Show HN: Koonchi – Convert Photo to Hand-Painted Painting by Artists from India

https://koonchi.com

by OrganicQuote • 7 years ago

275 88 7 years ago

koonchi.com

Rainymood• 7 years ago

Super awesome, I had this idea as well but the hard part is in the execution! I'm rooting for your success!

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

Thank you so much! We are trying hard to bring as many talented artists as possible under one roof.

spectramax• 7 years ago

Could you please share the story about how you started such a wonderful business? Specifically, I am curious of how did you go about lobbying artists and convincing them to get onboard? Are they local artists in your town or are you doing it remotely?

mixmastamyk• 7 years ago

Is there a reason artists in the area would not appreciate paid work?

pbhjpbhj2• 7 years ago

If the pay was lower than their current work. Or the demands were much higher for similar/more pay.

namanyayg3• 7 years ago

I don't think it's challenging to convince an artist, they'd be happy to do this work at these costs. Finding artists is a bigger problem, and I'd guess they solved it by knowing someone with ancestry from a painting-oriented village community.

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

Artists do recommend other artists. Most artists we come across is through artist recommendation.

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

When we started accepting orders 3 months ago, we started with few local artists and couple artists from different cities in India. My faith in the project became stronger and stronger as we started to talk to artists one-on-one, almost everyone was stoked about the idea and our passion, and attention to details to the project. We ended up contacting several artists pan India, some strongly resonated with our idea and so it began... We are still in process of on boarding artists, and we are constantly looking for talent. My wife has a very keen eye in spotting talent, and she also has a degree in Fine Arts so her being a co-founder in this venture helps a lot.

Fun Fact that helped us break-through with most of the artists can choose their pricing, we don't ask them to stick to certain pricing, hence artists don't feel boxed. My biggest take-away has been to never let their (artists) creative spirits cause of a certain economics of the business. We are still learning, and will know more as we progress.

yingw7872• 7 years ago

Sounds a lot like instapainting.com, except artists come from India instead of China. Also sounds like the model works :) Best of luck!

dymk• 7 years ago

I'm looking at InstaPainting, and their website claims:

    MADE IN USA BY AMERICAN ARTISTS

And I can't find any mention of China.

namanyayg3• 7 years ago

I can concur with OP, I'm certain instapainting had Chinese artists at some point of time. Maybe they found the higher costs of native artists to offset shipping costs from China and changed their model.

chrischen8• 7 years ago

Hi, we are artist and country agnostic now. We have artists from China, but also India and the rest of the world and have been ramping up USA artist signups recently. Of available artists (whether on our platform or elsewhere) Chinese ones are still the largest group of any country.

We display the country location of every artist profile on our site and heavily try to promote our US base.

snek• 7 years ago

plot twist: it's a cluster of servers running deep dream

KingFelix• 7 years ago

hahah, I came here to say that!!

I was thinking the same thing, I wonder if it's a combination. Like maybe they do have people hand drawing things and they are using that to train a NN of some kind so eventually it's all CG images.

jonplackett• 7 years ago

I just assumed that was what it was and only realised it wasn’t from this comment.

chrischen8• 7 years ago

We don't use deep dream, but a CNN to power our Instant Preview Tool: http://instapainting.com/assets

synaesthesisx• 7 years ago

I was thinking the same thing - Style Transfer GAN's

chias• 7 years ago

This looks phenomenal, I'll be placing an order later today. Congratulations to you and your team, I hope this succeeds past your expectations :)

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

thank you so much! :)

namanyayg3• 7 years ago

Loses out in both style and cost when compared to InstaPainting (where this is definitely derived from) but good effort, hope this improves livelihoods of Indian artists. What percentage of the share actually goes to them?

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

The pricing is decided by the artist, and every style is owned by an individual artist. We add percentage of commission on the base artist pricing.

mthoms• 7 years ago

I love this, good job.

I'm curious, does the purchase transfer the copyright to the buyer? Or does it remain with the artist?

anigbrowl• 7 years ago

That's a good approach. I think it would be worth including that information on the FAQ page - transparency builds trust and such issues are more important in a global marketplace.

As an amateur painter myself it's nice to see this equitable approach which also leaves room for each artist to maintain an individual style. Well done!

mkagenius• 7 years ago

I remember an old shark tank episode where kids would paint for you. Here it is: https://umano.com/

chrischen8• 7 years ago

Founder of Instapainting here! We were actually far from the first in this space as well (there were incumbents at the top of the Google search ranks from the mid to early 2000s).

As for Instapainting, when ordering and requesting an artist directly, our fee is 26%, unless the artist quotes lower than our base pricing in which case our fee is the difference.

We have artists from India too! http://instapainting.com/gallery/made-in-india https://www.instapainting.com/artists/sunny https://www.instapainting.com/artists/lavdeep

We put you in direct contact with the artist and you can view your artwork through our website and collaborate directly

cdubzzz• 7 years ago

This is a Show HN. I’m sure the poster would greatly appreciate feedback from someone with experience like yours, not an advertisement for your own service.

frequentnapper4• 7 years ago

26%! wow! Looks like this field needs some competition.

redka2• 7 years ago

I almost bought something from them but was met (at the very end of the whole process) with a huge standard shipment fee even though the FAQ said the shipment is free. Apparently there's a minimum amount that you have to pay to qualify for the free shipment

trextrex• 7 years ago

It says clearly in the FAQs that free shipping is only in India and for orders above Rs. 15000.

redka2• 7 years ago

Well they just added it after my email. Didn't say that before

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

Our apologies if you felt that it was misrepresented in our FAQs. Right now reliable world-wide shipping from India is 10x more expensive for us compared to shipping within India. So we cannot afford to offer free shipping for international customers, unless we increase product price which would be unfair for our Indian customers.

cm2012• 7 years ago

I just made an order (to Glen Oaks, NY). One concern is that at checkout the picture I uploaded flipped sideways. Maybe consider a crop/rotate option for the picture once you choose picture size?

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

Yes, we will take care of that, and thank you for your order :) We will reach out to you via email if the artist has any questions.

foreigner• 7 years ago

Just flip the painting sideways when you get it back.

jchallis• 7 years ago

I treasure a photo I had Instapainted of my wife and daughter (this definitely came from Xiamen). Glad to see you bringing joy to more people

feiss• 7 years ago

I wonder how much is the share the painters get..

coldtea2• 7 years ago

Usually something barely above subsistence...

gridlockd3• 7 years ago

Usually? Most painters never even hit "subsistence".

gridlockd3• 7 years ago

All the difficulty in art is in the selling, so commissions are high.

contingencies• 7 years ago

Missing option for charcoal.

anonu• 7 years ago

I'm sure there's a market for this. But I'm not in it.

If I want to buy a painting, I'm looking for technique, style, color usage, materials usage, ability to craft a message and convey a mood. The individual artist and their story matters to me. A facsimile of a digital photo is probably not what I'm looking for.

ZoomZoomZoom3• 7 years ago

It really saddens me that there's a market for this. Especially knowing from personal experience the prices real art goes for in a traditional market (hint: borderline offensive). Marketers will keep underlining the shiny bits ("artists set their prices"), but in the end the business is farming, not art.

yingw7872• 7 years ago

I’m not sure there’s anything intrinsically bad about this kind of service. I asked a friend who does graphics for NPR and the New Yorker whether she feels any attachment to her pieces, and she said it’s just work in the end. Not all software is just made to be beautiful either; for many of us here software is just work too.

I have a feeling art prices (particularly contemporary art) are inflated in part due to their being Veblen goods (high prices make it attractive), or otherwise a vehicle for value retention like diamonds and gold; see price differences between forgeries and the real thing.

And of course, we all know Adolf Hitler was rejected for art school and took a different job instead, and the world might be a better place if this service existed back then.

ZoomZoomZoom3• 7 years ago

Sorry, but I'm not following you. Nothing you said after the first sentence proves your point, as I see it.

I’m not sure there’s anything intrinsically bad about this kind of service

These services of course provide some value: they are easy to find/stumble on, they free customers of excessive choice, allowing them to not be actively interested in art and collapsing everything to simple "choose your style" option, they free customers of direct communications with artists, they arbitrage prices between different geographical markets.

On the other hand, these services compete with traditional artists, they devalue regular artworks in the minds of common potential customers AND further reinforce the thinning of the line between art and prints one buys in a furniture store.

ZoomZoomZoom3• 7 years ago

I've just understood that I should have been more clear. I meant "borderline offensive" to artists (dirt cheap), of course.

keyle• 7 years ago

You had me at "spin the wheel of discount".

jrockway• 7 years ago

I was surprised that they didn't say "only 1 left at this price!" and have a chatbot pop up to say "click here to buy my book on dark patterns!"

I went looking through the code to see if the "wheel of discount" always gives a discount (it should, of course), but couldn't find it. There is a lot of Javascript on that website. So it goes, I guess.

parksy• 7 years ago

That's Numberwang! Let's spin the board!

rajekas• 7 years ago

My earlier comment met with some resistance, so let me try to get some more downvotes by stating my objections once again and more comprehensively.

I should say I have nothing against the premise of the business - if it provides livelihood to traditional craftspeople (or just talented artists of any kind) more power to you.

However, you are not making it easy for me to believe that you have the artist's best interests in mind. Let me count the reasons why:

1. Not a single individual artist or craftsperson is mentioned anywhere on the site. I don't know about you, but when I hear the term "artist," I think of an individual with a specific way of looking at the world. Absolutely every Indian artist and craftsperson I know has a desire to see their individuality recognized. You claim to be sourcing artists but you don't recognize their personhood anywhere. That's rather strange don't you think? It's possible that during the portraiture itself a bond is established between the representer and the representee but that's not the case on your site. It's an easily added feature if you're serious.

[EDIT] - as another commenter pointed out, there's a byline for each artist so what I said above is flawed. I still think you would be better off highlighting the artist's vision in more detail. For example, did artist X make the portrait in style Y - Suprio for Ballpoint Magic for example? If so, why aren't the portraits signed? Why choose to anonymize them at every stage? Otherwise it looks as if you are choosing to stroke the vanity of a western/affluent Indian audience.

2. Every Indian state and linguistic community has artistic traditions. Madhubani is different from Company painting is different from Mughal paintings. None of these traditions are even mentioned. In fact, there's no evidence that any Indian aesthetic tradition matters at all. Instead, what you have are generic categories - "the vision lure" - without connection to artistic traditions of any culture.

3. Then there's the origin story - "the idea was hatched when so and so were sipping coffee and discussing the works of Raja Ravi Verma in the historical city of Udaipur." At the very least that suggests an intimate connection between Raja Ravi Varma and Udaipur, especially if you aren't Indian. Except that RRV lived out his life in Kerala, far away from Udaipur and from a very different artistic and cultural milieu. If you had started the story with Tantric paintings [1] that are still produced anonymously in Rajasthan (just like your artists) I would have taken notice.

Suppose I went to a cafe in Stockholm, discussed the "da Vinci code" with a friend and decided to start a business in Italian greeting cards made for cut rates by unknown artists in Neapolitan neighborhoods (in between assignments for the 'ndrangheta, if you want to add some mystery to the whole process)- in what way would that be beneficial to European art?

[1] http://sigliopress.com/book/tantra-song/

michaelmior• 7 years ago

I agree it's not very prominent, but there are brief profiles of individual artists on the page for a specific product.

OrganicQuote9• 7 years ago

All our paintings are shipped with artist signature on it. Also a brief about the artist is mentioned in the description.

We don’t sell traditional Indian paintings, so don’t know why should we mention the connection at all between traditional Indian arts and our paintings just because the company and artists are from India.

craftoman• 7 years ago

That's the future ladies and gentlemen. Creating AI algorithms that can mimic human creativity and sell them as art. Image what can be achieved in the next few years, art will be like the organic foods. It may have the stamp on the package but many farmers are cheating. (especially in Eastern Europe)

asdjlkadsjklads• 7 years ago

Interesting! On that note, is there a service like this to request drawings not from photos? Maybe with early sketch phases to suss out the specifics before committing to the final iteration?

I've got some work i've been wanting to commission, but i'm not sure on where best to find an artist

umeshunni2• 7 years ago

Depends on the domain, but I had luck with Fiverr for converting rough drawings to renders.

VectorLock2• 7 years ago

Got any examples?

cauliflower2718• 7 years ago

I initially thought this was a deep learning style transfer project for quite a while. What a surprise!

arketyp• 7 years ago

In the end, maybe not that different.

vldr• 7 years ago

Interesting concept. Went to look and scrolled through the page to see the different styles/prices.

And then my entire view got blocked by some large wheel of fortune.

At that point, as with those email begging popups, I lose all attention, realize I have better stuff to do and click away.

kkarakk• 7 years ago

https://apps.shopify.com/lucky-spin-wheel it costs 4 bucks a month...i don't know enough about lead generation to comment about whether it works but damn it's irritating. it's like when you goto a real world store and there is an upfront price and a price you get after haggling- except it's hidden behind RNG

tminima• 7 years ago

I like the name. Koonchi means painting brush which were used in India in the olden days.

Show HN: Koonchi – Convert Photo to Hand-Painted Painting by Artists from India

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