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At my last con, I had a light (deathnote) a sephiroth, a garaa,a sasuke and a kefka:
http://freiheit.deviantart.com/art/chibi-group-96818994

My kefka was accually the one that gave me the most sell;

1-I was the only one selling him xd
2- He's a memorable character, an old one, but from a game that has a lot of fans.
3-I nailed the character, his pose, his expression, anyone that reconised him HAD to buy it.

conclusion: It's not about the "flavor of the month", selling your soul and virginity to the god of wierdparingyaoi that will get you your sale. If you really want to stick to fanarts, have some popular characters, but having a couple of characters that are "cult" characters if you will, will get you that extras sale you need. In addition, don't feel forced to do a fanart of something... Anime fans usually have general themes they like, from samourai/kimono/lolita to certain types of characters etc. Consider that to. Being able to produce an image that conveis emotion and catches attention will do wonders.

And of course, get to know the con you're going to attend, each one has a different audiance, what's true for one con might not be for the other. Also make sure you CAN sell fanarts, not all con allow it since it's illegal.

To fall under the fair use protection, a derivative work must be for educational/noncomercial purpous, or, if your lucky enough to have a nice easy going judge, the amount of transformation and orriginality of your work (ex: an orriginal character created to belong in the world/story of naruto).


as for parody:
"any cultural practice which provides a relatively polemical allusive imitation of another cultural production or practice."
"parody … is imitation with a critical difference, not always at the expense of the parodied text."

So you can't just call it parody because it's funny.

Not to mention, not all country have as much disregard for copyright as the united-states sweatdrop

But what I'm saying more importantly, make sure the cons you attend to accept fanarts (of the two in my region, one does, one does not) and if the con does not accept fanarts, make sure you know what they consider as fanarts. Some are more strict then others about the subject... and wether the law might have let it sliped or not doesn't count in their book.

Now I'm sorry about being a partypooper and all, I just think it's such an important subject, people should be well informed 3nodding

Personnally, I encourage cons who forbid the use sale of fanarts, I think it gives a chance to artists to sell and display orriginal work with out having to worry about "that-guy-next-to-me-who-sells-sasukexsephiroth-fanarts" to take all the attention.

yeah disney a lucas franchise to I've heard were pretty hard when it came to their franchises xd

Um. >_>; Just drawing whatever you think is popular seems kind of against the... spirit of the artist's alley, to me. I'll do my best to help you out, but I really don't approve.

Soul Eater: Maka, Soul, Death the Kid, and Black Star are the four most-recognised characters. Chrona, Stein, and Shinigami-Sama are close seconds.

Without returning to the discussion of whether it's right to do fanart in general, or the flavor of the month in particular, I'd like to point out that a "resource" like this isn't really useful anyway, because of the nature of "flavor of the month" anime.

Yes, Bleach and Naruto are popular right now, and any con you go to is riddled with ninjas in fishnet and random shinigami, sure. Wasn't that long ago, though, that the cons were riddled with Vashes and Sailor Scouts. Won't be long before something new pops up and eclipses Bleach and Naruto, too, and the same is true of ALL the popular series. The vast majority of anime "fans" are fickle folks who only know what's on TV or the biggest deal at this moment, and when something newer and shinier comes along, they change their "favorite." Sure, this year, they might be willing to fork over $5 for your "totally awesome" picture of L and Light, but next year they're going to wonder why you have all that stupid old Death Note stuff, instead of the shiny new Milky Schoolgirl Crisis art.

And honestly, my commissions sell for more than the average print in Artist Alley, and I don't get all that many commission requests for any of the flavor of the month stuff. The people who are actually going to spend time in the Artist Alley are the people who are more "seasoned" fans who know it's there, not the "flavor of the month" ones who are just going to pass by you without looking on their way to the Dealer's room so they can get their new wallscrolls and dvds. And those "seasoned" fans are going to have their favorites that are more obscure, or have already passed by as a fad, or haven't quite broken out yet; they're not going to be on that "super popular" list. But if you've got a good one-off drawing of their favorite character, or can draw from their favorite series quickly and for a good price, then you'll get their money.