50 DOs and DON'Ts for Artist Alley!

Comments · 180

• PH

  @PhinkVT · 9 months ago (edited)

  warning/tip for portfolios from someone who&apos;s applied to uni and is having this issue. always have a backup portfolio option on a more known site like art station. <br><br>no fucking clue why, but one of my uni choices network has carrd blocked and they are UNABLE to access my portfolio. im having to rush a second on a google site that can hardly even handle gifs &lt;/3 always ALWAYS have a back up option that you are familiar with because oh my god i am STRESSING. even my teachers are confused why they have it blocked/seemingly cannot access my portfolio considering carrd is a professional site.<br><br>this obviously is a different context, but you never know if a place your portfolio will be seen has that specific site blocked

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• SA

  @SateiTraductions · 9 months ago

  Small add-on to what you said about doing merch for niche fandoms: not only are fans going to immediately buy it, they will also spread the word like CRAZY!! My friend does merch for fandoms where she&apos;s usually the only artist at the con selling for that fandom, and I can&apos;t count the number of times I heard someone say &quot;my friend saw you had merch from X fandom so I ran here to get some!&quot;

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• EL

  @ElikoToons2 · 9 months ago

  OMG. I AM GOING TO HAVE MY FIRST EVER CONVENTION BOOTH IN A MONTH AND MY FAVOURITE YOUTUBER UPLOADS THIS?????????!!!!!!!????!!? YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOU ARE HELPING ME RIGHT NOW

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• TH

  @Themoonbiscuits · 9 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7dj4adBAU&amp;t=685">11:25</a> can confirm because even tho Genshin is not niche when my fav character first came out (Kaveh) I couldn’t find him ANYWHERE but there was this ONE SINGULAR STALL that had a Kaveh sticker and now every con they are at I have brought that Kaveh sticker. Now they know me as that “one Kaveh girl”

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• HI

  @HiroDoodlez · 8 months ago

  HIII Ive been to like 30 cons and I did want to throw out this piece of advice: Not only tailoring your items to fit a con&apos;s theme of comic vs anime vs gaming vs fur, but also tailoring towards the con&apos;s special guests. I have a lot of merch targeted towards people around my age, so mid-late teens, so a lot of stuff for things like TADC. So i regularly check the voice actors for TADC socials to see what cons they will be going to, because i genuinely see such a big spike in sales if its my EXACT audience. But, on the other hand, this can shift the other way! I mostly try to stick to Anime cons since I typically do a lot better, but I can also do well at comic cons depending on the con&apos;s size. If it&apos;s a large comic con, then there&apos;s most likely less competition for your niche anime nerd shit, so you can do better, but if its a small comic con then no one really cares LMAO. ALSO!! totally can vouch for making things you&apos;re actually into!! I genuinely see a huge difference in my art when I make something I&apos;m hyperfixated on at the time vs that one cartoon i watched a couple years ago i liked a pinch.

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• NI

  @nightingail10 · 9 months ago

  Important note about printing things! A tip i remember from a computer arts class is that changing your project&apos;s color profile to CMYK rather than RGB or something else is more optimal for stuff you intend to print out. Adobe programs have this option for sure and I&apos;m fairly certain most other art programs do as well. You can usually set the color profile when you&apos;re creating the project/canvas

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• KA

  @KamikoSE · 8 months ago

  Great advice! <br><br>As a vendor at cons I&apos;d also suggest to create a network! Other artists are competitors, not enemies. Make friends and build a network of other artists so you can have someone to ask about new cons! Just be aware; rumours move swiftly so don&apos;t engage in gossip.

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• BE

  @benjaminrobinson3842 · 9 months ago (edited)

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7dj4adBAU&amp;t=1268">21:08</a> - I can confirm that &quot;show your prices&quot; suggestion. I&apos;ve been to galleries and art shows where there isn&apos;t a price next to the item, and I am always afraid the conversation will go like this:<br><br><b>Me:</b> That&apos;s beautiful. How much is it?<br><b>Them:</b> One hundred thousand dollars. Shall I wrap it for you?<br><b>Me:</b> Uh, never mind.<br><b>Them:</b> Cheapskate. Enjoy your bare walls, jerk.<br><br>So I generally walk away without asking -- or buying anything.

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• CH

  @chacha_rouge · 8 months ago

  Met a Spanish fanartist at a local French con who did my RARE FAVE SIDE CHARACTERS from a manga that&apos;s been out of print in years. I was HAPPY. And later they even gave me a print as a gift because I cosplayed the character.

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• RD

  @rdionasogi1w9 · 9 months ago (edited)

  my first artist alley was during 2024 and i had such a depressing experience that i couldn&apos;t get back to it for more than a year. decided to face it again and i can guarantee EVERYTHING here should be followed. especially with the soulless art. i decided to make a bunch of artworks for a game that i didn&apos;t love because it was the &quot;safe option and popular&quot; whilst i did a few of one niche fandom that i really love. it was the niche fandom that had people talk to me and buy a lot lol. meanwhile i had so much stocks of the &quot;popular&quot; one because they could just tell it didn&apos;t have love into it. i&apos;m rejoining and looking for ways to get rid of them, but yes. to everyone starting their first artist alley, please only create art that you LOVE and the people will notice.

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• AS

  @asterubi9440 · 8 months ago

  A note from experience: If the con doesn’t allow licensed merch and you list everything you will bring which is not licensed, but still put a picture of your setup with the licensed, you will get rejected. It was my only picture of my setup at the time so the feedback I got was going in and crossing off all the merch on the table that won’t be there 😅 or simply redo the setup at home

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• EE

  @EeveeDropk-k-s-k · 9 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7dj4adBAU&amp;t=1115">18:35</a> YES! As a person who &nbsp;is mainly a shopper at Artist allies (especially at crowded cons like anime ex) i often looked for prints above (im also a bit on the shorter side so seeing through the crowd is harder) the crowd and prioritize to look at them rather than simply browse. As much as i would love to browse each booth very crowded cons are very stressful to navigate and deal with especially if you&apos;re wearing a cosplay that is already giving you trouble one way or another. Plus places like Anime ex, the artist alley is huge (which is a good and bad thing) so at one point people are going to get tired and stressed of trying to not only push past others but find what they want. More often than not when i was getting tired and in need of break, i stopped trying to at least glance at each booth and simply looked at prints and maybe some other high art piece to gauge if i wanted to fight the crowd to check out that booth especially if it was something that i wanted

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