Instagram Reels Boosted His Traffic 70%. Every Real Order Still Comes Through Word of Mouth.

G.Todorov is a sculptor and jeweler in Bulgaria who makes custom jewelry, including wedding rings, along with sculpture and cast-metal works. While studying at the Academy, he won several awards for coin and medal designs commissioned by the Bulgarian National Bank. He has developed his sculptural practice independently for over 20 years and also takes on monumental sculpture commissions.

G.Todorov learned metal casting while working with professional casters, then leveled up his jewelry skills – different types of gold and fine engraving. He draws on that bronze-casting expertise for his own sculpture and for fabrication work for others. He describes his practice as a slow, deliberate evolution of craft, shaped through bespoke commissions.

G.Todorov takes custom orders and commissions. Custom jewelry orders arrive mostly through Facebook and occasionally through Instagram, and most of his monumental sculpture commissions have come through competitions. One set of wedding rings alone brought a full year of work through word-of-mouth referrals. His buyers are people looking for something one of a kind, impossible to replicate.

G.Todorov finds most customers through word of mouth: about 80% of his smaller item orders come from people who heard about him through someone else. Instagram Reels raised his traffic by 60–70%, but the orders did not follow. Early sales came through Etsy, with custom orders arriving through Facebook.

G.Todorov grew up with artist and designer parents, alongside grandparents oriented toward science and mechanics – an influence that shaped both his childhood games and his ambitions. He went on to graduate from the National School for Fine Arts and the National Academy for Fine Arts, specializing in sculpture, and learned metal casting while working with professional casters. During his years at the Academy, he won several awards for coin and medal designs commissioned by the Bulgarian National Bank, and completed his first major monumental work.

At the end of his degree, he and a group of friends and colleagues took on an ambitious project: building Bulgaria's first stop-motion studio. It meant learning an enormous range of new skills, from 3D modeling to mechanical engineering, and combining them with his sculptural training. After six years of hard work, the project collapsed and the team disbanded.

Watch the piece take shape on Instagram →

His first sales came through Etsy, with custom orders arriving through Facebook and the occasional one through Instagram. From there, referrals started to snowball – friends of friends, recommendations from people who'd already ordered. Today, he estimates about 80% of his smaller item orders come from people who simply heard about him through someone else.

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After the stop-motion studio collapsed, G.Todorov decided to put all the skills he'd gained into something of his own. He opened an Etsy shop and experimented with different kinds of work, though he's candid that marketing has always been his weakest part of the process. A small number of people found him through those platforms, ordered, and then recommended him to friends. One set of wedding rings alone brought a full year of work through word-of-mouth referrals. During that stretch he also leveled up his jewelry skills – different types of gold, fine engraving – while continuing to work on monumental sculpture commissions around the country, most of them won through competitions. He held his first solo exhibition during this period, and took on other work purely as a fabricator, drawing on his bronze-casting expertise.

Instagram Reels brought a real jump in traffic – up 60 to 70% – but it didn't translate into a meaningful number of orders or sales. The clients and repeat business kept coming from somewhere else entirely: word of mouth, off the web.

His biggest setback remains the dream of building Bulgaria's first stop-motion studio. The team was talented and worked incredibly hard. To stay focused on the project, he put every other kind of professional development on hold, taking only fabricator and casting jobs to get by. When the project collapsed, it hit him hard. He's direct about it: it still hurts to think about, and for a long time it felt like six years lost on a fool's errand.

Some time after the studio fell apart, G.Todorov realized he'd come away with an unusual combination of skills that almost no one else had – sculpture, casting, engraving, mechanical and 3D work. He decided to bring them together and use them to grow as a professional artist and craftsman in his own right.

He doesn't think of himself as having one specific audience. His customers are simply people looking for something genuinely unique – one of a kind, impossible to replicate. They tend to think outside the box and have an eye for quality.

He's aiming to enter more art competitions, grow his reputation as an artist, and become better known in the art world through galleries and their social media channels.

Independently developing my sculptural practice for over 20 years, mastering rare and highly specialized skills. A slow, deliberate evolution of craft and a distinctive artistic voice, shaped through bespoke commissions.

Who: G.Todorov
What: Art, sculpture, and custom jewelry
Where: Bulgaria
Started: Around 2010
Audience: Under 100 – hard to pin down exactly
Customers: about 5 buyers per 1–2 months (varies, not tied to a season)
Custom orders: Yes
Promotion budget: $0
Income: Side income
Status: Active but stalled
Channels: Offline & word of mouth, communities & forums, collabs & shoutouts, text social media