| security: public | posted sunday february 07, 2010 @ at 01:58am |
| Wakfuuuu? |
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Oh noes, it looks like the Wakfu fansub wiki has been stripped of all episodes. I'm SO glad I caught up before that happened. I also hope it doesn't make it difficult to locate new episodes... I don't understand why companies will air shows for free on TV but not let people translate and share them on the net.
I'm enjoying the series though. The style is great and the animation is just mind-blowing sometimes. Oddly enough, Ruel is my favorite character. I usually don't like the old, selfish characters in a series, but he's so damn funny and likable. I can't wait for the next episode.
I did some cosmetic work on my store that I've been putting off for a while. I finally got un-lazy and made product pages for the charms, and I also retook pictures of all the new ones so they look better and fit into the vertical image box. I also finally took down all of the shrink plastic stuff. I still have a crap ton of it but I'm going to try and unload it at the cons this year instead of keeping it up on the site when it looks so shabby and inferior next to the acrylic stuff. Sales for them have pretty much dropped off in favor of the new ones anyway.
And now to enjoy my weekend even though it's half over. |
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| #1574 |
| security: public | posted wednesday february 03, 2010 @ at 02:22am |
| Puddle Bunnies! |
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I finally got the finalized puddle bunny plushie prototype! God, it's so cute! And I still feel like bunting it across the room XD
 
www.sugarbunnyshop.com/products/plush/plush2.htm
I decided to go ahead and put it up for pre-orders. I also decided to stop using the vertical lines behind my product shots. It makes them more interesting visually, but I think it distracts from the product itself too much... |
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| #1573 |
| security: public | posted monday february 01, 2010 @ at 06:01am |
| Marketability |
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I was talking to a friend tonight after receiving another derogatory comment on the types of images I offer for sale these days. It's a fairly common occurance; someone thinks the "kawaii" art is a crock and can't believe one sells it so much, if at all. They should actually be reproaching the buyers on this, not the sellers, since we wouldn't do it if they didn't buy it. But that's another discussion for another day. That aside, it got me thinking about marketability and what I've learned on it.
In previous years I did my best to make a living selling my personal art. It was a rocky road, really. People seemed to adore it, yet not quite enough to get out their wallets. I often found myself inundated with comments, notes and e-mails professing love for my art and characters, yet my prints and products sales reflected a different opinion. I never understood it then, but looking back now, I know why. It comes down to what is marketable and what is not.
Let's use Frog as an example. He's cute, he's lovable, people adore him... but he can't be marketed. At least not without a huge, mass endorsement like a TV show or movie deal. Lord knows I tried. I couldn't understand how people could love him so much, yet his prints and products barely sold. What it comes down to is potential customers of a small-time artist are not likely to buy something so obscure as an original character. They may love them, enjoy art of them and even do fan art, but they're unlikely to invest in them. Frog is pretty weird from an outside perspective; a chubby little kid with elf ears and a "monkey" tail? Why would anyone want a t-shirt of that? It's too obscure.
If people buy anything of an original character, it's going to be of THEIR original character, in the form of a commission most likely. Everybody and his brother has an original character and they like their own better than yours. Though as my friend commented, they probably wouldn't even wear a shirt of their own OC. They will buy art of it though, and they'll buy a commission of their OC long before they'll buy a print of yours, which is why for the longest time I had to earn a living by doing commissions. Making money drawing what I wanted to draw seemed like an impossibility at this point.
However, I began to pay attention to my own spending habits. Even I am guilty of the above. I do not buy anything of original characters except perhaps an occational print, even if I adore the artist. I also paid more attention to what art of mine does sell. When I did my puddle bunnies calendar the sales soared like no other images I've ever done. I still sell prints and calendars of the images like crazy, two or three years later.
Why? Because a round, fat bunny can be enjoyed by anybody, anywhere, at any time. It has mass appeal. People can wear a t-shirt of it and not feel weird because nearly everybody is guaranteed to like it, and if they don't like it they at least won't hate it or think it's strange. Cute animals are a gold mine for marketing. Nearly everybody likes animals. They have mass appeal like nothing else, so it sells.
Sometimes people say they miss my old art, that it was better, that I should do more of it. But the sad fact is it does NOT sell. I'm not saying I do art JUST to make money, but I cannot invest all of my time in artwork that I can't live off of. I need to earn a living just like everybody else. If I could make money with my old obscure art of my original characters I would indulge in them a lot more than I do these days. But I can't. So when I draw an image for sale, I make sure it's marketable, that it has mass appeal. And frankly, I enjoy it. It's fun for me to do the art I do these days. The fact that it sells so well is just icing on the cake. And in reality it's either draw things that sell or don't draw and work a 9-5 day job that sucks the creativity out of me. At least I'm still drawing this way.
But I digress. I suppose to sum up what I'm getting at in this tl;dr entry is that I've learned that a small-time artist can only make decent money three ways... 1. Commissions/freelance, 2. Fan art, or 3. Cute stuff with mass appeal. At least with number three I can draw what I want to draw and not worry about copyright infringement. And it keeps me thinking of new, creative ways to put a spin on it so my stuff will step forward and stand out from the generic kawaii flooding the market.
An artist trying to make a living selling their original character on their own is most likely going to fail. The only way to do that is to get a huge amount of the general public to love and support them, and that usually involves doing a comic that updates daily to continue to garner and renew interest. Anything less than that just isn't enough. |
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| #1572 |
| security: public | posted monday february 01, 2010 @ at 03:49am |
| Nothing special |
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Hum. I haven't really had anything to write about lately. I've pretty much been working all week, then vegging out all weekend playing video games. I'm working on Bowser's Inside Story right now. It's a great game, pretty creative, and the sprites are sooooo cute. The animations are great too. After that I'm going to start on Uncharted. I still need to get back to Little Big Planet too.
I'm excited for the conventions this year. I'm going to try really hard to shape up my products and displays to a more professional appearance. It'll be easier now that I've settled on a theme for my store and the packaging and displays won't be so random. I want to start con prep now, but I think it's still a little too early. I just want to be sure to get most of it done ahead of time so I'm not overworking the month beforehand. Otakon and AWA are also really close this year, barely a month apart, so it's going to be really tight for restocking some products @__@; I don't have to make the charms anymore, but it might still take 4 weeks or so to get them. Same with shirts and bags. Guess we'll see how it goes.
I really want chocolate right now and we have none, so I'm eating semisweet baking chocolate. Not quite delicious, but it'll do in a pinch. |
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| #1571 |
| security: public | posted wednesday january 27, 2010 @ at 08:01pm |
| Wuvbirds |
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My first metal charms! Yay! They came out soooo pretty. I hope they sell well. I had a Ponwan design made too, but they screwed up the colors and gave her totally white ears :< So I have to wait for them to remake it now.
I was thinking of making them phone charms as well, but I'm not sure if metal vs. cell phone would be a good idea.
I should be getting the finalized prototype of my puddle bunny plushie soon too. I can't decide if I want to open for preorders for it or not. Last time it was a bit of a hassle with people asking us where their plush was after a week when it clearly said "preorder" on the site. The post office didn't appreciate us lugging in over 100 to mail off at once either.
Oh yeah, and this is too cute not to share:
So much work to do. Back to the grindstone. |
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| #1570 |
| security: public | posted tuesday january 19, 2010 @ at 09:06pm |
| New designs |
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Some new designs I whipped up for charms:
I decided to update the "April Showers" puddle bunny to fit in with my newer stuff better. I'm probably going to discontinue most of my older designs, but I wanted to keep the popular ones. April Showers has always been one near the top. I also picked out a few Doki foxes for charms as well, including a tail dangle like the Ponwan one.
Oh, and I revisited the mushroom frog, which was originally in my 50 cartoon animal set. I think it's much cuter now, haha. |
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| #1569 |
| security: public | posted thursday january 14, 2010 @ at 03:00am |
| Li'l Dumplin' Fox |
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Finally finished my new sticker set ^o^
I forgot how much work these things are, ugh. But it came out so cute! I hope to have it made very soon, and I'm going to pick out a few of them to be charms as well. |
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| #1568 |
| security: public | posted monday january 11, 2010 @ at 08:08pm |
| Elementary, my dear Watson |
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Sherlock Holmes was great! I really enjoyed it!
But... did anybody else feel like they were watching House: The Movie? Not that I'm complaining though. I love House.
Also Game Stop is getting ridiculous with their used game prices. For $5 more I can buy the game brand new. The hell is up with that? |
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| #1567 |
| security: public | posted friday january 08, 2010 @ at 04:31am |
| H&M and Walmart are DICKS |
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H&M and Walmart dstroy and trash unsold goods
What. the. FUCK. This is just unthinkable. To not only throw these perfectly good items away, but to also go to the extra effort to make absolutely sure they're unusable? What the hell possessed them to decide to do this rather than give it to charity? If it's going in the garbage anyway and you don't want people to find it and resell it on you, why not direct it towards needy people? Instead you have your employees take scissors to the items to render them useless to make SURE they go to a landfill and not to charity. You fucking assholes. It's a terrible, horrible waste.
Few things piss me off more than someone destroying something JUST so someone else can't have it. |
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| #1566 |
| security: public | posted friday january 08, 2010 @ at 01:54am |
| Back to the daily grind |
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So I got a glorious two weeks off at the end of the year when I only anticipated getting one. It was wonderful. And almost difficult to put a stop to my thoughts on work or my store, which would jump up randomly to hit me upside the head, but I soon relaxed and enjoyed myself. I thought I might get more video games under my belt, but I guess I only did Spirit Tracks. Oh well, at least I got some art done! I'm going to make more of an effort this year to at least doodle more since it's not only good for me but I really enjoy it.
But for now I need to get back into the swing of things. It's proving difficult to settle back into work, as I don't seem to be as fast or dedicated as I usually am, and I get distracted easily. But it should pass soon as I readjust.
One thing I'm excited about doing is getting some new designs made for my shop. I've got a lot of ideas I've been putting off in favor of a vacation so I'm having fun letting them out now. Many of my existing charms are pretty outdated at this point, so I'm probably going to retire all but the most popular ones and introduce new ones to replace them. I'm planning some new sticker sets too. It's been too long since I was able to make one. Got a new cute li'l critter for it too! I hope to show him soon.
All right, back to work. |
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| #1565 |
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amused
pleased
enraged