Note :

– I am not a native English speaker. I am sorry if you feel upset by how I turned my sentences (which are based on French grammar and French wording). If you are curious about what I wanted to say, feel free to talk in DM with me.
– Vous cherchez l’explication en français ? C’est par >ici<

12 years.

It’s been now 12 years I’ve started making products for pen spinning : penmods. I always was interested about the process of making penmods since I discovered the hobby. I did my first trade at 15, one month once I signed up on FPSB board in 2009. Created my first personal RSVP and jumped into the The Spyre team (now called pm.pm) the same year. Until now, I didn’t stop making penmods and acquire new pens over years.

I am in love with making penmods for 12 years. The love didn’t change. But myself, I did change. The purpose of making penmods at 15 – studying at middle school and still living with their parents – is different than making it at 27 – living with a partner and having a job.

When I was a teenager, I made penmods because I had a lot of spare time. I didn’t think much about it. Just enjoyed the hobby, did things for the fun.
The situation has changed now. I am not able to enjoy thing as before without reason. This is exactly what I need in my current life. I need to make sense of my life. I need to understand myself. Enjoying what I do can be maximized if I know the reason.

Creating things helps me to know myself. Once I know who I am, I can be proud of who I am, as a sensitive human.
Creating things makes my senses vibrate. This is actually an addicted feeling. Plus, raw material for penmodding (pens) is cheap compared to others artistic hobbies. More stuff, more sensation.

While creating penmods, I feel the vibrations of my senses as strong as my heartbeats after an effort.
This could be how I can sum up who I am : sensations are driving my life.
I am used to be an observer and I don’t know how to talk with others so I stay silence majority of the time. Because of this observer position, the power of my senses is increased tenfold. Having increased senses has bad sides and good sides. In one hand, I tend to not being able to manage my feeling when I have hard conversation with people. One of the solution I adopted long time ago was blocking any emotion on my face ; thing which is hard to apply on the Internet. Bad feeling are as strong as good feeling. Even if I react inefficiently while arguing (which I try to improve each time something happens), I am able to be full of love for people I appreciate.
Beside emotions, having increased senses helps me to have a better inderstanding of user experiences of a product.

What is a good product ? What is a good penmod ?
I started making penmods at 15 by trying making something looks cool and pretty. I keep making penmods at 27, but with another way of thinking. I want to be usefull, having a meanful life. Vôre-Tèx is a product designer. How a product can be usefull ? What does “a good penmod” mean ? What does this mean, for me ? For Vore-Tex ? How to be a good penmodder ? Is this only making “beautiful products” ?

See this video as a part of the answer.
I’ve created a golden marble background as to represent what values are the most important in the Arts and crafts in my opinion. Something durable and precious. Since I consider myself as a craftman, I am also talking about the personality of my work. Craftmanship is about sharing a very specific worldview as well.
Adding the year of creation for each of the mods allows you to remember what happened each year. Something that we are not used to do anymore with social network.

Mods chosen are the ones which represent the most my work.

• I have always tried making famous and popular penmods with my own vision by using different materials : carbon fiber, clear pipe, alumilite (colored resin), unused pens. But also mixing up different mods together such as the Vain Ennis Menowa.
• Creating mods for others spinners is a hard but very important exercice. Making mods for your own preference is hard ; making mods for others preference is harder.
• Creating mods for myself and promote them by spinning them for official events. Before making a product, the designer must know how to use it as perfect as possible. This is why I consider that better your spin skill, better your modding skill.
• Creating mods that let me remember what I like and why I chose my username. The concept of a vortex in the space : this is what I thought while creating “Vôre-Tèx”. As an observer, I always loved to look at what happens in the sky and all the phenomen into the space.

I love making penmods, but the main essence of penmods is being useful. They have utility to be spun.
Thus, being usefull in the penspinning community follows me for a very long time.
Bullets above are about the projects I did in order to being a “useful person”.

“他們說我是沒有用的年輕人”

“The Useless Young Man” is the song of the video, from a Taiwanese band called “Good band”.

Penspinning is a niche hobby. I always thought that majority of people think that a niche hobby is not usefull. No one is interested about what you do. Do I feel usefull by doing penspinning ?

Modding is a niche into a niche. How many penspinners care about modders work ? How many spinners care about your latest tutorial of your personal mod ? How much spinners are willing to buy your personal mods ? How many supporting message do you receive each month ? I, personally, don’t receive a lot of visible support (I mean private/public supporting message).
As long as we, modders, don’t make mods for top tier spinners, or don’t have any good spinning skill, or don’t make aesthethic mods, majority of spinners don’t think we are usefull.
Do I feel usefull by doing penmodding ?

Myself. I am usefull ? Why do I need to feel usefull ? Is it a lack of self confidence (spoiler : maybe) ?
Do I feel usefull by being myself ? Yes. Being myself and keep doing what I love, whatever others think. It is a hard but important task. This is the reason why I decided to release this video. I can feel usefull by being myself and remember again what can make me happy. Being positive, generous and honest, teaching my knowledge without forgetting my values.

This videos is about comparing different viewpoints.
-First one, the video without sound, how most of you think about who Vore-Tex is. How far I came in the penmodding practice, 12 years later.
-The second one is representing by the music. It is about my weaknesses, my doubt, my questionings about my penmodder and personal life. This year, a shift passed in my life for some private reasons. It made me realise all what I told you in this article.

I wanted to thank Kara-T-J who helped me with the editing and did a very good job, despite my requirements are set high. It was a long and hard work, which was paid.

I thank Menowa* as well, who gave me a lot of inspiration from his personal mods.

Thank you for reading and thank you for your support, whatever visible or not, even thought visible support gives more motivation and helps to get courage.