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 ]

[Kyousouka]

ninniku: The more specific the context, the prettier it'll need to be to sell well. I tend to not take my crack art beyond the sketch phase so I only have a few "unusual" works for sale, but they still sell okay. People like pretty pictures even if they don't really "get" them. If the subject is funny to them, even better. They might not know why the winged guy has a suit, but if it looks nice and seems funny to them even without the context, it'll sell. If the guy is hot, that'll help too xP

I can't compare the sales of my OC art to fanart sales though, as I have not yet made any real fanart to sell D:

[ninniku]

Well, doesn't any man with wings in a pin stripe suit stand a fair chance of being hot? =D

[Kyousouka]

Pin stripes are multiplicative of hotness, but 0 multiplied by something is still 0 xP

[Kaxen]

ninniku

Does your table theme extend beyond the banner?

Yes. I have seafoam green unicorn buttons and intend to get more seafoam green unicorns drawn and possibly wrap the PVC pipe display in unicorn streamers (since my boyfriend thinks normal party streamers look kind of unimpressive, I may or may not have talked myself into Chinese paper cutting...)

It would be kind of odd to feature such a gigantic unicorn in the banner and not sell anything with unicorns.

...My boyfriend is also tempted to sculpt a unicorn since he's selling sculpey sculptures.

[ninniku]

Kaxen

....seafoam green unicorn buttons....

I must inquire, if doing sea foam green unicorn buttons, why not do a whole pastel rainbow set? biggrin

[ninniku]

Kyousouka

Pin stripes are multiplicative of hotness, but 0 multiplied by something is still 0 xP

Your art math is irrefutable.

What other equations have you discerned?

[Kaxen]

ninniku

Kaxen

....seafoam green unicorn buttons....

I must inquire, if doing sea foam green unicorn buttons, why not do a whole pastel rainbow set? biggrin

Hmm. I hadn't thought of that.


This talk of technicolor unicorns makes me wonder where the hell my old My Little Ponies are.

[Kyousouka]

ninniku: That's what happens when you get a CS/physics student into drawing ):

I find that the detail-quality relation is an (ax - bx^2)-type function where detail level x is taken as a proportion to the rest of the image (so a typical image has x < 1, and most likely a > b). This means that while detail is subtle, the quality goes up, but pasta certain point the detail becomes overbearing and decreases the image quality. With a > b, the maximum quality point is closer to "low" detail than high detail.

If print sales are a function of ax + by + cz ..., then the coefficient for pretty boys is about 3 times as high as the coefficient for art skill. That is, a poorly drawn pretty boy that isn't so horribly deformed that you can't tell it's meant to be pretty > a very well-drawn average guy. Keep that in mind ;D

[Cetriya]

make it very pretty.

I'm still trying to find a balance, but yeah, go on da, find the popular anime influenced artists, that draw a lot of oc and see what they have in common, what they have unique and which of those things you'd like to emulate.


blue, red, purple are very popular colors. sometimes black, and themes like Mucha, steam punk, gothic, vicotorian, asian, ext... you get the point.

Or, you can be a nitch artists like drawing dark disturbing things, mecha, fetishes, weird sense of humor.

Or you can slowly build your world so that people have the same association with your work as they do with fan art characters.

[Frosted Muffin Cakes]

@Kyou: Wow. You're my favorite. heart That was wonderful. And.. more accurate than it should be. razz

Does anyone know off the top of their heads when ACen tables go up for sale? Or how quickly they sell out? I don't really wanna go if I don't have a table, so I don't wanna buy my ticket too early... neutral

[Seijaku_Ishida]

Cetriya

Or, you can be a nitch artists like drawing dark disturbing things

Someone called me a dark artist at a con once. I honestly don't get how you can call me that with these staring at you.

[ninniku]

Seijaku_Ishida

Cetriya

Or, you can be a nitch artists like drawing dark disturbing things

Someone called me a dark artist at a con once. I honestly don't get how you can call me that with these staring at you.

It must be all the evil pouring out of their cutesy little faces when you turn the black light on.

[Cetriya]

Seijaku_Ishida

Cetriya

Or, you can be a nitch artists like drawing dark disturbing things

Someone called me a dark artist at a con once. I honestly don't get how you can call me that with these staring at you.

a lot of use of black in color work.
at lest thats what I'd say if I see that and some of your other work (like your sig)

[Vicemage]

Frosted Muffin Cakes

@Kyou: Wow. You're my favorite. heart That was wonderful. And.. more accurate than it should be. razz

Does anyone know off the top of their heads when ACen tables go up for sale? Or how quickly they sell out? I don't really wanna go if I don't have a table, so I don't wanna buy my ticket too early... neutral

I don't know when they go up (I do know next year's dates, but I don't know if they've been officially announced yet, meaning I probably shouldn't say them ^^ ), but I do know they announce it on the Artists Mailing List ahead of time, so go sign up for that.

As for how quickly they sell out? This year, they were gone within an hour, I think. So, fast.

[Skye River]

I wonder how most artists promote themselves at the convention tables. Knowing me, I would probably be low key about things.

Although, it would be kinda funny to see an artist yell out "Get your art drawn here !" lol