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"Man creates his own world or gets crushed by the worlds created by other men."
Making fanart is totally okay. It can be helpful to have fanart of popular characters in your artistic portfolio to show you can draw other people's characters. Don't worry about getting things exactly on model. It's fanart, not merch, therefore there are no rules. With fanart, try to take a character and make it your own, redirect the canon. A copy of canon is fine, but show how you can take a character and turn it into something else without losing what makes them that character. (Alternate universes maybe?) If you're passionate about the fandom, you might come up with something that could not be bought and change the fandom. Use fanart as a platform to get noticed so you can eventually develop/expose your own work. Selling fanart without having the proper licensing to be sold is illegal and you risk being sued. Licenses can take a long time to get. But essentially, don't make a profit on someone else's intellectual property without their permission, and this goes for art of characters from big publishers like Marvel and DC as well. Don't support those who sell fanart of characters without the proper licensing. Instead, lead them the right way (tell them to get a license or something). And buy art from those who have taken the time to get the proper licensing to sell their fan-work. Don't be afraid to show fanart in your portfolio. Though, it should be one of your best works. (Consider adding a twist to the canon character.)And what I learned from other panels and artists on the floor was:
You aren't going to get anywhere if you don't do it. Being in the art business is tough. Don't go into the art business to make a profit. In fact, you might struggle to make a profit from your art anyway. Be in the art business because it's what you enjoy. Try to balance art-making with a side-job to keep you on your feet. Live with your parents as long as you can. 
Remain positive. Don't focus on missed opportunities. Success doesn't come easy, but if you remain persistent and keep working on your own things, eventually things will fall into place. Failure is not the end. Everyone fails sometimes. We learn better from our failures than we do from our successes. People like working with people who are nice and positive. Always remain positive! Don't post about how sucky your day was, about how so-and-so made you angry, or rants. That might be the first thing someone sees from you and they'll get a bad impression of you. Save your negative feelings and frustrations for a personal journal or private post. Stay connected in social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, etc. Keep them up to date. Use every opportunity as your advantage. (Ex: Hand out flyers that have your website on them when you're at a convention.) While it's ill-advised to sell fanart, you can use it as a "freebie" incentive for people to buy some of your original art. (Nice little loophole there. You're selling your own work, not fanart, and people will probably check it out since you're handing out freebie fanart with it.) Always create. Doesn't matter what it is, just create. It's okay if you spend money on a booth at a convention and barely make bank (essentially selling only enough art at the convention to pay for your table), you might make connections with people that will set you up for future commissions. You should always have something to report. One artist I talked to said he set up a mailing list (emails) and sends out monthly newsletters about what he's doing. It's good to sound like you're important and busy. 
It might be costly, but it would help you out a lot to find a professional in the field to fine comb your portfolio. There is a difference between selling a "product" and selling yourself. If you're trying to sell a book, comic, game, etc., don't give it away for free just to get heard. If you're trying to sell yourself, show what you can do, then you should provide examples of your talent that are for free. It's helpful to try to turn your ideas into something that can be multiplatform. (Ex.: Turning your book or comic into a short animation, or making a game from it, or making an audio track for it, etc.) Suggestions for your portfolio: Demonstrate you can show clarity in story-telling. Make sure the characters actually look like they're in their room (grounded and interacting properly with their environment and others), show consistency, provide examples of cover designs and character designs. Sell work on your own, as part of a collaboration or portfolio, join competitions/contests (to get your work to more viewers), post your work online through direct resourcing (companies go through art sites looking for material). There were also so many cool ideas to turn art into that I found at the con!
Cards, making your art into a deck of cards. Making linearts for coloring books. Pins, bookmarks, keychains, and stickers are a no-brainer. Selling one thing and offer a freebie with that, and also should the customer buy two things, they'll get an additional freebie. Offering discounted prices for items sold at the con. (I even saw on the freebie table, people offered a coupon code for con goers to buy some things online with a discount.) Offering to draw in someone's sketchbook (usually a simple bust free of charge). One of the most cool things I saw at the con was this one guy was selling matte prints of his pencil work fairly cheap, about $25 for a large print. Everything's black and white (or I guess silver because it's pencil) but he offered to color them over with color pencils. Every print therefore becomes an original work. He offered coloring eyes for free and then if someone wanted more colors, he'd charge more. A full-color print would cost a whopping $800. Selling copies of sketchbooks. Making prints of various sizes available for purchase. One artist sold large prints for $25 and small prints for $10. Turning one's art into postcards. Putting one's art on t-shirts. (Something I always forget is an option. ) Selling self-published work by making deals with a printer to create a bulk order for a relatively cheap price and percentage of the total sales and selling your book agreeably inexpensive. Offering to sign prints or anything else with a surface. Turning the things you don't sell into freebies. (This one publisher essentially scheduled to give away all the books they didn't sell at the con as freebies after 4pm on the last day.) Offering daily specials or offering prizes in drawings that people sign up for. Offering a full published book for one price or making each chapter of said book available for purchase online (a PDF). The writer made the first two chapters of his graphic novel available for free download. The entire book would cost $16 for the printed version, but $10 for digital download.Were you aware that SDCC has an Art Show?
It's held upstairs on the second floor, near where Attendee Registration is. People from all over submit their art to the Art Show. It's not like a booth, of course, however you can present your work and opt to sell it or not. It costs about $35 for a 4X4 panel to present some of your works. You can get a wall panel or a space on a table. And you can choose to opt in the Art Show's bidding/selling. You may set a bidding cost and a quick sale cost. A quick sale price is where if someone just wants to buy it instead of wait until the last day of the con to see if they were outbid, they can just buy it then and there at the quick sale price. You can set the starting bid on your piece and if no one bid on it before Sunday, your piece can be sold at the quick sale price. The Art Show is not like a contest. All it is is a place that holds and shows your work during the con. Artists can come in and pick up their work (and I'm sure there's a process for shipping, but I didn't check since I live in San Diego so that's not my concern).
I love Comic Con! Already looking forward to next year. I might try selling some work at the Art Show next year. uvu
Hope everyone's having a great week!
Changes to Facebook Page
My Facebook page URL has changed. If you try going by "ariellejayart," you will not find me. My new page URL is http://www.facebook.com/twistedtragedies I decided to update to Twisted Tragedies as I gradually begin to brand myself as a business. I'm not there yet, but I am in the process of selling new things. I've recently gotten into making jewelry and I have found a lot of enjoyment from that. You can keep up with my latest creations on my Facebook page. I've been making a lot of bracelets, necklaces, and earrings. I've gotten into wire wrapping crystals, gemstones, and fossils and plan to expand to resin, metal stamping, and clay as I further advance in my jewelry making skills. I have over 80 pieces of hand crafted jewelry on sale that you can view on Http://www.facebook.com/twistedtragedies Thank you everyone who has already Liked my Facebook page alreasy and thank you everyone here still following me. I am slowly returning to the path of creating art again. I hope
Inktober - almost there!
We're in the home stretch for Inktober!
If you want to see my Inktober drawings, visit my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariellejay7/
I'm thinking of trying my hand at NaNoWriMo this year aldo. Haven't really decided which of my stories I wanted to write 50,000 words for yet, though.
Inktober 2017
I'm participating in Inktober for the first time ever. You can view my art at https://instagram.com/ariellejay7/
At the end, I'll be uploading scans of the drawings to my Facebook page where people can vote on the concepts they liked the most and I'll redraw them in a more serious illustration. You can follow my Facebook Page here: https://www.facebook.com/ariellejayart/
Hope everyone else is doing well!
New Icons!
I decided to rock out the icon I use for my Facebook Page and turn it into an animated GIF. It should be synced where the images mirror each other with alternate colors. If they're not jumping around in sync then it's possible your comp loaded one a little later than the other.
~NanasFreak (https://www.deviantart.com/nanasfreak):iconanomalies13:
Let me know what you think! :D
© 2013 - 2024 Anomalies13
Comments3
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I tried out the art show. Learned a few things:
1) Fan art of the "hottest shows" sells, "original" art does not. 
2) People like the canvas print better but fraking expensive to make.
3) Business cards is a MUST (I had a stack of cards set up, about 200 of them and about half were taken, so hopefully I'll get some calls 
)
You have to be super earlier for the getting into the art show because the art director has to check that everyone is good enough to sell and will screen through your website (which is a must, they require a working online portfolio when you sign out the paper work to try to get into the show). Pay ahead to get a spot reserved, spots get taken really quick if you don't show up early for set up. And sadly, like me, if you get into the art show it's not a ticket into the Con floor.
So that's what I learned from being in the art show first time. Didn't sold anything. T.T So I guess I just have to fan art to sell. I saw a lot of Game of Thrones and dragons that sold. And Doctor Who. So, there's two epic things I like Dragon and Doctor WHo
Anyway....
I tried looking into getting a table in the artist alley and that's nearly impossible for us that are jobless and trying to break into an art career. They require that you have a employment history in and that you have "a name" in the field. Plus, it's uber expensive and I've heard some artist complain that they're lucky if they break even at cons. But I suppose it's the connections and networking they are hoping for, not profits at Cons.
Glad you had a great time. I mostly stayed outside to do the things around the Con that I didn't need a badge for. LOVE Assassin's Creed 4. Demoed it on the ship that was out back. So that was my happy highlight.