otakon catalog
My Otakon catalog!!
I had a lot of ambitious wishlist things to make but didn’t end up doing (augh!! sticker sheets!! i want to make more of you!!!)
I’m actually considering getting a small setup for making sticker sheets at home for myself. I’m not sure yet. There’s lots to consider then having a home setup vs outsourcing production…
My favorite thing is meeting other North American con goers that like sports series and BL. My fandoms are also very niche and I realized I don’t watch a lot of anime despite having a manga influenced style.
It also always pleasantly surprises me that my works still have a cohesive style when I look at it overall? I usually feel like my art looks very different depending on what I like to make (specifically with merch that requires more of a design vs merch that is pure illustration). But I guess this also ties in my personal belief that my sense of “self” is an amalgamation of everything I like, so a lot of things stay consistent throughout. I end up using a lot of the same colors, but ALSO I have just fully embraced my sketchy loose linework loll!!
On a more serious-ish note I usually go through 2 dilemmas whenever I have to con prep:
- TYPE OF MERCH TO MAKE. Overall I have just accepted that I am making things that aren’t absolute necessities and contribute to waste. Which is sad to think about. Even functional items like shirts/totes/hats are adding to that — so many people have them at their table now and everyone probably already owns an abundance of those items.
Ultimately I’ve approached this by being more of the mindset of making things I’ll actually use (stickers for journaling)… or also things that are more easily recyclable (prints… paper goods).
Acrylic charms are such a slippery slope.
- THE FANART DILEMMA!! I always have mixed feelings about profiting over fanart. I generally feel a bit of discomfort. I think the younger generation of artists are used to the idea of making money off of well known IP (recently like Miffy and Chiikawa and Tamagotchi and even the bold ones that do Sanrio). I don’t believe they realize that this is a SUPER grey area… I sometimes even see mob mentality comments when the artist gets a C&D where the people are outraged that Big Corpo is doing that. AHHH!!
I feel especially conflicted about this because I LOVE and have always admired writers/fanfic authors, and they are never able to make profit off of their own fanworks. Meanwhile, there are some artists that are able to make a lot of money off of fanart??
Anyways… there’s no answer here. I have met a lot of amazing people because of fanart and fandom so I’ll still have those at my table and will also continue to brainstorm original work.
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I’m excited for my upcoming trip (next week)! I have some extra days for tourist things (also bday haha) so hopefully I am back with a post around that.