Faceted Perfection with Hedron Rockworks

15 Jun

Written By A.J. Weatherall

For more incredible photos, check out @hedron.rockworks on Instagram.

Episode Summary

Doug jokes "It's sanding rocks..", but with over 100k followers on Instagram and 200k on Youtube, we're all addicted to the absolute perfection of his faceted dice. Come meet the artist behind some of the worlds most incredibly viral dice making videos.

In our latest episode of Talking Dice, we sit down with Doug from Hedron Rockworks to delve into the art and science of lapidary dice making.

Doug's journey into the world of dice making started much like many others—he was on the hunt for the perfect dice for his Dungeons and Dragons character. However, unlike most, Doug didn't settle for resin dice. With a background in engineering and a father who was a hobbyist jeweler, Doug decided to take a different route. His first die wasn't cut from a gemstone; it was cast in silver. Holding that weighty, self-made die in his hand was all it took to hook him onto the craft.

The process of making gemstone dice is both an art and a science. Doug explains that cutting gemstones is essentially "sanding rocks." Using a faceting machine, he meticulously sands down the stones to achieve the perfect shape and flatness, which gives the dice their mirror-like finish. The machine's precision allows Doug to create dice that are not only beautiful but also functionally perfect.

Doug's dice have garnered a significant following on social media, with over 200,000 followers on YouTube and 100,000 on Instagram. His growth isn't just due to the beauty of his dice but also his ability to capture the process in a way that's engaging and educational. From quick, poppy Instagram reels to in-depth YouTube videos, Doug has mastered the art of sharing his craft with the world.

Doug's passion for dice making is evident in every facet of his work. His journey from a hobbyist to a social media sensation is inspiring, and his commitment to sharing his knowledge with others is commendable. Whether you're a dice maker, collector, or just a fan of beautiful craftsmanship, this episode is a must-listen.

Episode Links

[00:00:15] TalkingDice: G'day, everyone, and welcome to the Talking Dice podcast. Whether you're a dice maker, collector, or just a tabletop rpg lover, we've got you covered. I'm Aaron, the host of the show and author of the Crypt Maker Guide to Dice Craft, now available on Amazon.
If you're enjoying the Talking Dice podcast, please consider supporting us. The podcast costs a large sum of money to record, produce and host each month. To that end, we've started a Patreon with tears from just a couple of dollars per month, which will help us cover our costs. You can check that out@patreon.com. talkingdice and on today's show, we're chatting to Doug from Hedron Rockworks. With over 100,000 followers on Instagram and over 200,000 on YouTube, Doug's incredible videos have pulled us into the incredible world of lapidary dice. Now, as is customary in this show, before we start talking about all the exciting gemstone dice that Doug creates, let's chat about role playing. Doug, I believe you still like to roll the dice.
[00:01:08] HedronRockworks: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I have been playing D and D for, gosh, I guess it's going on like five years now with the same group. And we play weekly. We do completely remote campaign, which admittedly, I do prefer in person, but we're all kind of all over the place, so remote works best for us. We play for an hour and a half a week and we hit about 80% of the weeks in a year. And we've, we did a four year campaign and then a year long campaign, and now we're doing a couple, one shots around the table. And then I'm going to DM kind of a cute, maybe a little bit more whimsical campaign that isn't so serious.
[00:01:44] TalkingDice: Like my little pony campaign, kind of.
[00:01:47] HedronRockworks: There's an album out by a kids band and it's called Bramble Town by Okie Dokie Brothers. If you got kids and you're listening, check it out. It's good kids music. And it's about these little critters that are in a village together. And there's just incredible visuals in there. Like my favorite is junkyard raccoon. There's a whole song about him. He makes things out of trash. He sees the trash and it's like, you know, treasure that he can make things out of. So there's like, there's mole the healer. So, yeah, my, my campaign is going to be set in that, in that town. And I think it's going to be a blast.
[00:02:19] TalkingDice: That must be a refreshing change from the normal dragons and wizards and removing the rat population from the local inn.
[00:02:26] HedronRockworks: Well, there'll probably still be some getting rid of the rat population. We'll have to see.
We'll have to see how that goes. I don't think I'm going to have them saving the world. I think they're going to be doing goofier stuff. So we'll see.
[00:02:38] TalkingDice: And, Doug, what's your favorite class to play?
[00:02:41] HedronRockworks: Doug? Gosh, good question. I don't know if I have one. I played a wizard for four years, and that was really fun. And then I played this highly charismatic cat. It wasn't really a tabaxi. It was actually a cat. But I used the tabaxi stat block, and it was a swashbuscular rogue that had tons of charisma and could lockpick its way out or talk its way out of any situation, and that was a blast, too.
[00:03:03] TalkingDice: The wizard I'm playing at the moment started off a little bit too much like me, I think a little bit too introverted. Oh, yeah, we have. We have changed that as the campaigns evolved.
[00:03:13] HedronRockworks: Yeah. Well, I would recommend anybody who's starting out playing to make their first character them. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that from a first character standpoint. And then once you get your feet wet, kind of learning the rules because you know what you would do in certain situations, so it allows you to play a consistent character, but then, you know, after you've had some time, there's nothing better than playing something opposite of you and then getting into character and sort of exploring a world that you would not participate in. And, yeah, like, my wizard was pretty much me, and then Flamingo Mentoyo was the cat's name. It's a play on Inigo Mentoyo from Princess Bride. And so he's totally different than me. And it was a blast to sit on the couch and just go off on his rants and everything that I would never do.
[00:04:05] TalkingDice: Hey, reading in your bio, Doug, it said that, like a lot of dice makers, you were trying to find the perfect dice for your character and just couldn't find them. And unlike most dice makers who go, I'm just going to create some resin dice, you went, nah, I'm going to learn lapidary. How did that come about?
[00:04:24] HedronRockworks: Okay, so I'm pretty fortunate, I'll admit, that my dad is a hobbyist jeweler, so I took advantage of that. Making my first die. My first die that I ever made was actually not cut from a gemstone.
It was a cast die, but it wasn't cast in resin. It was cast in silver.
[00:04:43] TalkingDice: Oh, that's a bit fancy.
[00:04:44] HedronRockworks: So he has the setup to do that. And so we went ahead and cast a silver die. And I'll tell you, it's an ugly thing. It has pot marks all over it. But when I played with it, holding the weight in my hand, knowing that it was something that I created, I was hooked. At that point on. I knew that making things for DMD was something I wanted to do, and I kind of knew that because I was painting miniatures before that. So I guess it wasn't a wild surprise, but holding that dye in my hand, I was like, okay, I'm going to do this more. And I had the idea to make a gemstone die. I got the idea. I was, like, working up stuff, and there's an old imager post back in, like, 2017 of somebody who cuts icosahedron. And I saw it, and, like, you can see the light kind of refracting through it. And I was just like, okay, that's what I want. Like, how much is it, and where do I buy it? And there was nobody making them, you know, so I'm an engineer in the day, and so solving manufacturing problems is right up my alley of interest. So I said, okay, I'm gonna do this. And, you know, back to the fortunate case I have. My dad had bought a fastening machine in an estate sale, so the barrier to entry for me to try out the hobby was very low. He brought the machine over, I grabbed some sandpaper and stuck it to some laps and started cutting a brown sedimentary rock from my backyard. But the process of cutting that, the way that geometry kind of fits together with art, it was an obvious thing to hook me from the start.
[00:06:22] TalkingDice: And, Doug, I've actually seen some photos of that dice, and it's absolutely incredible. I can't believe that was your first attempt.
[00:06:30] HedronRockworks: Yeah, um, there's a lot of problems with that die. This is the. The die that. The first die that I cut. Well, so the first one I ever cut, I never really numbered. I didn't figure out how to number it. And there's not very many pictures of that one out on the Internet. But the second one that I cut, there are pictures out there. I did put it up on my instagram, and the numbers on it are really funny because I think I use, like, three different numbering techniques for the numbers. So it's like, it looks very handmade, which is kind of cool, but it was not the route I was going for. So the challenge was figuring out how to do the numbers. There's a lot of resources online to figure out how to face it, but getting the numbers right took me, like, eight months, working 4 hours a day just trying all kinds of different things on a shoestring budget to get something that matched the quality that you could get off the faceting machine. Because even a poorly cut die off of a fasting machine is still really perfect compared to machine dice that you can buy. Right?
[00:07:30] TalkingDice: Yeah. Or something that comes off a 3d printer, right.
[00:07:32] HedronRockworks: Yeah. So it was like I had to have good numbers or else, you know, or else there was. There was no other option.
[00:07:40] TalkingDice: And did you just consider engraving them by hand at that point?
[00:07:42] HedronRockworks: That's what my dad said. He's like, you should just hand engrave these. He told me that, like, 30 times. But I find art kind of this mixture between engineering and art. So, to me, I had to find an engineering solution because I didn't want to just make functional dice. Like, I wanted to be able to cut far fonts for people or graphics for people. The original thing was to really take orders of what people wanted, the exact gemstone they wanted, the exact color of the numbers, the font, everything, and cut them exactly what they wanted. So I needed to have. I really wanted to have a solution that was CNC controlled.
[00:08:16] TalkingDice: And I guess with the precision of the faceting, those hand drawn numbers would probably ruin the effect a bit.
[00:08:22] HedronRockworks: I think if you were really good at doing the handmade or hand numbers, it would be really cool. I think that might give it a touch of kind of, because there's people out there, like, carving flowers and stuff into the backs of gemstones that look wild and cool. And somebody like that, if they were to cut a die and then carve it, I mean, it would blow away what I can do.
[00:08:43] TalkingDice: But I guess that's a whole other skillset, right?
[00:08:46] HedronRockworks: Yeah, it is. Right.
[00:08:49] TalkingDice: And look, I've tried my hand at, you know, painting, drawing, and carving, but it's not just something you pick up in a YouTube video. Right. It's. It's lifetime learning there. It's motor skills that have to be developed. Right?
[00:09:01] HedronRockworks: Yeah. And I think it might have been an option, too. The problem, there was a little bit of a hidden barrier there, which is like, okay, I just spent, like, 20 hours working on my first, like, you know, dice, and they come off the faceting machine. It almost perfect. And then you want me to take a dremel to it? I'm like, I can't. I can't ruin the 20 hours I have in this thing, you know?
[00:09:24] TalkingDice: All right, Doug, why don't you tell us a little bit more about the process that you go through to facet the dice? I'm sure it's something that you can talk about at great length to us, and I'm sure our listeners would love to know how it all works.
[00:09:36] HedronRockworks: Yeah, I probably could. I'll try and keep it. Keep it short enough to keep everybody's attention span. Yeah. So, cutting gemstones, it's sanding rocks there. There you go. Done.
[00:09:50] TalkingDice: Wow.
[00:09:50] HedronRockworks: Okay.
[00:09:51] TalkingDice: Adron rockworks. Sanding rocks. That's your new slogan right there?
[00:09:56] HedronRockworks: Yeah, there we go.
So that is, like, mechanically what's happening, right? We have these laps. They're basically flat plates, and they have diamond grits that are sprinkled onto the surface and then electroplated in place. And you use those just, like, very fancy sandpaper, basically. And then you have the faceting machine spins that lap and then also has an arm that's called the mast and quill, and it positions the stone relative to the grinding plate very accurately and allows you to do rotations and control the depth of the cuts and things like that. So, with the faceting machine, you could basically sand a rock down to the exact point you want to get the shape right. And then you just run through successive grits to sand out the damage from the last step, which is not different from, like, polishing resin dice. I mean, you're using different mediums and different, like, we use metal laps, sanding gemstones. But if you were to try a metal lap on, like, resin, I mean, you'd scratch it with just the lap. So you can't do that. And what that results is, you end up with very, very flat facets, which make them very mirror like, because there's. There's two things that kind of determine how shiny something is or how mirror like it is. One is, like, the roughness of it, so you want to get all the scratches out, but the other is the flatness. And that's where, when you look at my dice in, your jaw drops, it's. It's because of the flatness that just drives reflections and shiny stuff and diffraction of light or dispersion of light, which is the act of, you know, bending light. So you see the rainbows, like a prism that comes from the flatness.
[00:11:37] TalkingDice: Right. So, apart from different lapping plates, do you use different polishing compounds for different materials and things like that?
[00:11:43] HedronRockworks: Oh, yeah, yeah. There's different polishing paste for different gemstones, too. So, like, quartz, you would. You use, like, cerium oxide to polish quartz, but to polish, like, ruby, you got to use diamond. And the. The laps and stuff involved in that are all different, so.
[00:11:58] TalkingDice: Right. So that potentially means new equipment or, you know, a different process depending on the materials used.
[00:12:04] HedronRockworks: A bit of research. Yeah, yeah. Luckily, almost everything I've cut boils down to it has a lot of silica in it, which is quartz. And so it. It polishes with cerium oxide or it's harder than that. And you can polish it with diamond. There's been few things that are, like, really soft that I've had to, like, polish, almost like a. A resin die with some kind of, like, soft lap.
[00:12:26] TalkingDice: Yeah. And we're chatting about this before the show, Doug, and could you just take a lump of resin and facet it like you would any other material?
[00:12:34] HedronRockworks: Yeah, you can. I actually have. I got a piece right in front of me here. So I'm. I'm playing around with faceting a master. This is a printed master that I'm faceting, and the quality on it's very high. I mean, I was. I was kind of making this because I think I'm going to try my hand at making some resin dice later on. And so I need some masters. And I was like, well, I know how to shaped dice, and the quality here is incredible compared to, like, any other finished master I've seen. The problem I have it with is, so you gotta. You gotta understand listeners, I'm a wild perfectionist. So to polish resin, the final step you need kind of something soft that's holding your polishing medium because you can't use, like, metal or something that's hard because it'll scratch the resin. So, like, while the. You use something soft, and then that sort of rounds the edges and it rounds the, like, around the numbers, and that. That destroys that flatness that I talked about earlier. And, man, if. If you did have a fasting machine and you were faceting resin masters, you'd be able to make some wild, good masters. But I think I'm going to cheat and make masters out of glass.
[00:13:42] TalkingDice: I think that's a great idea. I feel like with resin masters, as soon as you look at them, you have to repolish them, right?
[00:13:47] HedronRockworks: Oh, yeah. I didn't know that.
[00:13:49] TalkingDice: Well, you can, but inevitably, you're going to pull them out, you're going to touch them. You gotta scratch them or drop them.
[00:13:55] HedronRockworks: Scratch them with your fingernail.
[00:13:57] TalkingDice: Exactly. Exactly.
Now, Doug, on your YouTube channel. I've seen some incredible materials that you've worked with, and I was just wondering how you go about choosing them. Is it just the challenge? Is it the beauty of them? Is it something else entirely?
[00:14:11] HedronRockworks: Well, it's really easy. You just get, like, a huge following and then people tell you what they want to see. Yeah, that's a terrible answer. You're gonna have to cut that out.
Yeah, no, but a lot of it's come from suggestions. Um, so a lot of people will see something and then think, oh, my gosh, I would love to see that as die. Um, and so I would. I would venture to say, like, out of everything I've cut, maybe, like, 1020 percent of the ideas are mine, and the rest have come from fans or, um, like, I'll do a little bit of a plug here for Turtle's hoard. They're a synthetic rough dealer, and they have all kinds of wild synthetic stuff, and they have big chunks that they've worked with me on to get. So that's been really fun to cut those wild, cool, gemmy stuff. But before that, I was cutting cheaper stuff like amethyst. That's literally, like a couple bucks a pound, and then kind of making that work. Early on, I spend nights kind of searching on Etsy, looking at different spheres of gemstones to figure out, like, what's out there and what I could cut. And that's another kind of fun pastime, is kind of just exploring the world of rocks to try and figure out what's out there that I can cut. The thing is, you can pick up almost any rock, though. And if you polish a face on it or cut a dye out of it, like, it would be incredible. Like, a lot of my first works were literally, like, pieces of, like, granite or something that were just kind of hanging around in people's rock beds or something. And those work out incredible. So it's really fun to just kind of get stuff and then cut into it and see what mother nature has hidden in there for us.
[00:15:44] TalkingDice: And you mentioned before about synthetics. Is there any difference working between synthetic materials and natural ones?
[00:15:51] HedronRockworks: There's no difference. Right. So the price is very different, but chemically, all the synthetics are essentially identical to their natural counterparts. Like, I cut a ruby recently. The YouTube video just went live. That's, you know, aluminum oxide. Yeah. It has a bunch of different names. Right? So ruby, corundum, sapphire, those are all exactly the same chemical compound. And if you get a synthetic, it's. It's literally the same thing, except it just wasn't made by nature. It was made by man.
[00:16:17] TalkingDice: Right. So, labgrow and diamond engagement rings are okay by you?
[00:16:21] HedronRockworks: I think so, yeah, if it's big enough.
I mean, there's. There's definitely something cool about the fact that, like, this came out of the ground and, you know, some x millions of years ago, there was, you know, a stream flowing through rock, and it was filtering out the silica, and that was all condensing down into a chunk of quartz. Like, there's a story there that's like, okay, just think about, like, what that rock's been through. And if you could look through its eyes, through the eons, like, what would you see? And that's cool. It's worth something. Hands down. It is. But, like, if you want a piece of ruby that's big enough to make a die out of, I mean, it'd be, like, millions of dollars or something. So it's just. It's off the table. Right. And the beauty isn't any different. Right. Like, if you just look at it from, like, raw beauty and you ignore that potential story, like, synthetics are the way to go for dice because you need big pieces to make a D 20. Like, a normal size D 20 is a big gemstone.
[00:17:20] TalkingDice: Well, yeah, it's huge. And I can only imagine, you know, for you, that's probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. But I'm also wondering if there are collectors out there who want to spend millions of dollars on a single D 20.
[00:17:32] HedronRockworks: I don't know. I mean, I think, like, the most expensive rubies and stuff are, like, a couple million bucks, but they're way smaller than that gemstone that I made. Yeah, like, 20 carats and stuff like that. And that. That. That ruby that I worked on was 177 finished for sure.
[00:17:48] TalkingDice: That's mind blowing.
[00:17:49] HedronRockworks: Yeah. So, here's another nerd side of me, too, though. So, I'm a. I'm a materials engineer during in the day, and so, for me, synthetics are, like, really awesome. Like, I love the materials engineering that goes into, like, why those materials exist, what they do, how to make them. All of that, to me, is, like, just as cool as having a natural stone.
[00:18:10] TalkingDice: Yeah.
[00:18:10] HedronRockworks: Right?
[00:18:11] TalkingDice: I was going to ask you about that. And having spent most of my career as a software engineer, when people say engineer, I usually think that or civil engineering. Did you want to talk about materials engineering and what that means?
[00:18:22] HedronRockworks: Yeah. So, materials engineer.
[00:18:23] TalkingDice: Right.
[00:18:23] HedronRockworks: If you think about, like, a civil engineer is, like, worried about how to make a bridge. Let's say they're building a bridge and they've got to think about how am I going to engineer the trusses on this bridge to distribute the stress in a way and the roads going to weigh this much and how big are the trucks that are going to be on this? And they're doing all that math. Well, they have to pick something to make it out of. And what people don't realize, or maybe they do, you know, is there's somebody sitting there thinking, like, how do I make a steel that's perfect for that bridge or close enough, you know, for that type of work? And they're. And they're sitting there, engineering down to the, you know, hundredth of a percent, what's the correct carbon level for that steel so that it has the right toughness and it will behave well in the environment. Right. Because if you're near the ocean, you got to think more about corrosion. If you're up north, you got to think more about, like, cold temperatures. I guess it'd be south for you. You got to think about cold temperatures. And, you know, things don't behave the same at all, different temperature ranges or in different environments. So, like, there's, you know, you think about somebody designed that bridge. Well, somebody designed the material that the bridge is made out of two, and that's. That's materials engineering.
[00:19:30] TalkingDice: You know, I was going to say that I never really thought about it that way, but years ago, I went through the process of restoring a boat, and it was an alloy boat, and I suddenly came into this whole world of galvanic corrosion and, you know, and different materials reacting in different ways on the boat. And I just thought that was absolutely fascinating. I can only imagine something enormous like a bridge or a building.
[00:19:51] HedronRockworks: Well, you've done it other times, too, right? You wrote a book on how to make resin dice, and you talk about different resins and why they're good. And that is, that's like materials engineering, right? You're sitting down, you're testing things, you're deciding why it's better because of certain different things that make it good.
[00:20:07] TalkingDice: Absolutely. And, Doug, it doesn't feel like this Hedron Rockworks thing is a huge stretch from your day to day. If anything, it feels like more of a natural progression of that, Doug.
[00:20:16] HedronRockworks: Yeah, and it's cool. So materials engineering is kind of the modern day title for that. In the past, it was called a metallurgist, which you might have heard, but if you think about the word metallurgist, man, that's not too far off of like, graviturgist or something like that.
[00:20:33] TalkingDice: Alchemist.
[00:20:34] HedronRockworks: Yeah, like, right. So it's like, it's a good class. I recommend it. Yeah.
[00:20:42] TalkingDice: And, Doug, you mentioned before about being a perfectionist. Have you always been that way, or is it just a new thing with the faceting?
[00:20:49] HedronRockworks: Yeah, I think it is a new thing because of the fastening. Because I am not a perfectionist. This is the only thing that I do in stride for perfection. Usually I strive for, like, good enough. Like, I am not afraid of a zip tie repair or a duct tape repair on something. I think you have to be perfect when you're faceting, or it won't work. Like, things won't come together. And if you've ever hand sanded it, e 20, you know what I'm talking about? Like, once things start getting off and it gets wonky, trying to make all the corners come together and stuff, like, you have to be perfect or else it won't work. The Hedron Rockworks brand is sort of built on perfection. Like, I went and said, okay, there's tons of these resin dice makers out there doing incredible stuff. I'm going to stand out because mine are just perfect. And that's what I went for, was just simple. Like, it's just going to be perfect. But I don't know where that comes from. I think it's facilitated by the fasting machine, because the fasting machine just allows it to happen and makes it kind of fun. But, yeah, in my day life, dude, there's no. I mean, look behind me. There's just garbage. There's stuff everywhere.
[00:21:54] TalkingDice: And, Doug, speaking about differentiating yourself from other dice makers, you built an incredible following on social media. You've got over 200,000 people on YouTube, over 100,000 followers on Instagram. You know, and I think it's safe to say that you're dice making royalty at this point. Can you tell us a little bit about how that's come about?
[00:22:12] HedronRockworks: Yeah. So how does that happen? Dice are fun to look at, and gemstones are fun to look at. And the Venn diagram, that's a cross section between those is a good space to be. I think it's a really flashy thing. So it's really interesting.
It has a lot of appeal in a short format, too. So my growth on Instagram mostly comes from very kind of poppy, fast reels showing a little bit of the process and then showing off the product at the end. I don't know. I think I'm lucky. I think I'm in a space where it's like there's a lot of people out there that are super interested in dice, but there's not a sea of people that are making gemstone dice. So it really stands out when you see one. I mean, it looks. I wonder what it actually. I know what it's like when you're scrolling the Internet and you see your first, like, nearly perfect gemstone dice, how captivating it is. Because I go back to that imager post of, like, seven years ago that just blew my mind when I saw it. And so I think that's part of it. My hobby, you know, originally was kind of learning how to make the dice. That was. That was a year's worth of, like, labor and effort trying to do. And then I I tried to make it, and then I spent a little bit of time perfecting that process or making it faster.
And then I was kind of like, okay, I'm ready for my next hobby. And then I thought I should try and sell these. And that's when, you know, my hobby shifted from dice making to figuring out Instagram and figuring out what worked and what got likes and what got to use on Instagram. And then now that's shifted over to YouTube.
[00:23:48] TalkingDice: And I think this is such an important topic, Doug, and I know there's a lot of dice makers out there who are at that point, well, you know, they make beautiful dice. They're selling. They're selling on etsy, they're dabbling in social on Instagram and TikTok and trying to get some viral reels out there. But I feel like a lot of dice makers probably struggle with, you know, going from dice maker to now suddenly having to really work on the business. And I can't imagine that, you know, the huge social following that you've gotten has, you know, just been. Been accidental. I feel like it's probably something you put a lot of time and energy into building.
[00:24:21] HedronRockworks: Yeah. And I think it's. I think it's really important for me to, like, when I'm sitting in my shop working on something to keep the wonder and interest about, like, what is fascinating to look at, because those fascinating to look at things are kind of, like, what drive the viralness of it. And so, like, I think about, like, resin dice making and how, like, when you watch it, like, pour, it's so satisfying and, like. But it's so. It's very difficult to get good close up shots of all these different things and then be able to put it together. So, I mean, it's a whole different skill set. Than dice making. And I think I had a. I had a big boost in that because photography was my hobby before, you know, dice making, and so working a camera and understanding how to get lighting and interesting shots and having. Having the gear to start with, like, all of those different things and how.
[00:25:18] TalkingDice: Much of that, Doug, was just shot with your iPhone versus using that expensive gear that you're talking about.
[00:25:23] HedronRockworks: All of my video content on Instagram for a long time, up to, like, 100,000 followers, was shot on an iPhone.
[00:25:30] TalkingDice: But I'm guessing YouTube's a different ballgame, right?
[00:25:32] HedronRockworks: No, I don't know if it would work on YouTube, but, yeah, I mean, Instagram is a vertical format, so the phone shoots pretty good vertical stuff.
[00:25:42] TalkingDice: And so coming from that, has YouTube been a pretty big learning curve for you?
[00:25:46] HedronRockworks: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's been, I mean, a world of learning in terms of multiple camera angles and editing and premiere pro.
And that's where things changed a lot for me. So when I started making YouTube videos, I made my first video. If you go watch my YouTube channel, go watch the first one. It's different. The reason it's different is because I edited that one, and I got done with it, and I was like, I hate this. I'm never making a YouTube video again. I was lucky because of my following on Instagram, somebody reached out and offered to edit some videos, and we started working together.
His name's andrew. He edits my videos today, and we make a great team. And if he didn't reach out to me and convince me to figure out how to work with him, that YouTube channel would not have happened.
[00:26:32] TalkingDice: Doug, I'm a huge believer in the power of editing, and hopefully, if you're listening to this back later, you'll understand.
And when you went into this, Doug, did you ever think it would be as big as it is now or, you know, become what Hedron Rockworks has become?
[00:26:50] HedronRockworks: No.
Not even a little bit? No. I mean, I. It's kind of funny how that happened, because, like, my goal was not to sell these. To start off like I wanted one. That was my goal. And then I made one, and I was like, okay, I have this setup. Like, why would I stop here? I got to make them for my playgroup. So everybody in my playgroup has one of my original pieces. And then I was like. I was literally, like, packing up shop, like, okay, that's it. And everybody and all. Everybody in my playgroup was like, you should try and sell these. Like, you wanted to buy that and could not find it. So like, you could sell them. And I was like, okay, I mean, I guess I could sell these and I'll talk, I mean, I guess a little bit about, like, the numbers here because I think it fits into this story. I don't like to talk about the numbers, but I will. I was like, I told my wife, I said, I'm gonna sell these for dollar 200 a piece. And she laughed at me. She said, there's no way that people are gonna pay $200 for a rock. And I was thinking, like, I would've, like, I'm.
You're wrong because I would have. And so I, you know, I went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out how to sell them. And honestly, I created, like, a website. And I remember, like, watching the analytics on the website. I think it had, like four people go to it in three months.
So, so, like, you know, I wasn't doing it right. And then it was like, okay, you know, my buddy, who's, who's in kind of the digital graphic design space was like, you got to make it Instagram. You got to get more followers. You got to get, you know, eyes on this. And so then, like, I did, and obviously, you know, I talked a little bit earlier about how that went. At the end of the day, they sell for a whole lot more than $200. So I was wrong. Also, my wife was wrong, and I was. But no, I never envisioned that this would be as far as it is. I'm like somebody before this, I changed hobbies every like 1010 months or something. So, like, I never envisioned that id still be working on this. But it comes back to the thing. The other reason im still doing this is because the hobby has shifted every year or so to a new focus.
Trey.
[00:28:56] TalkingDice: And so what do you think was the tipping point for the business? Or was it just a kind of a gradual, slow rise?
[00:29:03] HedronRockworks: It was a gradual shift. The first dice that I sold were all for resin dice makers online. They would contact me and id say, okay, what do you want? Wed figure out how to make it. And this was still when I was selling them for, you know, sub 200. And it's crazy because, you know, I was, I was putting like 20, 30 hours into something and selling it for 200 hours. I mean, that was just pure hobby mindset. Like, this is just cool. I'm making this for the people.
And then, you know, I had a sale of, like, commission slots and they sold out in like two minutes. And I was like, oh, my gosh, okay, this is a big deal. And then eventually I met Alex at level up dice, and we had a really long run where he was selling my work, and he kind of showed me a little bit more about the value of what I had and how important it was, given the landscape that these are kind of rare. There's not very many of them. I'm hoping to change that. I guess that kind of segues maybe into another question that I'll answer. Before you ask, I don't know if it's on the list.
Speaking about how the hobby is shifting. Right. So this year, my goal in this hobby is to get more people into it.
It's a rough hobby to get into because the barrier to entry is really high, but the reward is even higher. And I started a patreon that has a bunch of resources for how to get into dice making or how to get into faceting for the complete beginner.
And I really want more people to get into this because, like I said, I've been very fortunate that I'm kind of, like, popular because dice matter to a lot of people. And, you know, I'm doing the gemstones, but I want other people doing it. I think it's such a cool hobby, it's such a cool space that I want more people making these so that more people can have them and experience it.
[00:30:57] TalkingDice: You know, that's something I love to hear, Doug, and it's something that's very close to my own heart as well, and the reason why I wrote the guide to dicecraft. But, you know, I have definitely copped some flack by some members of the dice making community who think that there's already too many hobbyists in the industry. And look, I'm a big believer in competition, and I think that the more competition, the better the industry gets and all of that, you know, how do you feel about that in terms of your own dice making and, you know, creating competition for yourself by, you know, giving away the secrets to your success?
[00:31:28] HedronRockworks: Yeah, I totally think all that's fair. I. I think it's complicated. I mean, I'm in a position where I have a successful day job. So to me, it's easy to say, like, this is all a hobby, and I can teach people how to do this and create competition because more people will be able to get dice, and that's cool. But I'm not sitting there weighing, like, how am I going to pay rent? And is this competition that I'm teaching going to affect my ability to send my kids to school or something like that?
I do. I don't. I guess it's like, it's a thing I have, too, where I'm not afraid to get other people into it because I do feel like competition, to me is just going to make me be more creative and think about how I can do things better or faster.
And so, like, I welcome people coming into the field making gemstone dice with me, but I don't know how I'd feel about that if it was my primary source of income. But I also feel even if it was my primary source of income, it's like, okay, well, figure out a way to do it faster, better than other people.
That's kind of the game.
[00:32:40] TalkingDice: And so apart from the Patreon you've created, and we'll link to that in the description below, are there any other good resources or tips you had for anyone wanting to get into faceting?
[00:32:49] HedronRockworks: Yeah. So two pieces of advice there. I would say the Patreon is a good place to go and kind of get some initial experience, but probably better than that would be to try and find, like, a local lapidary club. They are more than welcoming to try and get people into the hobby of Lapidarian. Whether it's faceting or cutting cabochons, which are like rounded, pillow shaped rocks, the fasting community is so welcoming. So while the barrier entry to do it is very difficult, if you can find a local club or something like that that meets and could provide knowledge and potentially access to machines and stuff, that's really the right way to do it. And if that doesn't exist, then check out my patreon. But try to find something local first because it'll just be worth so much more to you.
[00:33:41] TalkingDice: And Doug, I know a lot of those clubs have very elderly membership, and how do you go about telling them that you want to start faceting dice?
[00:33:52] HedronRockworks: I recently did a, like a seminar at the Midwest faceting guild talking about how to put numbers on dice. And it was a similar sort of thing where people I talk about, like, how I cut stuff and people like, wow, that's nuts. I would never do that.
I'm talking about, I use partial indices, so I use the cheater on my machine intentionally, which, you know, that's like, that's blasphemy in the, in the gem, gemstone cutting world. But, yeah, I mean, they were, you know, the people they were very interested in. And they have told me like, oh, I have people asking if I can do dice all the time now. And so, like, I am affecting things because, you know, what's, what's cool is like a secondary side, which maybe isn't totally obvious, is, like, people see my work and they want to get into faceting and faceting gemstones. And so, like, I have a huge following in the dice community, but I also have a huge fat following in the faceting community. And so, like, it's really cool to drum up a lot of interest just for faceting because the hobby will be stronger the more people that are involved. And if I'm getting young people involved because they want to make dice, then, like, you know, that's still perpetuating the hobby of faceting, which I think is. Is really cool as well.
[00:35:11] TalkingDice: And speaking about other people in the hobby, Doug, are there any other faceters or dice makers in social media that you think we should follow?
[00:35:17] HedronRockworks: Yes, I'm gonna. I'm gonna plug Kirkwood designs on Instagram. I'm looking at his page right now, and I don't think this will be the case when people hear this. But he has six posts, seven followers, and he's making gemstone dice. I think he's a 16 year old kid that's kind of got the bug just like me, and he's doing some very incredible work very fast, and he's learning quickly. Dallin, if you're listening, we need to talk about your photography skills and stuff, but your dice look incredible. So if you're. If you want, check him out.
[00:35:52] TalkingDice: You know, Doug, I love that shout out. And to all our listeners out there, please go and give Kirkwood designs a follow, you know, and support a young and up and coming dice maker. And look, I love the idea that a content maker with a hundred thousand followers is shouting out to someone with six or seven. So let's. Let's see how that goes in the next month or so for Kirkwood. But please, yeah, give them a like and follow. And what about any other facetors out there that you think we should follow?
[00:36:15] HedronRockworks: Yeah, there's a there. So you got to check out Turtle's hoard on Instagram. I think it's angry Turtle.
You'll find it one of the two. And they, they're the, they sell the synthetic gems. So they have all kinds of really cool gemstones that are synthetix. Their story is really interesting. They go around buying scrap gemstones from gemstone manufacturers. And it's, it's a, it's a fascinating world that they, they work in, but they are also fascinating dice. They recently completed one on a, on a pretty inexpensive faceting setup. So that, that's definitely something you should check out. And then another facet I really like is house of stylus. On Instagram, they make huge gemstones. So, like, actual looking, like, cut gemstones, not dice. But, man, they're. They're big and they're awesome, and I always. Anytime I see their page pop up on my feed.
[00:37:12] TalkingDice: Perfect. Perfect for the dragon's hoard.
[00:37:14] HedronRockworks: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:37:17] TalkingDice: And a question I always love to ask my guests is, are you rolling with the dice you create?
[00:37:21] HedronRockworks: Well, okay, so I do.
If I have, like, a critical, very important role, I'll go and grab one of my pieces.
[00:37:32] TalkingDice: Right. So it depends on the criticality of the moment.
[00:37:36] HedronRockworks: It does. But, man, I was playing that rogue earlier, and it's like, I don't know. I'm not going to roll, like, five, d, six and count that up while everybody's waiting on me to do math. Like heck, no.
Yeah. So I just. I roll a lot of d and d beyond, too.
[00:37:50] TalkingDice: Don't hate me, Doug. That's been a pretty common theme here, I've got to say.
[00:37:54] HedronRockworks: Yeah, well, I have nights where I'll grab. Grab a whole set.
I usually. Whenever I start a new character, I'll go on Instagram and find a, you know, an indie maker that's making something that fits my character's theme, and I'll buy a resin set that. That goes with my character. So, yeah, I've got a new. I've got a. I've got a cleric that I got to find some dice for, so I'm on the hunt. Yeah. Right.
[00:38:21] TalkingDice: Okay.
Well, if anyone out there selling incredible cleric dice, drop Doug a message. And, yeah, he might. He might end up using him for his next campaign. Doug, thank you so much. About all we've got time for today.
And, Doug, if people want to see more of you, see more of your dice or contact you about getting some dice made, what's the best place to do that?
[00:38:43] HedronRockworks: Yeah, I think equally. Instagram. And then I have a website. It's hedronrockworks.com, and it has email address. Between either of those two is best. And then focus for content right now is on YouTube. So if you want to see the best, coolest stuff that I'm really focusing on, I would say go subscribe to the YouTube channel.
[00:39:02] TalkingDice: And you mentioned Patreon before. So anyone out there looking to learn more about faceting from Doug?
[00:39:07] HedronRockworks: Yep. Yeah. So, Patreon, you get several perks. I'll send you some stickers. At certain tiers, there's a tier that's all kind of geared toward learning how to make dice. And then another tier that's in the middle that's more about kind of live content and early access to the videos. And then the lowest tier gets you access, early access to sales. So I'm going back to selling my dice on my own and we're going to do a sale coming up. I don't know, maybe around when this comes out there'll be a sale and patrons are going to get early access to that. And then lastly with the Patreon, my dice are out of reach for a lot of people. And so the idea is when the Patreon makes a certain amount of money, that totals the price of a die. We're going to put a die in a sale that's really inexpensive and give somebody very early access to it to go and pick that up to kind of try and to try and crowds fund these a little bit.
[00:40:02] TalkingDice: And we'll have links to all of that in the show description so you can check it out. And thank you so much, Doug. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. No doubt we'll have you on the show again at some point.
[00:40:11] HedronRockworks: Likewise, it was a pleasure and thanks.
[00:40:13] TalkingDice: Everyone for listening to another episode of Talking Dice.
And if you're hearing this message, you've listened to the entire episode of Talking Dice and we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please give us a big thumbs up and leave a review. And don't forget to check out patreon.com talking dice if you'd love to help us in the best way possible. And we'll catch you in the next episode of talking dice. Goodbye.

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