#artists talking shop

[sheydgarden]

fair print-on-demand for artists?

i'm making this its own post for more visibility - feel free to reblog, i'm primarily looking to hear from other artists rather than from customers.

quick definition: a print-on-demand service (POD) is a company that allows you to upload your designs (that you retain full rights to) and have them printed on a variety of products - usually t-shirts & other apparel, stickers, mugs, etc. - by the company itself or a subcontractor. the key here is that you're not ordering a supply of products to sell yourself (or not) at a later date, you're offering customers the ability to go to this website and select a potential product which is then printed on demand, and the company handles all the interaction with the customer (shipping, quality & returns, etc.). because they're doing the manufacturing & shipping, they take a significant cut, but different companies have different pricing structures & some are more fair to artists in terms of profit margins than others.

TLDR: i'm looking for a new POD service to replace my Redbubble account, which i deleted after they decided to severely undercut creators (especially small artists). more details below, please read before you rec!

so the nice thing about POD is that it's passive income - you made the work, you put it up & leave it, people buy things when they want & you get a bit of money when that happens. i also - infrequently! - run an Etsy shop where i sell things i've either handmade or ordered from suppliers (mostly stickers). i get more money from that, yes, and also it's a lot more work on my end. i primarily work as a freelancer illustrator, i've started selling at (COVID cautious) in-person events again, & i'm disabled - this is why my Etsy has been empty all year.

i am very lucky to have enough of a following to be able to regularly sell all my stock when i do put it on Etsy, and (when I had an account) to have a smaller but steadier trickle of income from POD. i do not have enough of a following for it to make sense for me to order large quantities of apparel-type products & sell them myself.

it's frustrating to see that many alternatives to Redbubble (like Bonfire or Spring) have moved to a "campaign" model where you release a design in a time-limited campaign with a selling goal, aggressively promote it on social media, & then all the products (shirts, whatever) are shipped at the same time. i understand why it exists - larger batches mean lower manufacturing costs & higher profit - but for someone like me who doesn't have a massive social media following or really even a big presence now that Twitter is dying, i'm not sure it could work. for me the point is that i put it up, i leave it alone, i direct people towards my shop & the small handful of beautiful weirdos who vibe with my work can buy what they want on their own time (i adore you, weirdos! there are so many more of you than i ever expected, but i am not, as the kids say, an "influencer")

i've been researching various companies & i keep finding that Redbubble, prior to their nasty fee restructuring, seemed to have some of the fairest profit margins due to the ability to set your own pricing above the manufacturing costs. what i want to hear from other artists is where you sell & if you feel like different systems (Society6's 10%, for example, or Threadless' artist cost-setting vs. letting them manage your shop & offer discounts to move more products) work or are ripping you off.

thanks so much for reading & solidarity to all the other working artists who are struggling to stay afloat as various social media collapses & corporate greed continues to cut our opportunities in half!!! for the love of fuck just let me make things & get paid

[salsadifragola]

✨SH0P IS 0PEN!!✨

After much time planning and a lot of effort and time put into it, My shop is finally here!!

🌟16 STICKERS DESIGNS!! 9 Transformers related: Doodle badges, Vaporwave Badges, Dratchet handholding and blobs, Skystar, mini minimus, Wreck and rule! 7 orininal: Dessert Moos, Cow crewmate and Cow whiskers!

🌟1 POSTCARD DESIGN: Vintage Pin-up Ratchet!

AND SOON TO ADD MUCH MORE!

Ships Worldwide

Hope some may find interest in my small shop, i hope to expand into selling pins, keychains, earrings, button pins and more in the future if the shop goes well! Most original stickers are all printed and cut by myself, and all are packaged and shipped off by me with much care! thank you for your attention and patience

[starpaw0007]

Tonight's study!!!!

1hr 40 mins

[pettyprocrastination]

I now have TWO tattoos >:)

[feather-bone]

Merch alert merch alert !!!

A whole bunch a new prints up on my ko-fi !I have large prints of lots of my illustrations available now. I really love how they came out and am so excited to share them! :-)

I have them set up as separate items in the shop, so if you’re looking for a particular size, use the little category buttons just above the items. Reminder: sticker club members get 15% off of everything in my shop!

[doobea]

a lil peek inside my head from the last 48 hours

[chicorystart]

only one house left in the shop

chicorystart.bigcartel.com

[judas-redeemed]

help a struggling disabled artist make ends meet by checking out my bonfire shop!

new shirts posted today!

[subtle-as-an-earthquake]

aahh i didn't even mean to, but it seems fitting to post a pic of my new tattoo on the car's first birthday ♥️ this band means so much to me and has done for well over a decade, and this album has truly rewired my soul, so it felt right to get this one done while i was in dublin for the last few shows of the tour for this album <3 (plus i really like the kind of meta-ness of getting 'body paint' tattooed tbh)

[qm0ri]

haunted coffee shop featuring the

👻👻👻BOO-rista 👻👻👻

[the-lark-ascending69]

I loove the android robin au it's really one of the most interesting au I have seen in a while.

I am always happy to see new post abt it

Also making my favourite characters go through hell and then receiving comfort from their people is like the best thing ever for me so every time I see a whump!Robin post I like automatically

People loving android!Robin makes me so happy anansnssndsnsns she's curious and excitable and full of wonder and the world keeps punishing her for simply being alive. Sometimes it's too painful even for me, big whump lover 😭😭 though seriously, there is not enough Robin whump, and while all the characters in the show are very whumpeable, hurting my little blorbo Robin feels special because... she's just so deeply lonely. She's lonely and she thinks she deserves to be because of something wrong with her (pulling this interpretation from Surviving Hawkins lore which is canon to me 😭). That was a big idea I had when I first came up with android!Robin... that there is something wrong with her. Broken. In this AU she's literally broken in a lot of way (battery and memory problems, weak joints in her lower half, etc), but that's all within the range of normal robot problems. The real issue with her is that she's sentient. It terrifies people because it really brings out the existencial horror of... well, existing. It terrifies Robin most of all. She is the problem. She is what's wrong with her. She shouldn't exist.

But at the same time, she loves being alive so much! She doesn't understand it and doesn't know how it happened, but it happened, and now she's real and wants to experience life and the world and know people like human beings do. So it's her constant battle to become human despite humans having hurt her so much in the past... only for Nancy to already see her as human. Just one made of metal and plastic, but human nonetheless. She's the first person to see her that way and maybe everyone else thinks she's crazy, but Nancy is used to that. She's so sure of this, though, of Robin's self-awareness. She trusts her so blindly. She doesn't even need proof. And not only does she believe her, but she defends her humanity in front of her friends and family so ardently, fighting so hard for Robin to be aknowledged by everyone else as human. Fighting so hard to give her a home and family for the first time in her life.

Nancy has it bad for Robin, really. She's just so in love, even if everyone else thinks she's crazy for falling in love with a machine (no one thinks she is, though, because they all know Robin, and once you know Robin, it's impossible not to love her).

[pancakessart]

my Etsy shop is live!!!

I moved some of my art things that aren't prints over to an Etsy shop to see if the search engine would help get some traction so I wouldn't have to aggressively promote my stuff as much (because it's EXHAUSTING!) so if y'all wanna check that out that'd be awesome!

right now i have my starry kitty pronoun pins, painted galaxy bookmarks, and BOTH of my cat-themed sticker packs up!!

please check it out, and if you want any of my prints, they're all still on my ko-fi shop, but I may be moving prints over to Inprnt (which I do have an account with already!) because my printer has pretty much kicked the bucket at this point, so I can't make any more right now!

also, as always, my commissions are open and if you have any questions, feel free to message me on here or on Instagram (insta will have faster response times!) OR send me an ask (anons are on!) I try to make everything as clear as possible, but there's no way to get rid of all of the confusion, so don't feel like you can't ask me questions!

here's to hoping for some more traction with etsy <3

[shelandsorcery]

I had a question about what gouache I use over on cohost, so I'm crossposting the answer here for anyone who's curious:

So I've tried a few different types of gouache, including the very affordable jelly gouache sets they have on aliexpress/amazon, and I've settled on forking over for the good stuff as the best way to get the results I want with minimum fuss. So here's the lineup of my collection of tubes right now!

The bulk of my paints are from Winsor & Newton - this was the brand we bought our starter kids from at art school, and if you notice any doubles in that lineup, it's because friends gave me their half-used tubes after graduation when they vowed to never gouache again. Some of those tubes are VERY old, but as long as they aren't fully solid, they're still good to go, so I keep them around. Also if they ARE fully solid, it's never a bad idea to try cutting the paint brick out of the tube and using it like a pan gouache. It usually works.

Through the pandemic tho I've been watching a lot of other gouache painters all over the world on youtube, and it did indeed get me hungry to try other brands! So the rest of my paints are from M. Graham (honey based gouache, dark colours aren't as opaque but holy heck they are pigmented) and from Holbein (really creamy consistency overall), including a bunch on the right there that I bought as one-offs from their fancy seasonal Irodori sets (some of my favourite pastels oh my gosh).

These are all traditional gouache, not acryl/acrylic gouache (though my partner @goshdarnheck has a solid collection of those), so these will rehydrate from dry - some faster, some slower, but it means I can often work with them dried out in pans instead of squeezing out fresh paint every time I sit down. This does take the sting off the price tag a bit - and makes plein air a lot less stressful and messy.

The other nice thing these days is that most art stores now sell online and ship worldwide (or nearly) and it's possible to track down some decently affordable paints that way. If you're also in or around Toronto, fyi, you can find W&N and Holbein gouache tubes at Gwartzman's art supplies for very good prices, and that's where I was able to get my single irodori paints as well. They do one day delivery in the city limits, it's amazing.

If you have any questions about my palettes, or particular colours, definitely drop them in the replies or my asks and I'll be happy to go into more depth!

[scarlettjulz]

Happy birthday, my dearest boyo! Hope you get every little drop of happiness and joy! Under the cut, what I believe some of the other kiddos woudl get him

Feel free to comment what you think they would get him 🤸🏻‍♀️

[bonetrix-arts]

SO!! In spite of my Etsy shop's untimely (and unfair) demise, I have set up my listings on my Ko-Fi!! Use code VICTORY at checkout for 10% off and also to say fuck you etsy :)

Go buy my miniprint I worked hard on it please

[chicorystart]

shop re-opening soon RIGHT NOW!!

come buy a house!! is now closed!! all the houses have been SOLD! thanks everybodyyyy :)