First Artist Alley

jaepereira · 4 Apr 2018, 02:40

I did my first Artist Alley this past weekend at AwesomeCon. It was a wonderful experience meeting a bunch of folks and mingling. I got to talk to a few other artists and also spend the weekend with my brother.

I was selling a book from my Inktober work last year, along with some prints. Sales did not go that well. I did find that when I started coloring a few of my prints, more folks started to stop and take a look at what I had.

My neighbor and I discussed how color attracts people to tables, no matter how good the black and white work could be. Hmmm.

Kevin Longueil · 4 Apr 2018, 02:48

@jaepereira Congratulations on your first Con! That is good to know Jae about the color images doing well - I'm going to attend my first Con next week here in Portland (picture everyone I know gasping in shock that I'm willingly going to a very crowded place with the intent of talking to people I do not know) - I was thinking of trying to get a feel for if my work might fit in or if my quality was close to mark - most of my work is black and white at the moment....and mostly OZ related .... pretty limited audience right? Maybe Emerald City Con

jaepereira · 4 Apr 2018, 02:57

@kevin-longueil Emerald might work. I think Oz might have a pretty broad audience.

Jason Kilthau · 4 Apr 2018, 04:16

Awesome! I plan on attending my first con as an artist in September at Rose City Con, interesting to read your experience though. I don't really plan on doing to well on sales and mostly am going to get a feel for things and also mingle with fellow artists. If you don't mind me asking, did you print your own prints or order them?

I recently got myself the Pixma Pro 100 printer and am trying to figure out good paper to print on, right now I'm kind of set on a simple Matte paper but it doesn't have the same look or feel as prints I have bought from others. So seeing as you attended a con for the first time I am kind of interested in how you went about getting your prints?

Also was a lot of your prints your own work or fan arts? I don't really plan on doing fan arts and intend to take original work, so I definitely don't plan on selling a lot haha, still curious regardless!

jaepereira · 4 Apr 2018, 04:37

Hey @jason-kilthau Where is Rose City Con? To be honest, I went back and forth every day on whether I ordered too much or didn't order enough. I only got 100 books and a total of 175 prints (100 8x10 and 75 5x7). I used the local AlphaGraphics and the team there was very nice. I know Jake prints his own stuff, and I want to get to that point. I just didn't want to buy a printer right now. I need an 11x17 size scanner too. Anyway, the prints were done on 100# and that was very nice.

My art was fan art so to speak but it was fan art of artists, not of characters. My Inktober last year was drawing astronauts in the styles of 31 different artists that inspire me, while also following the official prompts. (constraints much?)

Pam Boutilier · 4 Apr 2018, 14:10

@jason-kilthau I have a pixma pro-100 and I am loving the Canon Museum Etching paper which I tried after seeing it recommended by Kiri Leonard. It's hella expensive, but produces BEAUTIFUL prints!

Jason Kilthau · 4 Apr 2018, 15:04

@jaepereira Rose City Con is the Portland Con in September, I know Portland has a few but it's the one I felt would give me enough time to figure out what to do before going. I'll be heading up there next weekend to the Portland Wizard Con and kind of "take notes" on booth setups and stuff like that. Awesome you have a local shop to help you out with your prints! I live in a fairly small town so all the googling I did to find a place like that failed me, most places only did printing on products (t-shirts, cups, etc) Or they didn't have the type of printing available that I have been looking for. So I decided I should just get my own printer.

Thank you for the numbers and other info too! I think that will help give me an idea of how much I should take. I also thought about maybe taking my printer and wife's laptop with me and I could print extras if I needed from the hotel.. But I don't think I would run into that issue just yet!

@Pam-Boutilier Ah! I ordered a packet from MOAB papers that came with 26 different types of paper and there is some stuff similar to that, it looks like amazing paper but it's at a quality that I think I would save for some art I did that I felt was just absolutely amazing. Plus like you said the price range is kind of high so for now I am sticking with some more affordable options. I brought some tests prints into my work to see what some other people who aren't my wife thought and so far everyone seems to like the quality so maybe I am just judging them too harshly.