Artists Alley Information Thread

Selling at Cons is best during the...

Spring	11.6%	[ 83 ]
Summer	30.3%	[ 217 ]
Fall	7.0%	[ 50 ]
Winter	5.3%	[ 38 ]
Any time!	45.7%	[ 327 ]
Total Votes:			[ 715 ]

[Fiammetta Rey]

I'm living with false hope

And my eyes just want to see a ray of light

I'm gonna find it in my fairy tale...

I might have gotten an Artist Alley table at Otakon...

HELP!

Okay, so here's what I need help with. I don't have enough stuff to sell. I'm wondering if I should draw more fanart or OC stuff. I also just need general critique on my plan.

I'm not that good at drawing, I admit. So people like fanart drawings with a story more than... like... pin-ups, especially more than badly drawn OC pinups.

But there's all those restrictions on fanart, like now they're saying you can't sell anything but prints with fanart (like no buttons). So I'm wondering if it's even worth it to make much fanart. I'm planning on doing a picture that's a crossover between two popular series (like one group of characters in another series). But I don't really have many ideas for fanart besides that one (except more sexy Code Geass guys (+ maybe C.C.) pictures like the collab one in my gallery (the collab was done with the person who will be sharing a table with me, so we'll definitely be selling it)).

But I haven't posted my story with the OCs that I draw a lot yet, so absolutely no one will know them. I was thinking maybe I could put like half a sample chapter on a flyer and give out booklets of a few sample chapters to people if they buy a print of the character.

I also have some pictures I'm doing of my character Kinris in school uniforms from other works (Code Geass, Haruhi Suzumiya, Princess Tutu, and Harry Potter.) Will anyone be interested in these?

What about ACEOs? I know someone asked about these earlier... I'm thinking of selling some of those, each card limited to 25 prints (I'll keep the originals or auction them). I'd sell each card for a dollar or two... is that too low (limited run)? Too high (they're 2.5" x 3.5" wink ?

I'm also doing some jewelry... will anime people be interested in jewelry with no real anime connection? Or should I focus on making kanji pieces, chibi face charms, and other stuff like that?

Sorry if this is to many questions... I'm kind of freaking out here.

[[Kako]]

As far as 'Fanart vs. Original' goes, I'd say original all the way. I'm kind of against the idea of doing fanart specifically to sell at a convention. (Selling fanart that you happened to do over the course of the year is cool with me, though. The thought of using other people's characters specifically for profit just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.)

But just because you're doing original art doesn't mean you have to draw a specific Original Characters. You can just sort of invent as you draw the picture, too. If people don't know the story behind a character, it probably won't even occur to them that it is a character, rather than someone you randomly invented for that picture. That said, people will go for Original Art often if the character in question has a really neat design, something really eye-catching.


Anime con-goers do have interests outside of Fanime, so there's no reason they wouldn't be interested in regular jewelry. In fact, you may be better off doing regular jewelry. Kanji pieces, Chibi face charms... that stuff is more likely to show up in the dealers room, and a lot of cons are outlawing anything in direct competition with the dealer's room.

A question of my own: Since I didn't bother to get any business cards together for fanime, I'd like to give these out with each purchase. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/PF27/remember300dpi.png I'm a little worried that somebody might get offended by it, though. Does this seem likely to anyone?

[Kaxen]

Kako

A question of my own: Since I didn't bother to get any business cards together for fanime, I'd like to give these out with each purchase. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v496/PF27/remember300dpi.png I'm a little worried that somebody might get offended by it, though. Does this seem likely to anyone?

I think that could potentially rub someone the wrong way, but I don't think it would be the majority.



x_x I on the other hand, have decided to do free pen sketches with every purchase. Head portraits or chibis only for the sake of speed.

I have timed myself to one a minute or less (for the majority). Is this fast enough? >_> I wouldn't want someone to lose interest waiting for me to tend to them while I am belting out drawings.

[AEAcomics]

I think people can wait for 1 minute smile It would give them some time to look at what's on your table.

Yay, I sat down and roughed out the figures for my prints and got the reference pictures I'll be needing to color them. But all the legs still look wonky, oh dear.
I still need to figure out my bookmark designs.

[Vicemage]

Kako> I love it. ^_^ And there's an awful lot of cons that do make fun of the infamous Otaku Funk (Acen notoriously likes to sell soap-on-a-rope and shirts with comments on showering on them, for instance). The vast majority of congoers don't seem to take much offense to something like that.

Kaxen> One minute is insanely fast! The two people I know who do on-the-spot portraits (and both are popular enough to have timeslots for them), each take around 15-30 minutes for their blocks, so yes, people will wait one minute for sure.

[Kaxen]

Well, it's not super high quality; stuff like this



I just hope I don't accidentally draw too many ginormous noses. The first thing to get out of hand when I don't use guide lines is that the noses grow. rofl

[muffin babie]

@[Kako]: Those are so cute! I'd certainly love one. :3

@Kaxen: A minute is really fast. I know that I, at least, would wait around. You could also offer them to (most) everyone who stopped to look at your table, and if they stuck around to wait for the drawing, they might spot something they'd like to buy!

And now I have a couple questions of my own:

How often do you guys see the tabletop gamer/anime fan overlap? I know that in my group of friends, it's about 80%+, but I'm wondering what other people have seen. My boyfriend and I are working on a tabletop gaming comic called Natural 1, and we're thinking of selling it at next Anime Detour, if we can get everything done in time. [And I am planning on editing the first couple pages so they're typed up as well..]

Secondly, I have a question for people who share tables: how do you go about splitting everything? I'm sharing with a friend, so we've integrated most of our things together. She's got a lot more stuff, though, so it tends to overwhelm mine, somewhat. Also, next year we're planning on having some things that we make together. How would you go about splitting profits on, say, buttons? We came up with the idea together, she drew it, I inked/colored it.

I know I've got more, but I can't think of them right now... :/

[pearberrie]

@kako - I say go for it

@Starre257 Otakon's rules this year a bit different, but I'm still bringing fan art because I think even though my fanart kinda sucks and isn't always recognized I think it makes people feel more at ease somehow to look at my original stuff. Fanart def draws people in and I hear alot of them asking me to draw different series (which always makes me go really?) They only outlawed badges and hats and shirts for sure though, everything else is ok unless they complain on the day smile
All of my original stuff right now is like random drawings, I think even though people don't know who the person in the drawing is they'll buy it if they like the pict so you don't have to worry on if anyone know's your OC.
Small cheap items are really good because people are more willing to buy a cheap item so ACEO's might work for you smile I've never done them myself though I like to just have 4x6 photo prints instead because it's easier to just print my existing stuff smaller then create something new for me xD
oh and yes I have seen many many people bring normal jewelry stuffs at con's last year I met a very nice person selling chain mail jewelry at otakon it was all lovely. Not sure how good their sales are though.

[Fiammetta Rey]

I'm living with false hope

And my eyes just want to see a ray of light

I'm gonna find it in my fairy tale...

@[Kako] - I wouldn't draw fanart JUST to sell. I wouldn't do anything JUST to sell it (except jewelry because with that I sell the original, not a print). Like, I would never draw Naruto... I don't like that series... I mean, I have three types of art I can do, and since I don't have enough stuff to sell, I might as well add what will sell more to my decision making factors regarding what to draw. So I'm not going, "Hmmm, what will sell best regardless of whether I want to draw it or not?", I'm drawing stuff because I want to.

I guess that's true about people being interested in something besides anime, I'm just wondering, because I know in the past I've thought that I shouldn't get something at an anime con unless it's anime related because I have limited money and I can get non-anime-related stuff somewhere else. I guess I'm wondering how common that is.

[[Kako]]

Thanks, guys. smile I went ahead and printed 120 of them. They're only 2"x3", but I think 120 should be plenty.

The TTG community has... well, a 100% overlap with the anime community, at least in my group, but I know there are otaku out there who have the knee-jerk reaction to the game that a lot of "normal" people have. razz I'd say the overlap is significant enough that you'd have a fairly large market for such.

With splitting things, I generally do a clean 50%.

[InstantOatmeal]

Yeah, even though I know I might be condemning myself to never breaking even, I'm not sure I'll do any fanart at all. I'm much more of an OC person, I don't do it often, and I'm kinda paranoid that some offended company is going to send in a SWAT team through the ceiling and gun me down if I do try to sell fanart. But then there's that part of me that would love to do a little bit of Escaflowne or Trigun related art, you know? Yes, most of my series related fandoms are oldies or just non-anime in general. From what I've read, though, if one *did* choose to do fanart, it should definitely stick to anime and nothing western?

Augh, I'm so conflicted... ;P

[Fiammetta Rey]

I'm living with false hope

And my eyes just want to see a ray of light

I'm gonna find it in my fairy tale...

I've seen fanart of American stuff sell, and not just stuff like Avatar, like superhero stuff. Spider-Man, Teen Titans, especially Batman now (who doesn't love The Dark Knight?)

From what I've heard, though, anime companies are more likely to look the other way.

I don't think selling fanart is a problem unless it's your main source of income... Like someone said on the Otakon website, if you can't pay your rent without selling those pictures of Naruto... that's a problem.

[InstantOatmeal]

I can promise you that on the small chance I do decide to do fanart, it's gonna be from older shows... which might very well render fanart in general as pointless (considering it sounds like most people are after Naruto/DeathNote/whatever's popular now 'cause I'm not keeping up with anything.)

[Kaxen]

muffin babie

@Kaxen: A minute is really fast. I know that I, at least, would wait around. You could also offer them to (most) everyone who stopped to look at your table, and if they stuck around to wait for the drawing, they might spot something they'd like to buy!

And now I have a couple questions of my own:

Secondly, I have a question for people who share tables: how do you go about splitting everything? I'm sharing with a friend, so we've integrated most of our things together. She's got a lot more stuff, though, so it tends to overwhelm mine, somewhat. Also, next year we're planning on having some things that we make together. How would you go about splitting profits on, say, buttons? We came up with the idea together, she drew it, I inked/colored it.

I know I've got more, but I can't think of them right now... :/

Yeah, if business is slow, I'm probably going to entice anyone I can with free sketches.

I'm splitting the table with 3 friends. We divided the price of the table and everyone's profiting based on how much their own items sell. x_x Hopefully I will be able to keep track of all the money. 2 of us decided we would predominantly at the table while the other two go around the con.

On cooperatively made items, I'd probably split 50/50

[Fiammetta Rey]

I'm living with false hope

And my eyes just want to see a ray of light

I'm gonna find it in my fairy tale...

I haven't really decided how I'm going to split the money... I guess either 50/50 or putting the money from each of our sales in different places... I dunno. 50/50 sounds easiest. I'll talk to my table partner about it.