This...

Feb 17, 2010 12:00

This is my face after reading Otakon's artist alley rules.


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ghostfire February 17 2010, 17:12:14 UTC
Limit of 10 copies of any fanart piece (this is really bad for a convention of 30,000 people ( ... )

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aimeekitty February 17 2010, 17:51:45 UTC
would the dealers room let you sell fanart though, either?

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 17:53:03 UTC
Yes, and apparently in unlimited amounts. However, a single booth is $825, and once you go into the dealer's room as an artist, you're perma-banned from returning to the artist alley.

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 17:15:57 UTC
I've had artists telling me that Otakon staff has gone through their stock, counting every piece they brought with them.

If I only sold large, $20 fanart prints and eliminated the small prints and buttons, the rules would be workable, but small, cheap trinkets are what people want and buy.

I've always been very careful in the past to follow the rules, but these are so constraining, I don't know what I'm going to do.

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 17:23:45 UTC
*nodnods* From what I've heard, even well known webcomic artists generally rely on sales of fanart to bring in actual profits at artist alleys. Maybe if you were Penny Arcade or VG Cats caliber, it'd be a different story, but I haven't exactly talked to anyone that big named.

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wynndfae February 17 2010, 18:23:40 UTC
Well, we knew Otakon was going down the shitter when they first implemented the limit on fanart, remember? Now, do they mean ten pieces of fanart altogether or ten pieces of fanart overall with multiple prints?

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 18:32:14 UTC
10 pieces per picture (no matter the medium - if it's the same picture, it could be 3 prints and 7 buttons, or 6 bookmarks and 4 posters, etc), with a total overall limit of 200 pieces.

At this point I have about 250 *different* buttons. I'd end up not selling a single print before I ran out, if I brought all of them.

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wynndfae February 17 2010, 20:05:30 UTC
And none of these possibilities will compensate for the travel costs? Shit sucks.

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 20:20:24 UTC
Table prices have gone up this year, and so have registrations. It'd be at $350 *just* for reg and tables. 200 buttons at $2/each... yeah, that's not going to fly.

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cetriya February 17 2010, 19:50:23 UTC
on another note, I kind of feel like selling to the small (and many times small mineded) anime community is a losing battle. For us artists to be so depended on fan art to make a profit is sad really. Even then, most of the time they just want it all for free and not understand that 'hey some one at the other end needs food/rent money'

I'm really hurting in finances as it is. My sales were actually growing at each con then the bad economy happend and since I sell originals...

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 19:54:46 UTC
I have a lot of people who've been following my work online for a decade or more, so I do sell a lot of my original stuff, but Random Otaku #2-#10104015015015 are all about "GIVE ME MY ONE CHARACTER THAT I OBSESS OVER!!!1"

You're right about the fanart as a losing battle, which is why I have a lot of secret projects in development, but on the other hand, they're also making it so artist alleys have less of what the actual fans/attendees want.

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wynndfae February 17 2010, 20:07:09 UTC
And that one otaku will still be pissed if the one character they obsess over is in the "wrong" pairing. Can't win!

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cetriya February 17 2010, 20:24:49 UTC
on another nother note, how strict are they with stuff in dealers room? I've seen some mearch made with internet photos on things like cell phone straps, jewelry, pillows ect (not talking of DVDs, cds or those types of bootleg).

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ghostfire February 17 2010, 20:38:00 UTC
I've never been a dealer before, but I've heard they're pretty strict about stuff like that. They definitely don't want you going and downloading some Final Fantasy promo art and iron-on transferring it onto a purse or something like that.

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