Sneks

Hosses

Cockatiel Stickers underway

doodling some stickers

You can purchase the stickers here!

https://www.stickermule.com

Process gif from an old painting

quick cat

New zipper tag design underway!

Princess Celestia

Quick fan art to blow off steam between draws.

Drawn to:

hares

lil phant

mo elephant sketches

Drawn to:

The Labyrinth

And Asterion coddled the limp forms that rose from the refuse above. In time, they grew from weak animals into violent hunters. He found that their wild rage carried his own, and together they lived as one flame in the darkness. 

I imagine the Minotaur was a crippled and deformed giant. In between tributes to Crete, this creature must have eaten other things. Likely, living off of garbage tossed into the Labyrinth. Sometimes the soldiers threw rotting corpses into the fodder for a laugh. And sometimes the corpses weren't quite so. 

Quickies

ECCC 2016 Profits and Losses

Dollar wise, 2016 actually looked okay, until I added the cost of the booth that wasn't used, and then also, me buying things at a convention. The first image is me looking okay on paper. 

This second image is me looking like a money tanking problem. 

So, what happened?

At the end of the 2015 convention anyone with a table or booth has access to sign up early and save money on the next year's con. It's a tough choice every year, but we decided to do it again. It is a very fun time, and some of us make a little dough doing it. 

Over the course of the year, life happens, and we lost 2/3rds of our table mates. Because I'm the one sort of pushing things, I tried and failed to fill the spaces. So I chose to eat the cost. I didn't really tell anybody. Which is foolish on my part. But understand that I view the convention as a freaky vacation, and that money kind of gets ear tagged as stuff I might have spent on another sort of vacation or xmas presents anyway. Also understand that a big reason I do conventions is to force myself into interactions with people. I have huge anxiety about this, lots of people do. So filling those spaces, feeling like I'm begging or intruding, was difficult just to try. I spent too long before asking for help, and then the con was on. So my 300 or so table was now 5 times higher. Ouch.

The biggest upside this year was that I spent way way less on making the sketchbooks. I thought that would put me in the good zone in and of itself. While that didn't happen, I'm extra glad I didn't spend money on a nice cover again.

Then I spent money. Money on some normal things like eating and parking. Money on comics and artwork to support other artists. Buying directly from the creators instead of the book booths that also had their books. Trying to buy from artists I like and trying to spend it on original content instead of fan works, because I want to see new ideas and worlds being born in unique styles. It is really really hard not to buy fan art at a convention. Try it sometime. When you love an IP and someone made something really unusual and fun with it, and spent a lot of time and care, it's so hard not to bite.

Another thing that happened over the last few years... When conventions get very large, over 50k people I'd guess. Selling becomes exaggerated very quickly. You end up with feast or famine situations. The saturation of good content, the pressure of the crowd, and the extended hours begin to hit everybody. So you end up with a growing number people losing money(people a lot smarter than me financially), a group that gets pressured really hard to produce fan art along with their original works just to keep up, and a small number of people selling gangbusters, which seems to be large vendors on the whole. 

My two cents on actually making money. 

Mostly sell at local conventions to keep down costs.

Don't make books unless someone else paid to print them.

Prints are great, but most people want art in color, not black and white. 

Don't make large posters, keep prints small.

Everyone is selling books and prints, if you can make something unusual and remotely useful it should do well.

Little pinback buttons are pretty great as far as cost effectiveness goes. 

Make sure art is at three levels, waist, shoulder, and head(or higher).

Get a folding hand cart.

And, sigh, make some fan art, just make sure you add value to it so it's unique and new.

Lastly

For most people, money isn't going to make running a table or booth worth it. So make a point to understand what the value is to you beyond that. What do you want that experience to be.

Personal growth? Parties? Professional connections? Trial runs? 

Link to last years Convention Recap

I'll be at ECCC 2016 in booth 1420 next weekend! See you soon!

Stag Grrrrr

quick stag

skull exaggeration

droopy pwny

Doge

Not a Viking, just call me King.

New Sketchbook available online!

My new sketchbook Rawr! Ocho is up on Lulu, plus some sketchbooks I don't have on hand any more. I'll have these at ECCC 2016 and CTNX 2016 later this year.

http://www.lulu.com

Roller Beasts

paint sketch tanuki

color and filter tests

I drew a witchsona?

Reading stuff to a goose. Probably gonna get eaten for resembling a book worm.

Airplane sketches from October

Convention Totals for 2015

From the numbers you can tell I prioritize spending money on artists I like, hanging out, eating food, and staying close to the conventions. To make my profit margin stronger I should try to find someone to stay with when traveling or at least split a room(but I'm shy and lazy, bad combo), stop buying stuff at conventions(but everything is so cool), eat on the cheap and let my friends buy their own drinks and chow(also lame), focus on more finished art that can be produced as prints instead of doing sketchbooks(this cuts down on up front cost, and baggage weight, and also pulls in more dollars). 

But I'm not serious enough about this. Conventions are basically hardworking vacations for me. I get to see buddies, discover new artists, meet people who enjoy what I do, and par-tay. With that mind set it is unlikely I will turn a profit in the years to come. But I know when I do get more serious about this stuff I know exactly what I need to do. There is some comfort in feeling that kind of sureness.

*note* The figures here aren't exact, because some dollars are spent in some categories and made in others because I didn't keep track, but I am pulling the numbers from my credit cards, cash, and square useage. It's close to accurate in amount. 

Horse Sitting

Can't stop staring into the abyss that is the front legs. I may redo them. Find some more satisfying shapes.

Self Portrait

Happy New Year too! 2016!