaflexagon. This is by far the most requested video that people have been asking me to make for years, and I haven't done it because there's other resources out there for how to make a hexaflexagon and I've got other videos on my list.

But I'm working on it this week for two reasons:

1. In general I've been looking for shorter projects this month, as I get back into the swing of things and set up my studio. I've got new studio lights and sharpies and glue and a printer and paper and warm things!

Getting back into the swing of things means sometimes picking up on old things that seem a little stale to me at first (hexaflexagons? been there done that!), but as I work on them I get a flood of new ideas. I've got a related video I want to do in December and this is a good pre-requisite, plus I've got photorealistic fidget spinner hexaflexagons...

If you want to be ahead of the game, here's a page where I've put up a couple templates that you're free to use and share (though please keep it secret until I release the new video!): http://vihart.com/hexaflexagons

2. I'm going to be selling an extremely limited run of "how to make a hexaflexagon" shirts! I'm excited about this because I've been resisting selling merchandise for 7 years for a variety of complicated reasons, but at the moment events have coincided such that I can do it in a way I'm happy with! I'll launch into a more longwinded explanation of that below, but first here's the details on the shirts:

There's three styles: normal straight-cut in mossy green with hexaflexagon instructions on the front, curvy-cut in black that's a plain v-neck on the front with the design on the back (so that the person sitting behind you can learn to make one), and kid-sized long-sleeve with the hexaflexagon instructions on the back and also a happy triangle with hexaflexagon friends on the front. All come in extended sizes.

To the public, they go on sale on Friday as part of DFTBA's store-wide Black Friday sale, to arrive in time for the holidays. There's not a lot of them and I expect the more popular sizes/cuts to sell out quickly, so don't feel any pressure to buy them, especially as you here on Patreon are already supporting me through other means! 

But if you did want a shirt, I want to make sure you have first crack at them before they sell out, so here's the secret store link (or at least secret until Friday): https://store.dftba.com/collections/vi-hart

If you use the secret code "hexapatreon" you'll get the same 20% discount that will apply store-wide on Friday.

OK! Now on to my complicated feelings about selling merch!

In general, it's difficult to convince myself that making and selling merchandise is a good way to spend my time. I mean, at times when I don't need the money, why spend the time to get the whole thing set up just to put more things out into the world that don't do more for the world than other things I could spend my time on? Does the world need more branded tshirts?

So to be comfortable selling a shirt it would have to be a shirt that I feel is more worthwhile to humanity than any random shirt. And it would have to not take me very much time and trouble, yet everything always takes more time and trouble than you think it will, especially doing worthwhile things.

On the other hand, when I do need the money, the economics of shirt-selling demand certain things I'm too stubborn to do, like only offer men's shirts in a limited size range. I simply would not sell shirts unless I could include kid's shirts and women's shirts in a large range of sizes, but to do that, I'd have to not actually need the money so much that I can't risk them not selling.

And of course I'd have to promote the shirt, and unlike vloggers who put out lots of videos and personally talk to their audience regularly, I make infrequent videos that are individual self-contained pieces of art. If I were going to put advertisements on them, I could just put advertisements on them, but I don't do this because I don't believe in it. If I'm stubborn enough to take a pass on an estimated 100k in ad revenue by now that would cost me zero work except for clicking the "enable" button, I'm certainly stubborn enough to not go through all the time and trouble just to advertise some random Vi Hart brand shirt just for the money.

And in general, I have complicated feelings about branding! I am an artist, and I want my relationship with my audience to be the kind of relationship artists have with their audience, not that particular kind of entertainer/fan relationship that is usually associated with selling merch.

So to sell a shirt, it'd have to not take much time to create the design, but still feel it adds to the world. And it would have to take very little time and effort to set up the store and do the selling. And I'd need to want to make a video anyway that just happens to be a video that makes sense to advertise it on. And I'd have to need the money enough to bother, but need it in a non-urgent way that allows me to risk selling extended cuts/sizes so that I can do other work to compensate if the risk doesn't pay off.

How often does that happen? 

Well, those events have coincided for the first time in the 7 years that Hank Green (head of DFTBA) has been asking me to sell shirts. I've got a design I'm really happy with and that I feel is both fun and useful, and thanks to DFTBA's wonderful staff setting up the store was easy; the extremely helpful Rachel Navarro took my hand-drawn sketch and vectorized it perfectly and helped choose what colors would print well on which shirts, and DFTBA handles shipping and have notoriously good customer service, so it was easy and I felt good about that part. And a hexaflexagon instruction shirt is a good excuse to make that "how to make a hexaflexagon" instructional video that I've been neglecting making, and, right now through Patreon I'm making enough to cover my expenses but not enough yet to cover taxes, which gives me the perfect "I need to make more this month but if I don't I've got until April to fix it" that I need in order to sell shirts at all, and with extended cuts/sizes. So! It's happening!

And who knows, if this goes well, now that I know the process and have an account with DFTBA, maybe I'll figure out other things I'm happy with in the future. I mean, there's probably a lot of doodle games that the people sitting behind you would like to learn, and educational posters are totally a thing. Let me know your thoughts.

But these particular shirts will probably not be available again (at least not in these colors/styles), so if you want one, here's the store page again: https://store.dftba.com/collections/vi-hartand the 20% discount code again is "hexapatreon" and the page with templates again is http://vihart.com/hexaflexagons/

Woooo! Capitalism! So weird!

Ok back to finishing this video :D