So... this is partly me talking to myself, but what I want to do to forward my art over the next couple months...

Megacon is coming up at the end of the month, starting Feb 27th.
My focus from now until its over is items directly for sale for Megacon. I'm not allowed to sell crafts (ears and chokers) which really hurts, but I'll have to do the best I can with prints, buttons, commissions, and keychains/cel phone charms. I am currently working at more designs for keychains and a couple more prints (I'm not much at backgrounds, so a lot of my work isn't really print worthy.) I'm just concerned since those items don't take up much table space. I've asked a friend to join me, but I'm still worried my table will seem sparse ^_^; Usually my chokers take up a lot of my table space.

As far as designs go, I'm working on a lot more original foxes, and the rest will be fanart. I want to do Street Fighter/Darkstalkers, Super Mario, and some main DC and Marvel characters (ie Xmen, Batman, Teen Titans etc), and probably a random hodgepodge of whatever else I can get done, like Gaia Online, some Pokemon, various anime, various games, etc. I also want to do a line of cutsie Asian mythological monsters, ie kirin, tengu, kyuubi, kappa, nekomata, etc. I have sketches done for many of those.
I am venturing into more sellable fanart though I always feel a little weird about doing other folks' characters they are fun to draw, but I still want a large amount of my work to be my own original.

I also want to get more items for sale set up online before I go, since my selection will be pretty limited I want to have stuff up for sale online so any folks who actually keep my business card and look me up will have something they can possibly get. This will probably largely be more on Cafe Press, since doing Etsy listings takes me longer.
I'll probably be lucky to make my money back, if I do make any extra it'll be going to getting other artist alley tables and art supplies.


The comic I initially wanted to do a teaser for Megacon (currently titled 'The Ninth Race') we ended up just not having time for, but I still want to do it. I want to get together a nice 3-4 pages of comic teaser plus a couple pages of sketches for a teaser, and work more on the actual comic. This will be hard since I have zero experience with comic layouts and size formatting etc. So part of the difficulty won't just be drawing it, but figuring out how to draw the panels and what size to do things. I guess it'll be a web comic in the beginning, I plan to toss up some kind of site for it, though it'll have comic size pages not strip format.
We did have a gag strip style comic going too called 'Lost Incognito' that I did have one complete that I think we should go back to. I at least thought it was a good idea and was amused by the characters.
My roomie is writing for both of those, I have idea but I'm not much of a writer. Its largely my fault through procrastination and waffling about not knowing how to do it that neither of these are farther.


I want to really push myself to get a lot more crafts done starting in March, which I should be able to sell at the rest of the cons I will be attending plus a lot more on Etsy. My art style isn't really condusive to beautiful prints and flat art, but I think is most appealing in the form of cheap accessories (ie keychains, buttons, magnets, wearables) which I think sell better anyway since they have a function.
For online sales I'll probably also toss up a couple commissions later on. I have a lot of work I promised various people I want to get done still.

I also want to get into pendant making. I've already researched a couple types of necklaces (ball chain and black silk cord) to add to the chokers I already make. It seems like a lot of people are very successful at making these on Etsy, and most of the ones I see are simply cuttings of pieces of patterned paper or photos, so far I havn't see much cutsie stuff so I think I'd like to try to get into that niche (it seems like almost a fad so I'd rather not overlap with anyone else.) I've researched how to do it as well as I can, so I'm currently in the stage of gathering supplies so I can start experimenting once Megacon is over. I'm going to try both the 'scrabble tile' and 'glass square/rectangle' types though I'll probably do more of the tiles. I need to get some more money to get the tiles, bails and some Diamond glue, I have pretty much everything else.
I also have an idea for another easy line of Japanese pendants which I havn't seen done yet, but I don't want to say so nobody else does it first. Its not terribly creative, but I think it'll sell well.


Once I get more stuff up for sale online, I need to do some finishing cleanup design on my website and start pushing advertising, so maybe I can more consistently sell what I get up and get a reputation going.


As far as other conventions go, once Megacon is done, I have a pretty long stretch until JACON on May 22nd (which I still need to pay for the table for, but I don't have enough money right now.) In between there is Anime Express (March 13), Furry Weekend Atlanta (March 19), and Freecon (April 17). I'm not sure if I'll be attending any of those, and they're all fairly small cons. I'm already pretty much decided NO for AE. FWA I'm not sure, there aren't many furry cons but I don't know if I'm up for driving to Atlanta for something I'm iffy on, plus tables are first come, first serve. It has to be pretty profitable for me to be willing to drive that far, since I only go that far for AWA right now. Freecon I'll probably go to though its small to say hi to some friends. Sometimes small cons can be good since there's little competition, though its only worth it if it doesn't cost much to go.


It'll be hard since the economy is bad right now making people tighter with their wallets particularly on nonessentials, but I think there is still a place for small cute frivolous cheap things because we need something small to make us happy. I think people will just be cutting back on more pricey expenditures, which will probably hurt the people who do the big fine art more. I suppose I could be a fine artist, I just don't see a reason to be, when I'm having fun doing little stuff.


I'll be posting some more entries as I get more stuff up online. I'm waiting until I have a bigger chunk of the setup done first.