Artist Alley!

At Naka-kon this year, I was able to be in the Artist Alley  (Quelle journée!)

I had these really adorable, magnificently printed stickers to sell, along with my cute food bookmarks and some original artwork I had that had been in folders in my room for way too long. I shared a table with two other artists, and Skye was able to contribute to my portfolio as well, with a sexified picture of Cloud that sold for $20!!
Also for the weekend, I got to cosplay Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time (For about.... 3 hours on Friday night. As soon as the weather gets better it's totally photoshoot tiem)

I did eventually get some spirit gum for the horn too!! I got to go to some of the panels I wanted to, gifted some artwork to Amelie Belcher, who is like, by the way my art hero. Okay guys?! Art. Hero. Oh, and I also pwned and got a lot of cute stuff from the trading session.


Back to having an art table though, it was a really great new experience, and I'm already planning to do it again. Plus I learned a ton about selling artwork and got a lot of great ideas for other cons. I'm already brainstorming!!

One thing that'll be really different about my next table is doing it myself. I really lucked out in having experienced partners, because my friend Fynd already had those awesome stackable metal grid cubes to display artwork on, and had a really good handle on what she was doing and where she wanted things.
To prepare myself for having to do my own display I've been looking at especially awesome Artist Alley displays, like this one:

I adore how eye catching this is and how it matches her merchandise! I guess the downside of something like this is that, while it'd cute display catches potential customers eye, it allows less room for artwork to be displayed, plus it's the random cute terrace that gets their attention, and not your actual artwork...

What I love about this display is how much STUFF there is, it's a great big variety of prints and goodies, and it's also visually appealing. The downside of something like this would be that the string of badges across the top of the table might sort of disconnect you from potential customers and make communicating with them harder. On the other hand, it'd be a good thing if you made more money by commissions, and didn't like people watching you draw...

Which brings me to another thought! It's really important to have a partner, so one person can draw while the other works as a salesperson X3

Displays also change based on what it is you're planning on selling!

I looove this display, I think it would be an ideal to have that much room(that table's sooo big! I'm jelly!) and impact! There's room for communication, a big upstanding display, and a lot of color! I really think a high impact/noticeable table cloth makes more difference than you'd think, a lot of people complimented ours.

All in all, I'm only beginning to brainstorm X3
There's a lot to consider, like what display you want, what you're going to sell, and if Tip jars are tacky or desperate (lol) An artist alley is definitely a worthy experience though!

Teddy bears and mochi~