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 ]

[Nyawyn]

I think today they're having a woot-off

[AEAcomics]

Laminated all my bookmarks! Down to cutting them and paper for commissions and the coloring pages, which I'm gonna work on now.

Found out that the AA will be in the main hall, so we should get a lot of traffic. Unfortunately that means no set close time and a complete tear-down each night.

[Fiammetta Rey]

I'm so exicted to do AA again... I'm looking for new cons. My college is right near Columbus, so Ohayocon might be good good to try. Plus the anime club there said they go to Tekkoshocon every year (Now whether I want to be stuck in a car for three hours with those people is another issues entirely...). But for now, I should get to work on drawing some of my OCs to populate my new DA account. + maybe sell some of those.

Question: Are there any button companies that you can order fanart buttons from? Like, would ModButtons or Busy Beaver make a button of your art even if it's fanart? I don't think I was able to find a good answer on their websites...

[Seijaku_Ishida]

I don't do fanart, so I wouldn't know. If you're going to Ohayocon, though, you'll want to focus on original work because they didn't allow fanart unless it was a parody at '09 and hinted that they'd be stricter this time around.

I just finished inking chibis for my buttons. I'm getting them made at http://purebuttons.com/ when I have the time. Any particular size that sells the best? I think this was addressed earlier in thread, but I can't for the life of me remember what page it was on.

[Fiammetta Rey]

Ifthey don't allow fanart... that's actually good, because I need to draw a lot of my OCs. I've only drawn like one so far. Or would stuff sell better if it's not connected to a story, rather than a story no one knows? Should I write some samples and give them out?

I only sold 2 fanart prints, anyway. Not that I sold any original stuff... sweatdrop

[Seijaku_Ishida]

My things that sold best at Ohayocon last year were things based off of mythology(kitsune, dragons, gryphons, angels and demons) or cute. Though two creatures based off of a mythology of my own world sold well, as did some Avalon characters. I had a few ask me if they were from something, so if your story is online you might want to have the site printed on a business card to hand out if they're interested.

[Nyawyn]

Seijaku_Ishida

I don't do fanart, so I wouldn't know. If you're going to Ohayocon, though, you'll want to focus on original work because they didn't allow fanart unless it was a parody at '09 and hinted that they'd be stricter this time around.

I just finished inking chibis for my buttons. I'm getting them made at http://purebuttons.com/ when I have the time. Any particular size that sells the best? I think this was addressed earlier in thread, but I can't for the life of me remember what page it was on.

1.25 is about the standard. (usually priced at 1 dollar each)

some artists do 1.5 for a bit bigger image. (priced at either 1 dollar or $1.5)

I have seen a few artists do 2inch buttons but its not very common. (and they charged between 2-3 dollars for those)

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Cool. Those were the ones I was looking at anyway. XD

[AEAcomics]

I couldn't decide if I wanted to mount my prints, so I bought a package of colorful cardstock and a trimmer. I'll just ask anyone who buys a print from me if they want it mounted for an extra $1

Back to making coloring pages. I keep thinking of different things that might be popular and will probably wind up with more linearts than I originally planned lol

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Here's my button chibis :3

[Why_00]

I'm having a bit of trouble pricing my items, and I was wondering if you guys could help. I go to two small local conventions, and pretty much as long as you made it yourself you can sell it. (So from fanart, all the way to dealer room type items) What I'm making is going to be separated into three different categories: Drawings, clay charms, and bags.
Any and all pricing help is much appreciated.

Drawings - I'm not sure if I going to offer commissions for this or not, it all depends on how fast I get at this style. But everything I draw is on computer sized paper or larger, and I'm going to offer the originals.
Graphite drawings[x][x][x]
Colored pencil drawings [x]

Clay charms - All of them are around a half an inch to two inches in height
[x]

Bags - I'm planning on making pencil bags and tote bags, however I only have an example of the pencil bag. I use vinyl, cotton canvas, and usually satin as my materials for these, along with the required notions. (the example is of black vinyl and a blue satin lining that has been embroidered)
[x]

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Loving the colored pencil. Really I think prices on commissions would depend on how fast you are at it.

Not sure about the other stuff, since I don't know the cost of the materials.

[Why_00]

Well, right now they take me about a day or two to complete them, but I have until next may to really get it down and practice more.
And for the cost of materials... I haven't really been keeping track all that well, but the vinyl was leftover from a costume I made, but I have at lest 8 yards of the stuff hanging around.(I got extra because 10 yards of it was on sale for $30). the cotton canvas costs around $7 a yard and the satin costs around $3 a yard. The clay, I can make about 6 to 10 from a $2 package of sculpey.

[AEAcomics]

Just wanna say I bought a ProvoCraft Zision paper trimmer for $7 and it works really well. I got it at Hobby Lobby, but I've seen it at Walmart too. It's green. smile

[Vicemage]

I inherited an old paper trimmer myself, that works pretty well, though it's got a small capacity... ^^ Not sure what brand it is or where it came from or if you can even get it anymore, though.

So, I think I may have figured out what my small "gift" is for people who've previously bought my books, and was wondering what the thoughts here might be. I think what I'll do is a set of small print-postcards, similar to what sometimes comes in LE DVDs.

I'm torn between doing them in a small "folder" and wrapped in plastic, or in an opaque envelope to protect them... I'd probably sell some of them, in addition to the free ones, so I may also include a special additional print for the free ones (thinking on metallic paper like one of the pretty ones we have at work). Potentially, too, I could do the opaque envelopes for the gift sets, and the plastic envelopes for the for-sale sets. Hm...

Anyhow, thoughts from the other AA'ers?