Merbellas Thread

[Ashe]

Congrat! I'm happy for you and excited to see the new tail Gold is such a great tail color

[Rogue Siren]

well it was called a moon koi but another mermaid took issue with her calling it a moon koi mermaid -_- so we came up with lunar koi

Wait, what?

[AniaR]

I couldnt upload these before because of internet problems. Here are the videos of when we first opened our *new to us* merbellas tails.

Please keep in mind when viewing this video that these tails were bought USED and were Raven's experimental tails where she tested out features and designs. they dont represent what someone would get if they bought brand new tails. Seams etc were all years old and part of her learning process.

[Mermaid Alea]

Those tails are SO amazing! I didn't realize the She Creature tail has so much iridescence such as the faint green in the fluke. One of my favorite things about Merbella tails is their iridescence.

[AniaR]

Yes the she creature photographs really monotone. It drives me nuts lol. So hard to capture all the color

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[Ashton]

I love how excited she got when she saw the tail!
granted, I love how everyone gets excited!

[AniaR]

I didn't get to do unboxing. Sean opened them lol

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[Ariel-Starfish]

I neeeeeed to get in touch with Raven! >_< I'm having this super cool idea for 'something' and never seen it before; I hope she is able to bring it to life! ❤️

[AniaR]

She's at a gig right now

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[Rett]

Getting one of Raven's tails has always been one of my dreams! I cant afford it with college, but someday!

[Ariel-Starfish]

Any news here? Quite dead around here...

[AniaR]

OK guys, I am posting this on my own behalf as Raven's friend. She will likely get mad at me for doing so, because she hates giving anyone an excuse... but here I go anyway!

Ya'll know I am supposed to see her pretty soon for our mutual birthdays. I am having a hard time helping Raven take a single day off to spend with me, because she knows so many people are counting on her for tails and she feels extremely guilty about not working on them.

So I want to say a few things.

First of all. I know so many of you are waiting a super long time. You put in a huge amount of money, and wait a year or more for your dreams tails. I want you to consider a few things:

-A year ago, Raven's tails were drastically different than they are now. She's innovated brand new things in the mermaid tail world, and those things are highly complicated. When you put in an order prior to those things being created and then decide you want them, it's awesome that you can add them on. But they take a lot more time. I'm talking the blended waists (she actually tries to match your actual skin tone), the drainage systems (best thing you can add to a tail IMO but one of the most complicated) and her new flukes, and fins.

-A year ago, Raven was taking on simpler tails, and could make one in a few days. But now she is working with people who as you have seen from photos do very complicated and innovative designs. Most of her tails she's working on right now require custom molding and casting. They take a very long time, and it's a lot of back and forth with each client.

- raven does the majority of this stuff herself. Tyler takes on answering emails so she can focus on making the stuff, but he also runs his own entertainment business


Those of you who are waiting here right now for your tails worried about them? Raven works on them every. single. day. I've talked to her a few times leading up to my trip to see her and while I talk to her she's always working on the tails. She literally does absolutely nothing in her life but work on your tails except for the odd gig. She wakes up in the morning and works on tails, and then gets to bed at night and works on sketches for clients.

Everyone knows by now that Merbellas takes a long time. She's not mertailor with a team of 20 people, or even Finfolk who have a handful (but have similar wait times now). Yes, I know their fb needs to be updated to reflect more current information. There has literally been no time to do it. In fact i recently offered to do it for her, but even with me doing it, she and Tyler have to back and forth to figure out what information they want to change.

raven is not making you wait forever to delay your mermaid dreams. She's not doing it to be a jerk, and she's never scammed a single mermaid. She doesn't intentionally set herself up to be overwhelmed or to have too many tails on the go. The thing is she's one of the only tail maker who will fix things if they don't turn out the way the client wants. And as you know there's about a million things that can cause a tail to take longer.

I feel because Raven is quiet and introverted people often fill in the blanks and decide on their own what kind of a person she might be. Naturally, as her friend this drives me nuts. I am not her personal army, and I don't write this stuff to make anyone feel bad, or defend any mistakes she may have made.

I just think because Raven is quiet, people don't see the truth of how all consuming the tail making is for her. How she does nothing else, and when she's not tail making because she's sleeping, or doing a gig, or seeing family- she is physically ill over it because she knows you're all counting on her.

A lot of people post on here and elude like they aren't getting communication in an attempt to like, put community pressure on her. (when in reality it turns out a lot of people are getting communication, just not as frequently as they'd like). I'm here to tell you, you don't need to make passive aggressive posts on FB, on mernetwork, on instagram, because you're worried your tail doesnt have attention or to put pressure on Raven. I am telling you, she feels the pressure. She takes it seriously. you don't have to do that.

Raven doesnt send WIP shots. She just doesn't She never has. I have the very first merbellas tails and I didn't get WIP shots. She wants people to see the almost finish product to approve, and then she wants people to see her true capability. not something barely done that doesnt represent her skill.

I have been urging Raven to make a FB post addressing people's concerns. She knows communication is something people want more of, but it legit takes a lot out of her and she doesnt want to give anyone excuses. She feels her energy is better spent just getting the tails done, and getting them done right. I've even offered to help her make it to cover the stuff people are concerned about like wait times etc but I don't know if she'll decide to do that or not. Like I said, she doesn't want to give you excuses, she wants to give you results.

Raven has always been since the start of her company a tail maker who will give you the world if you give her the time. If you push her and rush her and stress her out the tail experience will reflect it. If you put some faith in her even though it's super scary not to hear much from her, and to wait so long, your experience will reflect that too. I know Michelle's tail is going to be the biggest splash to hit the community in a long time when it finally all comes together. Some of you stressed about wait times? Michelle been waiting forever. But I have total faith that michelle will feel like it was all worth it by the time that tail is in her hands.

Stressing her out with public posts and complaints etc isn't going to help you or her. All it's going to do is add to her anxiety. It doesn't actually make her work any faster, because she's already working as fast as she can.

So this is my plea. Yes, you have every right to be concerned, to worry, to find it hard to wait so long. This is a lot of money, these tails are your dream, you want the best, you want to get your business going. Just please try to remember the fact that my friend, contrary to popular belief, is not a mythological creature and is human. She can only do what she can do, and in the end if people are mad, they're mad. but it doesnt change what she's physically capable of.

Her birthday is coming up. Last year when she took 2 days off to celebrate it she had people publicly complain. She hadnt even taken time off to celebrate her anniversary with her husband, and it was literally the only time she took off all year.

I would like to take my friend and give her a day of fun, relaxation, and creativity. So she can come back to her tail making feeling refreshed, less stressed, and help people create their dreams. I don't want her to have to spend the entire time anxiety ridden wanting to barf because she's worried a client may see a photo I post and think she's not working on their tail.

When Raven is quiet, when you don't hear anything, when stuff isnt posted here a lot or on FB, those are the times when she is the busiest. Because she's getting shit done.

[RomanLaveau]

The fact that Raina had to post this, is sad! It's ridiculous that people have clearly seen the amazing, work that is Ravens and still complain...like how could you complain about her not working on tails for her birthday or taking a couple days off in general; I feel bad that she doesn't do it regularly, just so it doesn't consume her! Ew ppl let's do better, especially for the people who are making dreams come true to the best of their ability AND when Raven feels bad for taking a couple days off out of 365! Let me just stop lol Happy Early Birthday, and have funnnnn!

[Ariel-Starfish]

At least I hope we get to see pictures afterwards of u guys enjoying yourself?

[Felicia]

Raina I hope you and Raven both have a wonderful time! It's sad that anyone would get mad because she took alittle time to herself, she's a beast when it comes to her work, and that's awesome, but I hope she gets her much needed break and can enjoy it to the fullest! She should never have to feel bad for taking some much needed "me time"! Happy birthday to you both! You better take super bomb pictures and share them with us, ya know, so we can be jelly!

[polyhymnia113]

I'd like to echo a particular point in what Raina said in that with ONE single exception, every single person we've ever watched/read posts about stressing during the wait (myself included) later comes full circle and voices precisely how worth the wait their tail actually is and posts as much about it. Don't stress and nitpick Raven, she really does want your tail to be perfect and literally lives and breathes tail making. Anyone on the other side of the process does nothing but sing her praises, so cut her some slack. We are lucky to have such an incredible artist as a tailmaker and that she even wants to offer her services for tail making despite how it consumes her life. She could easily have decided to only make tails for her own business, friends, or even just as a hobby and Merbellas wouldn't even be an option to dream of. There is no shortage of tail makers but she is the best and has pioneered much of the innovation and quality standards for the "industry" so who knows what the mer world would be if she hadn't put all of her passion and energy into making Merbellas a company. Let's all try to focus on supporting those in wait with positivity and encouragement and less on "what Raven could do differently". Finally, a huge happy happy birthday to Raina and Raven both!

[lynsea]

Raina, Raven has an amazing friend in you and even when she gets mad at you, she still knows this. Happy (almost) birthday to you both. Make sure to make her take a day off!

[Luna Dreamtide]

Great post Raina. It is sad that this has to be said. I haven't been around here for all that long, but anymer can see that Raven is a true example of a dedicated artist and her work shows that.
I hope she and Raina have a great birthday break and time to recharge.

[Mermaid Lorelei]

Hey Raina, I just took a peek at the first post on the thread and it looks like a lot of the links to images are broken or missing. I wasn't sure if you wanted to update it for people new to mernetwork.

[Mer-Crazy]

Hey Raina, I just took a peek at the first post on the thread and it looks like a lot of the links to images are broken or missing. I wasn't sure if you wanted to update it for people new to mernetwork.

Yeah they're broken for me too :/ It seems to happen a bit with the older posts, maybe FB changed something and the links are different now.